Howdy!

Hello again everybody!
It's starting to get a little chilly here in Indiana. Sometimes the
high is only mid 50's and we've had to start wearing our sweaters when
we ride around. I kinda look like a nerd in my sweater. And at night
we wear our big coats cuz its pretty dang cold riding around on a
bike. It would be really nice to have a car right now haha.
We found a few new investigators this week and had some really good
lessons. I'm starting to get the hang of contacting people on the
streets. Before i was pretty nervous to talk to people but now its
pretty easy to just talk to everyone. We're supposed to talk to at
least 20 people per day, which is pretty hard, but we're trying!
One investigator we have, his name is Robert, his wife is a member in
our ward and he has been investigating the church ever since she was
Baptized.(3 years ago) Robert and his wife are awesome. They LOVES the
missionaries. He took us out to breakfast and lunch on wednesday and
we spent like 4 hours with him doing yard work. He's going to be
getting back surgery tomorrow and he wont be going to work for like 3
months. So this is the perfect time to teach him and for him to read
the Book of Mormon. He really like our church a lot and believes a lot
of the stuff but his only problem he's had is that he works a ton and
he didn't want to join until he could be fully committed. So like I
said, this is the perfect time for him to become committed to it. Oh
and every single time we go over there they feed us. It's awesome.
One awesome experience I had this  week was from zone conference. The
district leaders and sister training leaders were giving trainings.
During the first training, from the sister training leaders, one
sentence they said really stood out and hit me with the spirit. One of
the sisters said to all of us "The Lord is Proud of you". For the past
few weeks I've really been wondering if I'm being a good missionary. I
just have really wanted to work hard and have the Lord be proud of my
work. And one night I asked in prayer if i was being a good
missionary. And when Sister Kenzle said "The Lord is Proud of you" it
hit me with such force that I instantly knew that was the Lord
speaking through her directly to me. No matter what we as missionaries
do the Lord will always be proud of us. Some of us may be Baptizing
every week and some of us may not get a Baptism for months, but if we
are fulfilling our purpose to invite others to come unto Christ we are
doing our job and the Lord is proud of us for that. We may have
discouraging thoughts when 20 people in a row tell you they aren't
interested. We might think we are doing a crappy job and that we
should quit. But those negative thoughts aren't coming from our
savior. Those thoughts are satan trying to drag us down. He wants us
to quit. He wants us to feel like crap. But if we shut out those
thoughts and focus on what the Lord is saying to us we will find that
all he has to say is postitive things. He loves each and every one of
us. He's the one saying "good job"and "keep going". If we rely on him
and ask for help he will give it to us. That's why he is our Savior,
because he will not let us fall without helping us get back up. He is
proud of all of us. No matter what we do. We all have our strengths
and weaknesses, but he is proud of us for the good things we do. Being
a missionary is hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Moving
pipe at 6 in the morning was a ton easier than this. But there is
nothing more rewarding than this. And I work for the greatest boss in
the world, The Savior. He will not call us to do his work and let us
suffer! That's not why he calls us. We may struggle for a bit but we
will begin to prosper and have success. I've realized this all from
that one sentence, "The lord is Proud of you". It's amazing how the
lord speaks to us and how powerful his words are. Never get
discouraged in life. The very jaws of hell may gape open at you but it
will be only for our good and benefit. My testimony grows each day and
my love for the Lord grows. I hope everyone who reads this realizes
how much the lord loves you.
I love and miss you all!
Elder Eastin

It's that time of the week again...

Not really sure how to describe this week. It was awesome and not awesome at the same time. We had a lot of awesome lessons and met a bunch of awesome people but we also had a lot of our investigators drop us and 2 of our 3 Baptism dates were dropped. So that was kind of a bummer but overall it was a good week. We didn't have any meals planned with members at the beginning of the week but ended up being fed 7 times! The weather here is starting to cool off. Sometimes it's pretty cold in the mornings, I love it. Tomorrow is transfers. Only 1 missionary in our district is being transfered. I really can't believe its been 6 weeks since I first arrived here. It's shot by so stinkin fast.

  Yesterday we had a pretty cool experience with Ed. He hasn't really been doing good with the whole "quit drinking beer" thing. But yesterday we went over and just sat with him and talked. He asked if we could have a prayer with him and pray for his friend and also for himself. So I said the prayer and once we were done he was just totally different. He said he was feeling the spirit like crazy and he felt like a new man. He went into his kitchen and pulled out the only 3 beers he had left and opened them and dumped them down the sink. He never does something like that. It was crazy. Then he was wantin to go out and preach the Gospel to all of his friends on the street, it was pretty funny. He really wants to be Baptised and go to the temple. He said its his dream to go to the temple. So hopefully he really will stop drinking this time.

  Oh so theres this guy named Paul. He lives in our ward and is a recent convert. He's in the military and he is pretty redneck and is so funny. We go over to his house everyweek and have a fire and just listen to his funny stories. I told him at church yesterday that I've always wanted to eat squirrel (there are millions of them around here) So he said he will go shoot some this week and we will have a BBQ this week! Its going to be awesome. He also lets us hold all his huge guns and battle ax and swords haha its so sweet.

  So overall Im doing pretty good! I have my ups and downs but Im getting used to it all each day. Time is flying and its only going to get faster as time goes on. I miss all of you and Love all of you a ton!

Elder Eastin

Happy P-Day!

Hello everyone!

