January 23, 2017

Hi all!

This email is gonna be really sparse because that is this area .. sparse. Literally all we do is tract all day, everyday. So not much to write about it. It's so slow and no one wants to listen, they are all rich white people who are either Catholic, nondenominational, or don't want church. Plus the area gets tracted out every 6 months so they know who the missionaries are. I feel my mission going by so fast and I feel an urgency to do everything I can and it's tough when I feel like not much is going on here.  So it's been a really rough week, its been hard. But the Mission has been promised by Elder Ballard that if we talk to 20 people a day we will see our teaching pool increase. So we just work hard, be obedient and rely on the promised blessings. 

Okay enough pity party- I'm actually super excited for my birthday, we have a worldwide mission broadcast that day and the mission is watching it at the Visitor Center! So it's like a whole mission party! So I'm gonna go get lunch with all the buds after it! Then the Joyce's are having us for dinner that night! I'm pretty stoked. The Joyce's are great, and the ward really is full of awesome members, so we get taken good care of. The Joyce's have two sons age 17 & 15 and I just hit it off with them! The 17 year old had been in a kinda grumpy teen phase and we clicked and she was just amazed how much he talks with me. I told her I'd get him out in a split with us before I leave the area. Plus this week we have Zone Conference which is combined with SS Zone, so I'll get to see some old friends from there!

Thanks for the birthday stuff in advance and thanks for the thoughts and prayers. Things are hard, but that's how we learn. I was frustrated early this week that I haven't had a "fun" transfer for a while, but I realized that's not how I'll learn plus not really what the mission is all about. So we will hit the pavement this week and hope to see some miracles.

Love you all so much!

Austin 

 So Daisy is 19 and graduated the same year as me. She was dating a member who left on his mission. She's basically known the church is true for like 2 years and get this... she went to BYU Idaho last year! She's taking online classes through there right now. She's trying to get it all on good terms with her parents cause they don't want her to get baptized. But we have seen progress and I think she will get baptized really soon. 

Me and Elder Gregson

January 16, 2017

Hi all!

Wow.. like you guys assumed I was kinda shocked to get transferred. It was rough, I really liked that area and we had a lot going on. We were teaching tons, had lots of investigators, and the area was doing so great! This area... not so much. So I am in Broadneck, MD. It's the peninsula right above Annapolis. We share the building with the Annapolis Ward so we see all the midshipman so I'm gonna see Tanner Munsen (Granny's ward if you don't remember) next week! Also the Niumatalolo's are in my ward now! It's a lot of more wealthy white people. The work here is pretty dang slow, we only have one investigator. And without ZL responsibilities it's a lot of time tracting.. a lot. So when I first got here is was a struggle, it was really rough. But it turned around a lot on Saturday with the Apostle Visit. 

My new companion is Elder Gregson, he's from Pocatello, Idaho. He's just finished being trained so I'm kinda helping him still get in the mission. Plus he got trained by a brand new missionary as well so there are times it feels like I'm training. But he's a really good kid, he's got a really good heart, and wants to work so it's gonna be good. The ward and area kinda remind me of White Plains, slow work but super awesome members! Sister Joyce is the one who texted you and we had dinner the first night with them. She is already my ward Mom. Each ward I've served in you have a favorite family who becomes kinda your second family and the Joyce's kinda became that right off the bat. 

I don't know how I forgot to mention this, but Elder Rasband and Elder Ballard came and did a combined mission visit with us and DC South. Its like the rarest thing ever to have 2 apostles come and visit. But the conference was so amazing! It really helped lift my spirits. They challenged us to raise the vision for missionary work in the Nations Capitol and to grow the church here more than it has ever before. The biggest thing I felt from them was just their love for us. It helped me realize kinda like you guys said, it doesn't matter where I'm serving but how. I just thought hey, even if all I do is knock doors all day and no one wants to listen, I'm still doing exactly what the Lord needs me to do here. That said, I know there are people out there for us to find! I've really felt the thoughts and prayers from home this week. Thank you, I really have the best support system back home! Also after that I got to go over to Anacostia for Valerie's baptism! Ahh it was so awesome! So great to have seen here from the start to now being baptized! She was excited to see the missionaries who have taught her and all be there to support! That's what the mission is all about!

I hope you all have great weeks at home! Love you lots!!

Love,

Austin 

Valerie's baptism!

I feel like I'm on a different planet. Give me back my DC! Haha I love it, it is gorgeous here but just different! 

January 9, 2017

Hi all!!

