July 25, 2016

Hi all!

Well like you mentioned in your email, this is the crazy week for transfers on Wednesday. We are loosing a group of 24 which includes 2/3 of our assistants and both of our traveling assistants. So it's going to be quite the changes coming for the mission. But we are going to do great and have some awesome missionaries come in to keep it all
going!

Sounds like it was an eventful week. I'm so happy for the new baby to be here!! The cousins are just growing! Can't believe she will be so big by the time I get home! Sounds like Caleb had a great time at scout camp. I remember the night that me and Caden Calton spent the night together finishing our wilderness survival.  Thanks for keeping me in the loop about BYU football! That would be so awesome if that works out for us! What is the look out for the team this year?? Also about my bike. It is currently locked in the basement of our chapel collecting dust. But I do use it if I go on exchange with some bike elders here in the city. But let's just say Caleb might have a pretty nice mountain bike in good shape coming his way in a year 

This week was a pretty good one. Busy with all of the prep for transfers as well as getting everything in place for Elder Jorgensen to go home this week. On Wednesday we got to go to the temple for our departing trip. It was super nice as always. Getting welcomed into the Celestial Room by the Johnsons was amazing. I already feel so close to them and I know I'll probably get closer to them than I did to the Cookes.

Early on in the week JS took us to dinner since Elder Jorgensen is going home. I love that man so much!! He's someone I for sure can't wait to introduce you guys to. He said he is going to try to connect with Dad on Facebook since you don't have one mom! He also said he wants to go to lunch with Dad next time he's here in DC!

On Friday it was departing dinner for the missionaries going home so I got to go on exchange with Elder Torgerson. He's the AP who is just a transfer older than me. I love that kid so much. We are pretty close and it was awesome to be with a younger guy again. He's a stud!

Sunday was another hilight since we went down to White Plains to eat a last dinner with the Beals. It was so awesome getting to be with them again. They are like family to us and love us tons. They told us we have to come visit if we ever come back to DC and to me since I was the only one not going home on Wednesday, that I need to come visit again before I go home. Adam (Beals son we worked with about a year ago) was talking to me and told me that "You and Coombs helped me tons when you were my missionaries, but help me even more now you are just my friends." He said he just set a goal for himself to go through the temple in six months! Man I love them so much. They made missing the 24th pretty decent.

Well I will let you know who I get as a new comp. I will be staying here for for sure this one (duh) and possibly one more. I'm glad to stay for this one cause now I will have served a forth of my mission here in the city. There are days where the mission is hard. But hard things are good. At the end of the day I love it here. I am glad I have another year to work here.

I miss you all!! Love you all so much!!

Love,
Austin

After the temple. The Johnsons took this photo. They just seem so happy to be around us 

all the time!  I have Elder Florence on my shoulders if you can find me....

Dinner with JS

We found out BYU had released the new season shirt for football.  Shirts are $10 so we 

got a group together to order the shirts so we could get free shipping.  All the guys in the 

Zone that bought them wore them to the Zone Activity.

July 18, 2016

Hi all!

Sorry today is our Zone Activity, so this email might be a little shorter but I'll try to fit a lot of good stuff in! So I'll hit all of your questions. First off yeah the humidity has been pretty rough, some days have been brutal. But it's all good. So I've forgot to mention but Pres Morgan has emailed me a few times since getting their call. And he had been up a few times to have dinner with the Johnsons so they know each other pretty good now. And let me say, I LOVE the Johnsons. They are so amazing, so loving!! I swear I've gotten like 20 hugs from the guy already in the few times I've seen him. President Cooke was the mission president I needed for my first year and President Johnson is who I needed for my second year! Transfers are a week from Wednesday.  A ton of guys go home!! Coombs, Jorgensen, Tanner, Patchett. Lots of great guys! So it's been interesting being with a comp that's trying to deal with getting ready to go home. I'm not sure on the format of stuff like call outs. I would say you can bet your mortgage I'm staying here with Jorgensen leaving. Last week for p-day we went to Annapolis, since it is now a part of the mission!! It's was so so cool!! The Naval Academy was incredible and the city of Annapolis is so cool!!