  It's a blue sky day here in Indiana and its like 50 degrees outside and it feel amazing. It's been raining a lot lately and its still been pretty warm during the days. Most everything is still green, there are a few leaves changing and falling but with all the rain and humidity everything just stays green here.

  So I have another story about being caught in the rain. On wednesday afternoon we were riding around on our bikes near our apartment contacting people on the streets. We could see a big set of rain clouds coming in and got inside our apartment right as it began to pour. It rained and thundered pretty hard for like 45 mins and stopped and the sun started coming out, so we decided to go tracting in a neighborhood about 15 mins away, we took our rain coats just in case. After trying about 4 or 5 houses it started to rain a little bit so we put our coats on. As we knocked on the 6th house we heard, literally, a wall of water coming from the distance and as we turned around to look it hit us. I have NEVER seen rain like that in my whole life. it was raining so hard you couldn't see more than a block down the road. Even with our rain coats on we were soaked to the bone in a few minutes. Not even standing under trees helped cover us from the rain. So we began riding back home, the streets were flooded and we were so wet we just started riding through the biggest puddles we could find. When we got home we threw all our wet clothes in the dryer and studied in the apartment for the rest of the night because of how hard it was raining.

  On days that it wasn't raining we had some pretty good lessons and found 3 new investigators. One lady we talked to was a referral from a member in Indianapolis. She lives like a mile from us and we went and talked to her. All of her questions were basically the questions of the soul, "why am i here, where did i come from and where am i going?" She was baptist, but when we explained the 3 kingdoms of glory she said "that makes sense." Her response to all of our questions was, "that makes sense". She loved what we taught her and we will be meeting with her again tomorrow. 

  Steve and Coleen are doing great, we have a Baptism date set with them for Nov. 3. They came to thesunday morning session of conference and they said it was very good and insightful. We just taught them the word of wisdom the other night and we are hoping they can follow that. They are both heavy coffee and tea drinkers. Coleen is super funny, all of her kids live in Florida so she calls us her sons and she said we can call her mom. I'm really looking forward to getting them baptized.

  Overall things are going pretty good. I have my up and downs but things are starting to get easier. Conference was awesome and I felt the spirit a ton during the whole thing. It made me a little home sick for some reason though, I don't know why. Basically the main message I got out of it was that we all are put through trials and if we endure them well we will be a better person and come closer to God. This mission is definitely the hardest thing i've ever done but I know it will get easier as time goes on. My mission President helped out a lot during our interview, he said hes very surprised and impressed with how well i've adapted and how well I teach, so that helped a lot. I pray every single day for strength and I'm receiving it. I love you all!!

Elder Eastin  

Elder Eastin asked us to share these stories

In the letter we got from Elder Eastin today, he asked us to, "Please share these stories with Mom and Dad and the family.  I don't have the time to tell them again.":

Story 1:
"Today, we had planned tracting at 6 and had a lesson planned at 7 with Steve and Coleen. But I had a feeling that we needed to take the time to plan out a lesson for them.  This morning we said we would just talk about the Word of Wisdom with them, but I felt like we needed to talk about faith and get them to commit to a baptism date of November 3rd. So we skipped tracting and studied for our lesson. I had a scripture in mind to share with them: Alma 32:21, 26-27. Elder Crook also wanted to read 3 Nephi 27: 19-21, so the two scriptures would work great together to help them commit to a baptism date. So we went to Steve and Coleen's house and it started out the same: chit-chat, prayer and asking them how they are doing. Steve told us that he had had a dream that Christ told him to accept our message. And he also shared how when he was baptized in his church, he just felt empty. This is what all missionaries want to hear!!!  This led us perfectly into our lesson and scriptures. We told them that faith isn't having a perfect knowledge (found in our scripture) and that they need to have a date set for baptism so they can work towards it. Sooooo.. they said YES!!! Both committed to November 3rd. Tonight, I've truly felt like a tool in the hands of the Lord."

Story 2:
"During dinner I was reading scriptures and I received an answer to a prayer. I've been praying to FEEL the Lord's love and peace.  I know He loves me but I wanted to feel it.  As I was reading, I got this overwhelming feeling of peace and comfort and love. It was such a strong feeling of the spirit that I just sat there and cried. I haven't felt that in a long time.  It literally felt like the Lord was hugging me. It was honestly THE biggest thing I needed right now. This mission is the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life. But, when the Lord shows us His love for us and gives us the strength we need, all of this is possible. It's not easy, but it's possible."


Today, during General Conference, we were told several times by several different authorities, including our prophet, that we need to be member missionaries and that we need to pray for missionaries and their investigators as well as for our own personal missionary experiences.  Elder Nielsen of the 70 specifically said, "Pray for missionaries and investigators by name. If you do not know the names of others, the Lord cannot help you know their heart." So we have our missionary and we know the names of those that he is working with.  I hope that we can all keep them in our prayers, and I hope that we can also go out of our comfort zones and talk to the missionaries in our wards and know their names and ask them the names of those that they are teaching. Elder Ballard promised that if we ask for missionary opportunities that they will come about naturally and we will feel a natural love for our brothers and sisters and they will feel of our love for them and THEY WILL NEVER FORGET THAT FEELING. Even if the timing isn't right for them to accept the gospel, they will remember the feeling that they had with you, and in the future, when the time is right, it will aid in their conversion. Elder Ballard also said, "It's impossible to fail when we do our best." When we are on the Lord's errand, we need to trust Him and we will receive the courage and words we need at that moment.