Sounds like it was a good week at home! Even with all the snow. That's awesome you got to see all the people from the old Lehi Ward! And yes I know the Barlow center, it's a building in DC owned by BYU that their interns live at and they hold institute there too. All the intern couples in the DC 3rd ward come from there! So sounds like when they get here they will come to the DC 3rd ward! 

Well we got hit with snow this week! Came down pretty good on Saturday and it's been bitter cold this week. But luckily we were still able to grind out a good week. We tried to catch up with a lot of people we have been teaching and been trying to contact what seems to be our endless amounts of Festival of Lights and Christmas campaign referrals. It's been going pretty good so far though! 

We also confirmed Tim yesterday and that was awesome! He's such a great guy and we are excited to help him keep going and he has some family members names we are gonna take to the temple for baptisms hopefully next month. 

We also had MLC this week which was great! They always are. Most of all this time cause to start off I got told by the Anacostia ZLs that Valerie is getting baptized!!! And President is letting people go back to areas for baptisms again!! It was suppose to be Saturday but we had the decent snow storm hit so they pushed it back. So this week I will get to go back to see Valerie get baptized. So awesome someone who Elder Zocca and I found a few months back has now been able to have progressed this far! As well as when she was getting Interviewed by President he asked to tell him about her missionaries and her response was "My first ones or these ones?" So it was pretty amazing to know she still remembers us from the beginning and was asking if we would be there for her baptism. I've been thinking a lot about the Alma 29:9 and as a missionary just wanting to become that instrument in the Lords hands. And that was definitely one of those moments when I was able to feel that way!

I've also been thinking a lot about trials and Gods hand in our life over the past few weeks. And now especially as I hit 6 months left this week and watch all the Sisters I came in with go home Wednesday. I've looked back on my near 18 months out here and it's been some of the highest highs and lowest lows I've experienced so far in my life. And it's amazing to say I'm so thankful for all the hard times that I've learned from. It has stuck me so much while reading the BOM lately that people didn't pray away their trials, they prayed for increased faith, patience, and strength to endure the trials they were given. We are given individual trials big and small to become who our Father in Heaven needs us to be. It's amazing to look back and see how much the Lord is in the details of our lives, he truly is mindful of us and it is striking to look back and see the small things we can see Him doing to support us through our hard times. I love Alma 32:8, the Lord is even more mindful of us when we struggle. And like we read in Alma 34:41, I know there will be a time where we all really do get to rest from our afflictions, but for now we have to much to learn.

I look forward to transfer calls tonight, I feel like no matter how certain you felt before when it gets closer and closer you have no clue. I would love to stay here, but I guess I'll wait a few more hours to find out. I hope you all have great weeks this week, sure love and miss you guys everyday!

Love,

Austin 

January 2, 2017

Hi all,

Happy New Year!! It is so crazy that we are now in 2017, officially out of my only full calendar year as a missionary (that we lovingly call our Dark Year hah) but it is so weird to now be in the year that I come home. It was such a weird thing to hit me when I was ironing my shirt yesterday morning. Our New Years was about as eventful as a missionary New Years can be... had to be in by 5pm, got some pizza, and caught up on some much needed sleep. 

This week was a good one, Tuesday we had interviews with President Johnson. I kinda got screwed out of my interview though because some other missionaries were struggling and needed to talk to him for a while, but it's all good. We had a really good quick talk and he said I'll be getting a new companion and stay in the area. It was a really cool experience when he told me it took him 3 days to fully decide to move me to this area and said he knows I'm serving where the Lord needs me. He's the best, I'm so glad I have a good relationship with President. 

Rest of the week was a kinda weird middle of the holidays, no one really wants to meet and you get a ton of "come back after New Years" so we just did what we could, and still had some good lessons and even picked up a new YSA investigator we are really excited about. 

Sorry for the not so exciting email. Hopefully this next week will have some more exciting things to talk about. Sure love and miss you all!!

Love,

Austin 

Finally got a picture with Anwar, thought you guys would like to see him!

December 26, 2016

Hey Family!

Well it feels so weird to write just the day after talking, and there really isn't much to say. After we Skyped we went to Sister Mayes and had lunch with her. We helped her wrap lumpia which is our favorite food she makes. It's like a egg roll kinda thing, so it was pretty great. After we went to the Senior Sisters and we had a dinner with them. It was all great, so much good food. And they even had jello-pretzel salad! So it even felt a little like Christmas at home. Then we went to the Visitors Center to take the risers down from the Festival of Lights program.  The Johnsons had come to the event so we got to talk to them a little too. 

