Week 2: A rough day, the BEST day, A devotional and rain!

So luckily, since we are flying out on Monday morning (and that's usually our P- day) they allowed us to email today! I don't have a ton of time but I just wanted to let you know that I'm doing great! I've loved being at the MTC and I've learned soooooooooo much. The spirit here is amazing and I've never felt more love for the Lord.

The other day was kinda a rough day, our investigator lesson didn't go so well and we just felt like we knew nothing, add that to missing you all  and it was just a bad day. So that night I

really studied hard in the scriptures and literally just poured my heart out to the Lord and just said, "I'll do anything you want me to do Lord, just help me and my companion." The next day was literally THE BEST day of my life. I was focused in my classroom and when we taught Peter (investigator) we all felt the spirit in the room and the lesson went amazing. It just flowed so smooth and every question he asked us we had an answer for him. So yeah that was just one of the awesome things that happened to us here.

K, so this next part is important, whoever gets this email first please call Mom or Dad and let them know that I'm going to be flying out Monday morning at like 7:15. I'm going to try and call Mom between 6 and 6:45. Now, this won't be the only time I can call, we're going to be landing in Atlanta and we have a two-hour layover so I'll have plenty of time to call. Whoever I get a hold of on monday morning, I'll let them know the times that we'll be in Atlanta. I'll try calling Mom and Dad a lot, but if I cant get a hold of them, I'll call Tyson and Stephanie. So everyone keep your phone with you!!!!!! I'm so excited to hear your voices. When I had the opportunity to call Mom the

other day, her voice seriously sounded like an angel. I loved it so much.

 K, so I still have a little bit of time left so I'll share one more thing with you. Three days ago ALL the missionaries met at the Marriott Center for a devotional. There were over 4,000 missionaries there!!! It was the coolest thing to see. I really wish I could have taken a picture of it. And when we all sang I almost cried because the spirit there was so strong. To make it even better, Elder Anderson of the Twelve spoke to us and it was awesome. We were sitting pretty close to the front so we got a good view of him. And to make the night even more adventurous, when it was over and we went outside it was raining SO HARD. Like just a complete down pour, and we had to walk home in it, which is like a 20 minute walk. So we all gave our suit coats to the sisters and began to walk. As we all walked we sang hymns and we were all happy. Cars began to stop and people would give us their umbrellas and people would yell out the windows that we're awesome! So that was a good night. When we got back to the apartment, we were soaked to the bone but our suit coats and clothes dried out good so nothing was ruined. I think we all wondered why the Lord wouldn't just stop the rain for a little bit for his missionaries but, after we started singing and we felt the spirit I realized why he didn't. We can all choose to make a bad situation into a good one and feel the spirit.

I think that's how everyday will be: we as missionaries choose to make a bad situation into a good one.

So anyways, hope I get to talk to some of you when I call!  Love all of you!!!!!

Elder Eastin

P.S- The pic of the Elder in the scrubs is Elder Haddon. He is the funniest

kid I've ever met. At the end of the day hes always in his scrubs.

Week One: MTC

Hey everybody!

Today is Monday and its my first and only P-day while at the MTC. I will be flying to Kentucky on!
Mom, I will probably try to call you at the airport so be around your phone at all times.

Anyways, where to start.... I LOVE THE MTC!!! Everything is just going great here. I'm in the newest section of the MTC called west campus. Its like 2 blocks west of the stadium. We have all new apartments (Big Blessing), and a brand new cafeteria with awesome food (Big Blessing). My companion is Elder Trost and he is awesome, I love him and I hope all my companions are like him. Elder Spencer and Elder Grant are our roomates and we all get along way great, they are also going to louisville Kentucky. There are 24 of us in our branch that are going to Louisville Kentucky, 8 Elders and 16 sisters, its awesome!

Oh, and I was also made Distict Leader on like the second day here. It's an awesome blessing and I'm glad that our branch president saw my potential and chose me.

Our schedule is pretty crazy and its been kinda hard to get used to but im starting to get used to it. We're up at 6 so we can make it to breakfast at because we were the lucky ones to get the early breakfast shift. Then we usually have personal and companion study in our class rooms for like two hours. Then we have gym time for an hour so we all go play basketball and we dominate at 3 on 3. We just switch off a sub every point and we seem to always win haha. For the rest of the afternoon we have class for three hours then dinner and then back to class for another 3 hours. Sitting for that long really sucks but let me tell ya, I have learned more in the past four days than I have in the past year.

There is so much more to being a missionary than I expected.

Elder Trost and I have already taught our investigator twice and we'll be teaching him again tonight and also getting another investigator tonight. The first lesson we taught didn't go super well and we were kinda gald about that because it taught us so many things not to do and showed us the things that we needed to study. The next time we taught, the convesation flowed so good. We faught back the nervousnes of it and invited the spirit to be present with us. When I started talking to Matt (investigator) about the Book of Mormon and how it has helped me, I truly felt the spirit start to speak through me and it was amazing. At the end of my part of the lesson I challenged him to read the Book of Mormon and pray about the truthfulness of it and he said yes! Tonight Elder Trost and I are going to teach him and if things go well we are going to ask him to be baptized! Now, keep in mind these "investigators" are already members acting to be like reall investigators, but trust me they are good actors and they can say "no" to our challenges. They can tell when we are speaking with the spirit and that is when they say yes.

I also wanted to share one of the most important lessons that I've learned here. I've learned that as a missionary I need to truly care for the people that I will be teaching. We can't go into the lesson hoping to add another number to our member list. We need to love and care fore these people because they don't know about the fulness of the gospel and how awesome it is. I am always feeling the spirit here and I love it so much.

Only one more week and I'll be in Kentucky!! I am so excited and I can't wait to start. I love and miss you all so much and I'll see you in 2 years!!!

Elder Eastin

P.S.- Don't reply to this email chain. Send me a separate email. Oh and I'll send pics when I'm in the field, these laptops don't have a card reader on them.