Indiana!

I know my mission call said Louisville, Kentucky but my first area is in Newburg, Indiana! It's about two hours west of Louisville but only a few miles from the border of Kentucky.

My first companion is Elder Crook, he's from Layton, Utah and he's been in the field fr 14 months. He's a good missionary and I know I'll learn a lot from him. Our apartment isn't too bad, I'm starting to like it more and more.

K, so ill just start from the beginning of when I arrived in Kentucky. We got off the plane and met President Woodbury and his wife and they are awesome. We went to the mission home for dinner and spent the night there. In the morning, we all went to the church for the transfer meeting. There, all 24 of us new missionaries were introduced and then assigned our companions. After lunch at the church we all went our separate ways and drove to our areas. We drove right past the KFC cent and I saw the Louisville Slugger museum and it was awesome! The Ohio river is awesome and huge. Outside of town there are tons of trees and tons of corn fields, holy crap there is so much corn. And everything is green out here. Everywhere you look there are trees and corn.

Newburg is right next to Evansville and its a pretty decent sized town. West of our apartment is kinda the ghetto part of town and east is the nice part of town. We've been west a lot more than east. Oh and we are on bikes! We have a bike shop right next to our apartment so I bought a decent bike and we've riden close to 35 miles this week. When I got here I weighed 215 (gained a lot in MTC) and now I weigh 202. So this whole bike riding is pretty good exercise.It hasn't been super humid everyday but there have been days that I have never sweat so much in my life.

I don't have time to tell you about all of our investigators but I'll tell you about one. His name is ED and he has been taught everything and believes in everything. He's come to church a few times but his problem is drinking. He drinks a lot. And he's in pretty rough shape. No job, no family, living on welfare and has no car. He's had a really rough life and his biggest question for us is, "When is God going to help me out?" He prays a lot and reads a lot and he wondering why it isn't working. Last night while talking to him in his house, I pulled out my scriptures and turned to D&C 122:7-9. I handed him the book and told him to read it. He was a little drunk so he read real slow. As he read the spirit truly was in the room. I knew it for a fact that the spirit was there and that it was almost like God was talking directly to him. Before he even finished the first verse he began crying, and he cried through the whole scripture. Now you need to look up the scripture so you know what it was saying to him. Even though he has been through a lot in his life, this set of scriptures told him that even if the gates of hell opened up on somebody, it is for their experience and for their good. I know that if he continues to pray, read, and come to church, his addiction to beer will go away and he'll be baptized.

I've been happy somedays and sad other days while being here. But whenever I'm down, I read those scriptures and pray and I truly feel the Lord comforting me. This really is one of the hardest things I've ever done but, I know that I'll grow to love it and that it will be very rewarding. The church is true. The scriptures are true. And the lord love us more than we can imagine, and all we need to do is turn to him and he'll help us with anything. I love and miss you all. God be with you till we meet again!

Elder Eastin

P.S-1325 eastern parkway Louisville Kentucky, 40204.

This is the mission home address. All letters sent to there will be forwarded to me at our apartment. Please write me so I have your addresses!