This week was SO busy! Update on Chico and Kirk. So Chico has some pretty bad health problems so he's off and on with being able to meet with us. So we will probably have to bump his baptism. Kirk is still really rough around the edges. We are trying to work through lots of stuff and it's hard to know what to work on first. So it will be a
process with him. We weren't able to see him this week so hopefully really soon!

I then just wanted to share with you guys a really cool experience I had on Friday. So we were on our way back from some service and stopped by to see Caesar really quick. (Member who loves missionaries if you remember) and as we parked I saw this Hispanic guy sitting on these steps looking really stressed and sad. I had an impression to talk to him, but let me doubts take over. My Spanish isn't good at all, so how could I talk to him. We went and came back about 15 min later and the guy was still there. I had the impression again and just got in the car. Then Elder Jorgensen made a comment that he thought we needed to talk to that guy right as we pulled away. Three strikes and I was out. So we parked and went back armed with a Libro De Mormon and a Spanish pass a long card. As we got out I prayed that I would be able to have enough Spanish to talk to this guy. It wasn't just a normal contact, the lord had pointed him out. So we walked and the man wasn't there. I was wrecked. How could I deny these prompting from the Lord that as missionaries we seek so much. Needless to say I was pretty frustrated with myself. As we walked back to the car I prayed again asking for forgiveness to need 3 promptings to get me to listen, and if I crossed paths with him I would talk to him. As we walked I spotted the man now sitting in a parked car. For a split second I thought about how awkward talking to him now would be. But I wheeled around, made eye contact with him and walked over and talked with him. I spoke to this man with the best Spanish I've ever spoke on my mission. 100% the Lord working through me. I was able to give him a card with Spanish Elders numbers and the Libro De Mormon. It was amazing to see this man brighten. I am glad that I am able to be here
in DC working as an instrument in the Lords hands, even if I take a little more reminding and poking than I think he would like.

I love you guys!! Hope you have great weeks!!

Love,
Austin

Free slurpees of course on 7-11

Our Annapolis Trip

So remember on Meet the Mormons the huge milk shake the navy coach goes and gets?

July 11, 2016

Hi all!!

It has been another great week here in DC! We officially welcomed the Johnsons here to the mission. I thought that it would take a little bit of time for me to get adjusted to them and everything, but nope. I miss the Cookes, but I love the Johnsons so much. They are amazing!!  I'm glad to have both mission Presidents because I know they both will help me out so much. I'm glad you were able to meet the Cookes! Thank you for the recording, we listened to a little bit of it. They are so great. So President Cooke had a lengthy investigation of the church when he was at school at Utah State. Then it was in the army he finally converted.

The 4th we went to the DC Young Adult center to hang out with a ton of elders. We had our own bbq, played ping pong, card games and just hung out. After that we went to a HS that we could see tons of fireworks across the city. We had a later curfew, 10:30, so we got to see quite a bit of the fireworks then jet back home.

Wednesday we had the Johnsons mission tour and got to meet them. They wanted to shake all of our hands and talk to us a little bit. When I talked to President I told him that I was the Elder that the Morgan's knew, he just grabbed me into the biggest hug and was so excited that we had that connection. After they showed an intro video their kids had made to let us get to know them more. Then they both gave some pretty good talks. I'm really excited to have President and Sister Johnson for the second year of my mission.

Friday was our hi-light for work in our area. We stopped by to see Kirk, one of our investigators. He was home and we had a great lesson with him. We are starting the 12 step program with him to help him with some word of wisdom issues he is trying to overcome. He is a great guy with an amazing heart that wants to change. His two kids, Kortez and Kemistry love us tons. They are so much fun to go see and get to play with them in the yard a little bit. Kortez kept asking me if I would come by next week again and throw the baseball with him more. They are the cutest kids! After we were driving home we were on the street passing our other investigator Chico. I had a quick impression to go see him, and then we looked over and he was out on his porch and so of course we stopped by to see him too. We rescheduled his baptism for July 24th. He is so excited to be baptized but it is just a big struggle with his health problems to get him to church.

