March 27, 2017

Hey Fam-

Yeah the weather here has been pretty weird too.  One day it's 80 then the next it's 40. So we are hoping it will even out and just start to become spring soon. The Cherry Blossom Parade is April 8th, so coming up soon! We are all super stoked for it because it's a day of getting to hang out with the whole mission on the National Mall and you get to help with/be in a parade. Pretty sweet:) 

Sounds like the week was a good one. Happy Birthday Dad!! Glad you got to have some good times with the family enjoying that and celebrating. I'm glad Leby got to speak! I actually spoke in Sacrament yesterday too! But yes you did have to work with my to slow down speaking.  I still have to haha. Sometimes in lessons out here there is just so much to try to fit in and I have to catch my self and slow down haha. 

Well to answer all your questions about the area then I'll get to the week. So in our mission all of our areas/zones are based off the units we are serving. So since we are serving the Montgomery Village Ward our area is called Montgomery Village. And then all our zones are based off Stake boundaries, so our zone is the Seneca Zone which is just all the missionaries in the units of the Seneca Stake. Same goes for all the previous zones, so when I was in Silver Spring Zone it was all the missionaries in the Silver Spring Stake. 

This week was a pretty good one. The people we are working with are great except for one thing. We can't get them to church to save our life! I don't know if it's because it's at 9:00 am or what, but it's been super rough to get them to church in this area. But Tiara is doing good, she texted us Sunday morning and wasn't going to make it because her baby daughter was sick. But we still were able to have a lesson with her last night. Right now it's just the challenge of getting her and her boyfriend married. As well as trying to get Jeff (the boyfriend) engaged with the lessons. He always has an excuse and then says next time when we invite him for the lessons. But I guess he has told Tiara he wants to be baptized with her. As far as other people, Dipo had fallen off the face of the earth until like 2 days ago when he finally picked up his phone. So we are gonna go see him tonight and see how things are going. 

Like you said transfers are next week, so crazy! This one has gone by so fast!  It really is crazy how fast this is all going, like this week is my last General Conference. I am so excited to be able to hear from our church leaders. Each of the last conferences I've been out here for have been so amazing and I know this one will be too. 

Enjoy Conference weekend as a family! Sure love you guys!

Love,

Austin 

Hey! Yeah I was gonna send what our weights look like! We just got a bar and some new weights. So now we are set. Still a little bugged we can't use the apartment gym.  Our apartment kinda sucks, one of the worst I've lived in out here. For PDay it was District Activity so we had lunch at Cafe Rio and then played volleyball at the church. 

It's kinda crazy!! 100 days left on Conference 

When you let the kids at the lesson take pictures with your iPad...

March 20, 2017

Hi all!

Sounds like it's been another great week at home for everyone! That is so crazy it's been so warm back home! Like you said we got hit with some snow this week and supposedly it killed a lot of the cherry blossoms. But the mission got asked to help with the parade again so we are super excited for it still!

So awesome to hear the plans are coming together! So I think most everything has been pulled together on my side of things, I'll hear from the mission office in the coming few weeks where they ask me what airport I'll want to fly into so I can tell them I'm having a Parent Pick Up and then they will contact you to get the plane ticket transferred to you guys. President already knows you are coming and he is super excited to meet all of you! So as far as I know we will meet up Wednesday, July 12 at the mission office or home and then we will do all our DC stuff for the next few days.  Sunday we are going to church, I'm all for the DC 3 ward since we are staying in the city and it would be quite the experience for you guys!  Then go early to Why I Believe where we would have me get released then we would take off after the devotional. Rumor on the street the July Why I Believe speaker is
going to be the 76ers CEO who just got baptized! So it's gonna be a good one!!

Sounds like life is going good for all the siblings. Still so crazy that Lindsey is driving! And I'm sure Hailey did a great job at her dance recital! I had to laugh at Caleb saying he sneaks watching March Madness in class, sounds about right haha. We do our best to stay up, some members will text us scores of games. One of those is President
Arnold, the Stake President! 

