Merry (almost) Christmas!

Hey there everybody!

  Its starting to warm back up here and the snow is almost gone. Its almost 50 outside and it feels amazing. We haven't riden our bikes in almost 2 weeks because of the snow and ice. It honestly has been nice to not have to ride them. People here don't share the road very well and they get super close to us when they drive by.

  This past week was pretty awesome. Tuesday Robert M picked us up at 8 in the morning and we went and ate at Bob E's and then we decorated his house and set up the christmas tree. Then he took us to lunch at Burger King and then we helped him wax his floor. At 3 we had a couple appointments and he told us to call him when we were done with them. We called him when we were done and we went back over to his house. His wife didn't know we would be decorating the house so she got home a little after we got there and she was super happy and surprised. Robert then took us to Texas Roadhouse for dinner haha. So all 3 meals on Tuesday Robert took us out and bought them for us. It was a sweet day. The rest of the week was pretty normal. Nothing crazy happened this week.

  Yesterday after church a member invited us to dinner and he came and picked us up and he was in a brand new Audi A4.... super jealous and it made me miss my car haha. 

  Next sunday evening we will be driving to Louisville and spending the night and then we will be having our mission Christmas party! I've been so excited for it. Tuesday the 24th will be a normal day. President wants us to stay focused and not get too distracted with Christmas. But then Christmas day will be awesome! We will be at a few members houses throughout the day and I will get to Skype home! Gonna be amazing.

  Well I sure miss everybody and I love you all!! I will see some of you next week on Skype! :)

Elder Eastin 

Shoes lined with the Spirit

Hello Everyone!

Its a snowy and cold day here in Indiana! That snow storm that came through on thursday was huge! On wednesday it was 73 degrees and we were riding our bikes and wearing short sleeves. And then the next day it just DUMPED snow all day long.

Luckily thursday is the day that we do our weekly planning and it takes like 3 or 4 hours to do. So basically all day thursday was spent inside. At like 6 that night it stopped snowing and we decided to walk down to one of our investigators apartments. Its about a 2 mile walk. So we hiked through the ankle/shin deep snow to his place and talked with him for a while and then walked back. Let me tell ya, I'm pretty sure my shoes were lined with the spirit because my feet were toasty warm and I was wearing my slip on shoes and church socks. Yeah and basically this storm shut down everything here. They have hardly anything to plow the roads so there were wrecks everywhere. The snow has made me pretty homesick though haha I've wanted to ski in it so bad!

  Oh last night we walked to A.C Coopers apartment (investigator) and we watched the Christmas devo. For some reason he has the BYU channel and he watches it a ton. Hopefully by watching it, it will change his mind about baptism. He's been baptized twice before and just doesn't think he needs Baptized again, but we're working on that. But anyways back to the Christmas devo, I thought it was interesting that President Eyring and President Uchtdorf didn't speak. But it was still really good and A.C liked it. We ate Pecan pie and kool aid after haha.

  So pretty much this week was good. Not having a car sucks but walking is good exercise and its easier to talk to people. Time is flying by super fast. Almost up to 4 months... holy crap. I feel like I just got here. Not gonna be playing ball today. The stake is using our gym for "The Creche" (nativity) this weekend and they are setting up for it. It supposed to be pretty huge. A ton of different churches bring nativities and set them up to be shown at our church all day friday and saturday. I sure miss everyone like crazy! Missing the snow in Idaho but a little bit of it followed me here to Indiana so thats good! Have a good week and I love you all!

Elder Eastin

His Birthday and Thanksgiving

Gosh it seems like the last P-day was forever ago! So many things happened this past week and I've been pretty excited to share. So... I am now 19 years old, seems a little weird, I feel like I should be 20 haha. My birthday/Thanksgiving was amazing. The night before we went over to the zone leaders apartment and had a sleep over party thing haha it was super fun. We had push-up contests and I opened some of my birthday gifts and I was shooting them with silly string. At 8 the next morning we met some of the men in our ward at the high school football field and played football for about 2 hours. Then we went back to the zone leaders apartment and just slept. It felt amazing to just sleep and do nothing. Best nap ever. I haven't had a 2 hour nap in forever. Then at 1 we went to the Rodgers house for Thanksgiving lunch/dinner. They are awesome people. Their house is super nice and they made an amazing dinner. Of course they found out it was my birthday so their 13 and 17 year old daughters made me a birthday hat and wrapped some funny presents for me. It was pretty funny. And most importantly we ate a ton of food. And after we just layed on their couches for like an hour and a half and moaned and groaned because we were so full. After dinner we decided to run to wal-mart before the black friday sale started to get some gloves for Elder Evans. We found a bin of really nice basketball socks for 97 cents. We thought it was wrong so we went up to the front and asked and they said the socks cost $5 for 3 pairs and we told them the sign said 97 cents, so since they were advertised wrong we got them for that price. So I now have 6 really nice basketball socks that I got for less than $2. That was my Black Friday shopping for the year haha. And then the rest of the night we went to the church and played basketball for 2 hours. So overall Thanksgiving and my Birthday were awesome!

  Also this week we were blessed to finally get some more referrals from some other missionaries. While Elder Crook was calling the referrals to set up a time we could meet them I went into the other room and prayed that these referrals would turn into really good investigators. Well yesterday and the day before we met with both of the referrals and we were able to set a Baptism date with them. They both are awesome and they really were interested in the church. I've just really realized if we focus on the key indicators and reach our goals for lessons and new investigators and Baptism dates that the lord will bless us with people that are ready to hear the gospel and commit to Baptism. 

  I sure miss you all and time is flying like crazy. Can't believe it's already December. I love you all! have a great week!

Elder Eastin