Saturday was super awesome. The Johnsons called for a mid transfer leadership meeting so they could get to know us and the mission better. It was awesome, they had us over to the mission home for breakfast and then the meeting. I had to laugh, in a year with Pres Cooke I never saw him in anything but a suit. But it took less than a week to see Pres Johnson out of his suit. We got there early and went to see if we could help get breakfast ready. President came to the door in a tee shirt, shorts and a hat. Said he didn't think we would get there that early and we went in to help him cook some bacon before he went up to change. The breakfast was super good! Then we had a really good meeting. We met the new Annapolis ZLs which was good for them to learn more about the mission. We talked about our responsibilities in each calling to bring the Johnsons up to speed. After they opened the floor for any concerns us or the other missionaries may have, which was a really cool to see them want to know how to help us out. Especially in a big transition time that can be stressful and hard for some missionaries.

Sunday was another good day in the crazy DC3rd Ward. I had to laugh at Pres Cookes comment about a DC3rd Ward Fast Sunday. It's so true.. It is always interesting here haha. The life of an inner city ward haha. If we get to come back and visit you guys will see how different this is then our classic white Mormon ward back home haha

I hope you all have a great week camping! I wish I could be there! I miss you all and love you tons!!

Love,
Austin

Kortez and Kemistry

Johnson's Mission Tour-DC Zone

July 4, 2016

Hi everyone!!

Well I am so pumped to be here in the Nations Capitol for the holiday!! We are excited for our 4th of July Plans. Like you said, the Reids are taking us to lunch. It's always fun to have a connection home so we are excited to spend a little bit with them. So there's a mission rule today that we can't be on the Mall. Kinda a bummer.  But
esta bien. So we are gonna get a ton of Elders together and have a BBQ then go to a high school in DC where I guess you can see all the fireworks really good from! We have to be in at 10:30. 

So to answer more about our work in our area you guys asked about. So overall Elder Jorgensen and I are able to work quite a bit in our area. We still have around 5 investigators we are teaching. Our area is a little smaller just to compensate the fact we don't have as much time to work. We have commitments with Zone stuff that takes some time, but missionary work comes first, administrative comes second. So we have a huge focus on still doing as much missionary work as we can. I love it cause it's a good balance and I feel like the Zone stuff fills the gaps that normally would just be knocking doors.

I'll try to do a better job in my letters with talking about the people we are working with.  So our two people on date are Chico and Kirk. Chico is an older man who is from I think Nigeria. He has tons of health problems so he is really hard to get in contact with. But has a huge desire to be baptized. Them Kirk is pretty rough around the edges. He is straight out of the ghetto. Covered in tats and was in jail a few years ago. But he became a dad and that changed his life. He is trying so hard to change. He realized the gospel can help him change so he is working hard to overcome stuff. His b-date is way out there on September 4, but we are gonna try to get him ready by then!!

This week was super great!! So we had two days of taking care of moves within the Zone so we weren't able to do tons of missionary things (I know ironic with my last paragraph), but were able to help out the mission! We have officially transferred over to President Johnson. We got to meet Sister Johnson on Friday and she is amazing!! We had to run to the mission office to get the truck and Big Nasty (15 passenger van) for our move. The Presidents were in a closed door meeting so we didn't get to meet Pres Johnson, but Sister Cooke and Johnson were talking with each other so we met her. She is so awesome! I can't wait to get to know them more!

The other highlights of the week were getting to see some previous people that I love! So on Saturday we had a lesson with an Ethiopian so we needed an Amharic missionary so we did and exchange and I went up to Laurel, so guess who we went to see....Ismael!! Oh man it was so great to see that kid!! He was so excited when he saw me and it was great catching up with him.

