February 20, 2017

 Hello Fam. 

Well I can match your uneventful week.. until we had interviews, but I will get to that later. Well most of the week was spent like we normally do, knocking on doors! But we did finally get to run into a referral from the neighboring wards Elders. So we taught him.. only to find out that he's not too interested in the church cause he's gay. Dang it.. so close. 

But I'll get to interviews now cause that's the good stuff. First off President and Sister Johnson are the best. Both of them expressed how much they missed me, since now they don't see me as often as they use to. Made me feel good haha. And Sister Johnson just wanted to chat so I swear our "interview" aka talk with Mission Mom was like 30 minutes when they are suppose to be under 15. She just wanted to talk and talk and I had no problems with it. It was great! Plus it's so weird, I'm now at the point where it's okay for them to ask me what my plans are after the mission haha. So I guess I really am getting closer and closer to this summer. 

Anyways.. so I sit down with President and after some small talk he just says "I'm thinking about shutting your area down" and I was so shocked, it was crazy. Basically he sees that the reason things aren't working out here is the ward isn't engaged at all, so he thinks pulling missionaries out for a little bit and making them share a set of elders with another ward will wake them up and get them going with the work. So looks like I'm leaving.. he described what my new assignment would be, but I don't know where it is yet. So we get called mid day today so I'll email when I find out where I'm heading!

Also we had Why I Believe last night and as always it was the best. Getting to see all the mission friends always makes for a good pick me up!!

Even though this transfer has been one of the toughest for me, just no work and knocking on doors all day everyday, I truly feel like I've grown and learned a lot. I feel like I've learned to live and rely on the atonement daily now. How to use it in my life on a daily basis. I truly can say our Heavenly Father is mindful of us when we struggle, if not more when we struggle. So we will see where the mission takes me next, not too much time left so gotta make the most of it. 

Love you all so much!!

Love,

Austin 

I am heading to Montgomery Village Ward which is around Gaithersburg MD. I got re-called as a District Leader and I'm with Elder Strubell (think back to the old football days with Coach Rice. It's that Strubell. He then went to Westlake. So I've served around him and he seems like a pretty good guy!). From what I've heard it's a pretty good ward and stuff is going on there so we will see!  I've heard it's a slower area, but nothing like this. So it will be good! I'm excited to be a District leader again, I only got 1 transfer before I got called as a Zone Leader so it's cool get a chance to serve as one again.