All in all it was a great Christmas, but I'm not gonna lie it's nice to be able to sing "I'll be home for Christmas" and it is now a true statement haha. But I have loved my Christmases on the mission!  It has been great experiences to step away from all the craziness of the season and just focus on the reason. There was a part of me that was really pretty sad as we drove away from the mission Christmas party and realized I will never experience that again. It's so surreal how fast this is all going by, so just gotta make the most of the last 6 months. 

I love you guys so much! It was so great to see and talk to you guys! Enjoy the rest of your break!

Love,

Austin

Elder McDonald and Elder Florence 

Group I came out with, the sisters are all going home in two weeks

 Taking the whole mission picture at the DC temple

December 19, 2016

Hi all!

Okay I'm laying in bed snuggled in blankets cause it's FREEZING here!!  Like you said we are staying very busy right now. And this past week wasn't a change from that. This week was a great ones. We tried to get most of the exchanges with our district leaders done since we knew the weeks would fill up the closer we get to Christmas. So we went on two this past week, which always makes the week go fast! Elder Jake Kohler (from Draper) is one of our new DLs but I went with his companion Elder Chugg. We had a blast in their Spanish area, so humbling and cool to serve for a day in a language program. We also had the adventure of walking out to a flat tire and start the day off changing it. 

Another hi light was our Zone Training we had on Thursday. We felt it went so good!! President and Sister Johnson came for the first half and they really enjoyed it. One of our favorites was our role plays of "Contacting" where we set up chairs in the gym EXACTLY how a DC metro bus is. And on top of that we got to play Santa with the Zone. There was so many packages so we set it up on the stage and had the District leaders bring their districts in then spontaneously start singing Christmas carols, then rip the curtain open to the hug pile of packages (ones not marked Christmas Mom haha). It was so awesome!! I love getting to serve all these missionaries, it's made my mission for sure. 

We had our own Ward Christmas party and it was pretty great. Awesome dinner, good program, and just getting to chat with ward members. I can't wait for you to meet some of them at Tims baptism. I now have all the details!! So it's on Dec 31st in West Valley. It will be so great!!

Last but definitely not least, we had Nelsons baptism!! It was so great! We are so happy for him. So he went to a YSA ward in Virginia with a friend that was visiting from California and he got Nelson in touch with some Temple Square sisters online then got referred to us. Since next week is Christmas and we are YSA we kinda do whatever we want haha. So we got permission and did his baptism during Sunday School then confirmed him the same day (we have sacrament last) and it was such an amazing experience to confirm him. We are pumped for him and he's doing awesome!

I cannot wait until the Skype!! I'm so excited!! I sure love and miss you guys!! See you soon

Love,

Austin 

Culprit to the flat tire...

 Playing Santa for the Zone

Nelsons Baptism!!! 

December 12, 2016

Hi Fam, so good to hear from you guys. 

This week was amazing but really busy. So since we are the closest Zone Leaders our responsibility with the VC is we coordinate getting Elders to come help with the set up and take down of the stage and chairs for the evening concerts with the Festival. But we have a good break this week without having to do anything with the stage. So we stay busy with that as well as we had a lot of meetings this week.  We had Elder Kim B. Clark on a mission tour. Having been the Dean of the Harvard Business School and holding 3 degrees from Harvard it was pretty incredible to interact with him so personally. Sadly I didn't get to ask for advice on anything business school related haha. We did a multi Zone Conference with him on Thursday which was super good and then we held our MLC with him at the Mission Home on Saturday. It was so amazing especially in MLC to be in such a personal setting with him and he did a Q&A which I think was really helpful for us all and really uplifting. After he left we held our normal MLC which went awesome, I love getting to sit on that Council with the other ZLs and STLs and get to talk about our mission and all the incredible missionaries we have. The Johnsons also did a little Christmas party for us with an awesome lunch and we practiced a song we are singing in our mission Christmas party. It was great!

We had some other amazing experiences in our area as well. Tim is still set for the 31st and we will be having Nelson's baptism this Sunday! We are so excited for him. Justin is still doing good but we won't see him for 2 weeks cause he is going on leave to go see his family for the holidays. This area is still doing great!

Love you guys so much! Miss you and think of you lots, but I'm glad I get another Christmas here in the mission to experience all the things missionary Christmases have to offer. 

Love,

Austin 

Found this one while getting rained on checking referrals 

MLC Christmas Lunch!! This is all the Elders, the 12 Zone Leaders and the 2 Assistants