Then we got to go see the Beals on Sunday! Jorgy was born in WP1 so the Beals know me, Coombs and Jorgy and they wanted us over for the 4th. But we had plans so they wanted to have us over for dinner on Sunday. So since Coombs in a traveling assistant we were able to go down for the evening. It has been so long since I've felt loved by members. As sad as it is, but in the inner city we don't have the members that become family to us. So getting to feel the love of members we are so close with was amazing. Just getting to sit around a table and eat better food than I can cook myself while laughing for an hour plus straight has been well missed. Plus they wanna see Jorgy and Coombs before they go home so they scheduled for us to come to have dinner with them on the 24th. So a pretty good way to celebrate the 24th away from home!! Plus it is the last Sunday of the mission for those guys!

It's been another great week in the Nations Capitol! I can't wait to tell you guys next week all about the 4th here! I hope you guys enjoy the holiday back home!! Have a great one! Love and miss you guys!!

Love,
Austin

Ismael!

Elder Mullen, Ismael, and Me

Elder Jorgensen, Elder Coombs, Maddi, (daughter), Bro Beal, 

Me, Sam, Elder Cruz, Sis Beal

June 27, 2016

Hi Everyone!

Like you said it has been pretty busy leading up to the change. So President Johnson flies in on the 30th so his first day will be July 1st. We also will officially be receiving the Annapolis Stake from the Baltimore Mission on the same day. So between those two things and loosing s group of 24 in a few weeks, this mission is going to change
a lot really quick. But change is good, so we are excited to see what is in store. I'm so excited for you to meet the Cookes!! They are just the best. They are going back to Utah for a little bit then taking a vacation in California for a while. Then they will come back here and live in the Kentlands ward. They have already bought and moved into
it.

Sounds like St George was a great time! I'm pretty jealous of you guys getting to relax by the pool and everything, that sounds so nice. But we will just keep going go go go here in the awesome DC humidity!  But sounds like you got a ton of good stuff in. 

Well this week out here was another super good one. In some ways it felt super long, others it went by really short. On Monday after P-Day ended Elder Jorgensen and I went to give a blessing at one of the DC hospitals. It was for a lady actually in the WP2 Ward and it was for her non member husband. Her visiting teacher is Sister Vance and she's the one who set it up with us, small world!! But it was so amazing, a really awesome spiritual experience that had a really big impact on both her and her husband.

Wednesday we had our last interview with Pres and Sister Cooke.  Not much needs to be said about those cause I could just go on and on about how amazing they both are. But you guys will get to see for yourselves in a few weeks when you meet them!

Throughout the week we had tons of success in our area. We are really picking up speed with investigators and now have 2 on baptismal date! We have some super awesome investigators as well as some that are gonna need some work and progress.

Then the last hi light of the week was on Saturday.  So remember JS the guy who takes us out to lunch? So he is like the most amazing man. He's super Christlike and just loves the missionaries here so we jokingly call him John the Beloved cause he's like ancient and doesn't do anything besides serve missionaries. Well Saturday was his birthday and we wanted to throw him a surprise party! I guess missionaries have surprised him the last 2 years so we had to get creative. So we tricked him into coming to the Visitors Center thinking he was giving s ride to one of our investigators. And then we led him out the back door to where tons of Elders were waiting for him with cake, ice cream, and a Brooks Brothers tie was all pitched in for (since he buys all the Elders one before they go home). And he was so grateful for it all! He is one of those guys who I just can't wait to bring you back and have meet! I'll attach the pictures and video of us surprising him!

Well, busy week this week with the official change and then the 4th coming up. (Super excited about that one). I love and miss you all!! 

Have a great week!

Love,
Austin

June 20, 2016

Hey all!!

Pretty good week here in DC. Sounds like Youth Conference was super great!! I loved all the pictures! I'm glad that Garret is getting back in the swing of everything at home. Does he have a little accent? Haha Just like you mentioned We are getting closer and closer to the change of mission presidents. We entered into the transfer where it will all go down.  Just about a week and a half left.  I got to meet President Johnson this week and he is AMAZING. 