That is so crazy you met Elder Haggard! I served around him in DC a little bit and got to know him. He's a really good guy, we found out about the Payne connection a little back so that's fun you guys all got to meet! And that's awesome you got to see Karen again since I'm sure it's probably been since I left that you saw the Payne's.

Well this week was kinda packed with miscellaneous things. Tuesday it snowed and they told us we couldn't drive our cars so that slowed us down a little. Then Thursday we had an all day multi zone zone Conference. Which was of course a great time especially since McDonald, Florence, Cowan, Zocca, Jenks and the whole gang was there.
Then on Friday we had interviews with President and Sister Johnson. They are so awesome!! I love them tons and can't wait for you to get to meet them. They are both so excited to have you guys here and get to meet you, they both mentioned it as we talked. The longer I'm here the more interviews just feel like a nice 15 min me time with my
mission parents. They really are kinds like a second set of parents to me. 

Other than that life is still going good in MoVille. Tiara came to church and it was awesome! She really enjoyed it and said "everyday Sunday I don't have work I'm going to be here". And the ward was really good at reaching out and making her feel welcome. Plus Bishop is helping tons and is going with us this week to meet with her and he
boyfriend to talk about getting them married. So that's all going good. Plus we had Why I Believe last night which is always a good time!!

Well, love you guys tons! Miss you too. Hope you all have good ones!
Love,
Austin

Car naps....happen to the best of us

March 13, 2017

Hi all! 

Well the week here was another good one! We have a lot of people we are working with, none of them are really progressing as fast as we would have hoped. But it's all good because we are definitely seeing miracles happen in their lives and they are progressing at their rate as fast and they should be. So one of the main people we are working with is a girl named Tiara. She's 23, lives with her boyfriend Jeff and they have a little girl named Brie. So she had been contacted by some previous missionaries but they never got back in touch with her, so when we got to the area we reached out and have met with her about twice a week since we got here. And they are doing awesome! We mentioned to her the need to get married last week and she totally understood and we are going to help out with that. Then we talked to her about Jeff (the boyfriend) starting to take the lessons with her and she said she talked to him this week and he told her that yes he would take the lessons and he wanted to get baptized with her!! All because she retaught the Plan of Salvation to him and he was told they could be a family after this life. Then to add on top of that we were over there last night and were teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ lesson to her and had asked some question about baptism and her reasons was something along the lines of "well yeah I need to get baptized again because my last one wasn't official cause only this church has the priesthood in it". We were blown away and super pumped because she totally understands! Now we just need to get them off of work on Sunday's to church. 

Another solid couple we are working with is George and Susan. Problem is Susan lives a few weeks in Philly then comes back here for a week and goes back and forth for work. So we meet with George mostly, but we got to meet with them both this last week. And as we were reteaching the restoration they asked some awesome questions and they are solid! Then George expressed some concern because he's been investigating another church and before we could say anything, Susan chimes in and says "well just so you know when I get back living here full time in a couple weeks this is the church I'm going to go to. This is Gods church." So awesome. But then.. they didn't come to church either! Ugh.. struggle of the area at the moment is getting people out to 9:00 church. 

Other than that the area was really good too. The director of Visitor Centers around the world was in the mission this week so they called a full MLC including the District Leaders. It was fun to attend MLC again and get to take part in the meeting. Plus of course was getting to see all the friends! Great to see Elder McDonald, Florence, Cowan, Jenks and everyone else! Such a solid group at those meetings!

Well hope it's a great week back home for you guys this week. Time is just continuing to go so fast. Love and miss you guys tons!

Love,

Austin 

March 6, 2017

Hi all!

My back has gotten progressively better, the mission made me go get it checked out this past week, and it's just some muscular strains. So nothing seriously, and by the start of this week I think I'm near 100% again. Sounds like it has been a good week, first off HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Lindsey!! So crazy you are turning 16 and driving! I left and you were in middle school, now I'm coming home and you're going into your junior year. 