This week was just busy with all of the transfer and helping the missionaries adjust with it all. But Tuesday was sweet! Started out with the last Zone/District meeting of the transfer where we had our testimony meeting, as always it was pretty great. Then there was a late arrival missionary and the traveling assistants were assigned to get them. Elder Herring was going home the next day so Elder Coombs needed someone to go with him. So he called me up and I got to go to the airport for the day with Coombsy. It was a road trip out of the mission and it was tons of fun. It is pretty sad that he is leaving on only like 5 weeks.. He's like an older brother to me out here but I'm glad you guys can meet him soon. 

Wednesday was transfer day and so we were just cruising around in the man van all day dropping off stuff to the city elders. And then Thursday was a follow up day where we just had to run errands for the Zone to get everyone set for the new transfer. 

Friday was Leadership meeting and that was where we got to meet Pres Johnson. So far we have heard just amazing stuff about him. So we skyped into the meeting and he is just such a great guy. He is so so spiritual. When he first came up Pres Cooke gave his opening statements and then Pres Johnson just said "I don't know you all, but I do love you" and it was just like bam, spirit. His farewell was yesterday and then he will go into the MTC on Wednesday and then come to us. The rest of leadership meeting went really well, I'm pumped for the training plans we made for the transfer. 

Saturday was Stake Coordination so I sat and plugged numbers into a spreadsheet for about 6 hours. So that was fun, NOT!

Sunday was super awesome, church went super great. And then Why I Believe was last night. It was the Cookes that talked since it was their last one of the mission. It was so spiritual and just awesome. I will miss them so much, they have been amazing. But I know Pres/Sis Johnson will be awesome too. I love you all and miss you!! Have a good week!!

Love,

Austin 

End of transfer District picture.  The one and only frat 

district (only district of elders)

End of transfer Zone picture

So Jorgy went to his departing Arlington trip.  For pday look who I slept 

over with and am getting to hang out with for the first time in like 3 months. 

June 13, 2016

Hi all!!

Well it sounds like it has been a crazy busy but awesome week at home. A little like that here.  It was a pretty good week! We had exchanges with the Elders in our zone this week and last week so it flew by. This week was the best week of the transfer work wise for us.  We have put lots of hard work into this whitewash to get this area going again and we are seeing the work really pick up. 

Transfer call came out and I will be staying with Elder Jorgensen here in DC3 North for his last transfer. We are pumped and will be a great time. But there are lots of changes going down in the mission.  We transferred out half the zone and in the DC 3rd Ward that has 12 missionaries we lost 8. So we are pretty sad to loose guys like Elder Cowan. So we will find out tonight where everyone gets placed and we heard they are re-aligning zone boundaries so we will have changes coming this week for us. 

As far as the mission president change, the official change off day is July 1st. So as you can imagine we are crazy busy to get that all prepped. Along with the potential to be adding another stake to the mission, (which still is up in the air I guess?) the Zone Leaders and APs will all have their hands full for these next few months. But the mission I think is getting more excited for the changes even though we will miss President and Sister Cooke so much! 

Like you Dad I was mindful of Grandma this past week.  Wednesday's was the missions temple day and it was easy to think of her with it being the year mark of her passing. We all miss her so much, but I'm so glad to know she is still part of our lives. It was a great blessing to be in the temple since that is the place that allows our eternal family to happen.   

I'm glad it was such a great week at home with having Garret back! I'm sure it is a little surreal at times but I'm way happy for you guys! Yeah having Garret home has made me miss home more these past little bit.  Kinda hard knowing the rest of the family is now together but I'm glad to be here and next summer will great!!  Sounds like the homecoming went great! Did you guys by change record Garret's talk to send? If not its all good.

Let me know how Youth Conference goes! Sounds like it should be tons of fun!! Also if you guys have any pictures from the week you should send those.  I can't watch the videos until I get to a computer so I haven't seen anything from Garret getting back yet. 

Love and miss you guys!!

Love 

Austin 

The crew got all back together for the temple trip!

McDonald, Me, Jenks, & Mellen

It was like 3 guys birthdays this month so we all saved up and 

went to Texas Roadhouse.  It was amazing!! Ahh just like home.

The aftermath....