I'll send a picture of what our area boundary is. So in our mission you almost always are assigned to just one ward. So we serve the Montgomery Village Ward, so yes our area is called Montgomery Village. Or everyone here just calls it Mo-Vill.... this place is amazing!!

First off the Stake President is in our ward and he is super missionary minded. His goal before he is released is that through missionary work and reactivation, that we add 2 wards to our stake. So he is super awesome and wants to work with us.  He called us on our first day to welcome us to the ward! Like who does that?! I've never had that happen before. As well Bishop was talking to us and talked about how they had just cleaned out the membership records and because of that felt like they were doing the work to show they Lord he can trust more members to this ward. And guess what? He has!! Since getting to this area it has been miracle after miracle. Elder Strubell and I just get in the car sometimes and look at each other like "what just happened??". Last week I talked about all the referrals that feel into our lap, and it kept happening this week. We showed up day one with a few okay Investigators. In a week and a half we now have 1 baptismal date, 2 progressing Investigators, and 3 others we are working with. Plus the 4 people who have gotten baptized in the last couple months. Keep in mind that this is the smallest ward boundaries in the Stake. Plus we had 2 more super solid Headquarters referrals this week. The work is just falling into our lap at the moment, I'll share one experience from this week to show that.

So yesterday we were sitting in sacrament meeting and we get a text from Pres Arnold (Stake President) asking if some people who had just walked in were our Investigators. We told him we have never seen them before and he texts back to tell us we need to go talk to them after because him and bishop both don't recognize them. So after the meeting we wait like 15 minutes to talk to them because SO many ward members are going up and asking who they are and introducing themselves. (Go Mo-Vill ward!) Then we talk to the Mom and come to find out they are looking for a church and a member in the ward had mentioned ours so they came to come check it out. Now we have an appointment with a family of 4 tonight. It has been amazing here. We have dinners this week with both Pres Arnold and Bishop so I'm sure we will plan out even more how to keep getting the work going here. It is amazing to see what happens when the ward is engaged and cares about missionary work. Also don't forget that even though you live in Utah there is still missionary opportunities to be found. We all can play our part in the work.

Well that's a wrap, I'm glad the plans are getting more in place for this summer.  I love you all so much, and miss you guys! 

Love,

Austin

Remember Dipo? This is him and he's doing great so far? Two lessons in and he already

says he takes his BOM with him everywhere so he can read it as much as he can!

This is Matilda's (recent convert) super cute nephew.  He's glued to the 

missionaries when we come to read the BOM with her.  

February 27, 2017

Hi all!!

Well it has been quite the week! The mission had a huge transfer with a lot of people getting moved. But so far I have really loved Montgomery Village. The area it self is pretty small, but there is quite a bit going on here! It is also super diverse here, we have an investigator from Nigeria, recent converts from Sierra Leone, I met a member from Sri Lanka and countless other places. It is amazing! I'll get to all of that later..

Sounds like it was an awesome week back home! I am so glad that the approval came through and you finally got to tell the kids about the trip to pick me up! I'm glad everyone is so excited, I know I am! The Johnsons are super excited to get to meet everyone. Also I saw the Morgan's yesterday, they attend the YSA branch in our building up here. I just can't get away from them haha. But they said they want to do at least lunch with the family when we are here. I said we would for sure do something with them! Awesome to hear about Alyssa's call! Sounds like she is really excited for it and sounds like it will be a great mission. Kinda sad I'll miss her with getting home after she goes to the MTC but she will do great! 

Okay so more for this week. So first and foremost I'll get this out of the way...so I threw my back out really bad this week. I feel like such an old man! So I went to put some clothes in my dresser on Friday and it just felt like someone stabbed me in my left lower back. So I collapsed and it took a couple hours to the point I could get back up. It was terrible! So we got slowed down pretty bad. I shuffle like an old man at the moment and Sister Johnson has told me we have to limit our walking so we can't go tract or do much besides walk from the car to appointments and go to set meetings. Other then that I have to lay on the floor of the apartment with a heating pad on it and do these back stretches. So it's been frustrating, especially with white washing the area here. It felt like we were really going to finally get things going. But the Lord has looked out for us. He knows we want to work so despite not getting to go find people ourselves he's done it for us.  Since getting to the area we have got 6 Church Headquarters referrals, 3 investigators who have moved from other areas to ours, and a guy who stopped us when we walked out of our apartment and told us he use to meet with the missionaries and he wants to start meeting with us again. Incredible! Truly the Lords work, and he will make sure it keeps going even if I currently have the back of an 87 year old!

Sister Johnsons says she thinks I've had a subluxation.. she explained it but it kinda went over my head. Basically all I know is my back hurts haha. But we might be going in this week to get it checked out, so I'll keep you in the loop of what we decide and what happens. 

Sunday we had a Stake Missionary meeting and this Stake is awesome! One of the better missionary Stakes in the mission I would say. After the meeting I asked President for a blessing for my back, and that was an amazing experience. Highly recommend getting a blessing from your mission president. Just so many things I needed to hear besides things about my back. It was kinda frustrating though when he said "take care to listen to the medical help you will receive and do not push yourself too fast too soon" So now I've been told by both my mission president and mission mom I need to take it easy for a little bit... So we will see how it goes. 

This area is going pretty good! They have had 3 baptisms already this year, but sadly that was most of their investigators, but we have been having a lot of success so far. Last night we taught a new investigator who was an online Bible referral who came here from Nigeria only 3 weeks ago! His name is Oladipupo, have fun pronouncing that haha. But we call him Dee-Poh for short. He is super solid and said he knows he will get an answer when he prays about the Book of Mormon.  We are going back this week to see him. It was a great way to end a frustrating week of not getting to work the area as much as I would have liked.  But I 'm really seeing that everything will work out and we will still meet the needs of the people in this area. 

Sure love you guys!! Hope you had a good weeks and I'll talk to you soon! Love and miss you!

-Austin 

Two of our recent Converts nephews

Goodbye Annapolis District.. 

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. 

February 13, 2017

Hi Momma! (and rest of the family)

Well this week we were able to see some progression in the area. Small! But still progress. It's been a lot of work but we are seeing little bits of pay off. So there is an 11 year old girl who hasn't been baptized that we finally have got on a regular meeting schedule. Her Dad was baptized a few years ago and sadly it's her lifelong member mom who's been holding off on her being baptized. She's such a sharp little girl, it's fun to teach her and hopefully we can get her family more active in church and get her baptized. 

Also we tracted into a family this week!! It was incredible. Like tracting actually works (sometimes).. as most of us know it is like the lowest yielding form of missionary work. But it worked this time! So we met Jess who's mid 20s and has 2 little kids and one on the way. We asked if she had a few minutes for us to share a message about Jesus Christ and she said yes! So I asked her what role religion has played in her life and her response was she was trying to get closer to Christ and that she was spiritual not really religious because they were looking for a church. But wait! It gets better!!! So after what turns into a full on 20 min lesson on her porch she asks us "can you come back and teach my husband too?" Uhhh.. yeah. Yes. We can do that. Then on top of that says "probably Monday nights are best, we decide those nights he will make sure he's home for dinner with the family". REALLY?? They are Mormons and don't even know it! So we are really excited to get back with them hopefully this week!

Transfers are next week so we will see what happens, we have interviews this week so maybe President will let some things slip and give me some idea of what will happen. I got the package this week! It was great!! And I even hung up the banner before you asked. Hope you all have a great week, love and miss to all!

Love,

Austin 

P.S. Well.. just kidding. Jess just texted us and said she talked to her husband and they aren't interested in having us come by. So I dunno if they googled the church and got anti-ed or what. But that was a huge bummer, I was so frustrated cause I felt like it was finally our break.. but nope. That's the tough thing about educated people is I feel like we leave them with stuff and before we come back they have googled and tried to do research which doesn't lead them down good paths. , so I guess back to work to try to find someone again.