Fishing in a pond and seeing as Christ does

Holy cow I love being here in Kentucky! And I love our ward mission leader Bro. Johnson!!

So first I want to start with what we have done so far today. This morning at 8 we drove up to Bro. J's house with some Elders from Beattyville to go fishing in his pond. He has about 5 or 6 acres behind his house and at the bottom of the hill is a nice pond. Ill send pics. But before we went fishing he made us a huge country breakfast. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, biscuits & Gravy and Orange juice. SUPER good. I've started to love biscuits and gravy a ton. People make them a lot here. After breakfast we went down to the pond and started fishing for Catfish! For bait we would use chicken liver. They like that a lot. And you just toss it out there and let it sit on the bottom of the pond and wait. And man O man when they find that liver they take it and they put up a fight. I was able to catch 2 big ones. Elder Burns caught 1 and Bro. J caught a giant gold fish. It was sooooo fun! And then after the fishing we went up the hill to the fire pit and started a fire and then started to shoot marbles with sling shots at glass bottles that he had set up. His house is just a hill billy playground haha! And for lunch he made us fried catfish, which was pretty good! Being at his house is always a blast!

This past week was pretty good I guess. Didn't teach a whole lot of lessons. Barbara and Jessi are doing alright. They weren't able to come to church because Barbara was having problems with her Dialysis through the night... And they are struggling with quitting smoking. They've quit drinking coffee but can't shake smoking yet. We started them on the LDS 15 step program for quitting smoking. Its a pretty awesome program. Please keep them in your prayers. They want to get baptized so so bad! I can't wait for that day!

We had zone meeting this week up in Lexington on Thursday. I gave a training to 3 different groups on Believing in Baptizing. It went awesome. In preparation for it we felt the spirit really strongly and were inspired with a lot of great things. We used the Bible video "Christ heals a man born blind" and related it back to seeing with our spiritual eyes and Blinding our Natural eyes. We asked the question "When you teach someone for the first time, do you look at them with your natural eyes and see all of their faults that might be holding them back from be baptized? Or do you look at them though the eyes of Christ and see them as what they can become?" The blind man in the video could not see with his eyes how to get to the pool to wash and be healed, but he went by faith on what Christ told him. He did not doubt or ask questions. He instantly went and did as the Lord commanded him. We can relate all of our lives to this man.

Other than that this week was just another normal one! I have to go to Richmond tonight to exchange with the Zone Leaders. Lots of driving to do down here!

Oh I totally forgot! This sunday I gave a talk in sacrament meeting! Theya sked me to speak on my conversion to the gospel. In my talk I talked about how it doesn't matter at what age you join the church, we can all be converts. There's a difference in believing the Gospel and being converted to the gospel. I started off with 1 Nephi 1 and changed Nephi's name out with my name. I talked about how it was my family and my parents that helped me to become converted to the gospel. I don't think I was totally converted before my mission but I did eventually when I understood the Atonement more fully. It's not enough to read the Book of Mormon and believe in Joseph Smith as a prophet, we must understand the Atonement. Everything is just an appendage to the Atonement. But you can't just read about the Atonement to understand it. You have to experience it. You have to use it. And being a missionary, you experience the Atonement A LOT. As Elder Holland has put it, "How could we ever bear a moving, lasting testimony of the Atonement, if we haven't ever felt a token of what Chirst has felt?"  This is true. The Atonement is wonderful and I love it!

I love you all so so so so much!!! 

This is the second one I caught. And yes I did kiss that fish! I am now a true southerner! 

 This is Bro. Johnsons giant gold fish he caught!

Word of Wisdom miracle

Hello Family and Friends!!!

So update on Jessi and Barbara! Had another miracle with them this week.On Tuesday night we went and taught the Word of Wisdom! (That's always a fun one to teach, "I can't drink tea???")

Anyways, we taught the lesson out of the pamphlet and then watched the John Tanner story. If you haven't seen it watch it soon, its awesome. At the end of the lesson they gave us their brand new can of coffee and all their Tocbacco and cigarettes! They just got rid of all of it! That's how much they know this church is true! Enough to give up all of that stuff and trust that the Lord commands us not to use those things. I'll send a picture of the stuff they gave us and of me smashing the box of Cigarettes.

Unfortunately they were not able to make it to church yesterday because Barbara is on Dialysis right now and she had to make a trip to the emergency room sunday morning:( Shes doing alright now but please keep her in your prayers.

Also Libby H didn't make it to church yesterday either... So we have to move her baptismal date back again. She was supposed to be getting baptized this coming Saturdaybut we are moving it to another week. Satan was working real hard to get her to not come to church. Her family wouldn't watch her baby during church and she doesn't have a car seat and we couldn't find anyone to give her a ride that has a car seat. It's hard getting people to church that live in London and that don't have cars. Its about a 30 minute drive down to Corbin, where the church is, and we don't have a lot of active members up here in London. Bro. Johnson, our ward mission leader, lives up here so that's nice. We ride with him to church every sunday, saves us a lot of miles.

On thusday I got to drive to Louisville to go to a leadership training meeting. It was amazing. 2 members of the mission department were there and we got to ask them a lot of questions. We were there from 9 to 4 with only a 1 hour lunch break. That was the best 6 hours ever. Most inspiring training I have ever received. They also talked about iPads for a little bit and let us know we will be hopefully getting them in December. And if not by December then definitely January. It is going to change missionary work forever. Can't wait.

Can't really think of anything else from this week! I love it so much down here. I love the ward and I love the people here.

It's kinda scary that I only have 10 months left... Crazy!

Love y'all!!! 

-- 

Elder Eastin

The Church Of

Jesus Christ

Of Latter-Day Saints

Lots of yard work and conference

Hello family and friends!!

Wow, conference was AMAZING! So many awesome things that I learned! I'm going to go through the awesome week we had and then I will tell you about conference!

K, so on Monday night I went on an exchange with an Elder up in McKee Kentucky. It's about 30 miles from here and its a tiny town in the forrest haha. So on Tuesday I worked the area with him so I could see how their area is doing. That's one of the responsibilities of a district leader. The McKee area is tough, they cant even ride bikes around because of how narrow the roads are and because everyone drives so fast. And there aren't many places that they can just walk around and talk to people because the homes are super spread out along country roads. So on our exchange we helped an investigator dig a ditch in his yard. This guy has an old tiller that's about 50 years old and it still runs (kinda) and so I went back and forth and back and forth along his grass tilling it until I got about 6 or 7 inches into the ground and then we dug the dirt up and put it in a wheelbarrow. Took about 2 hours but it was pretty fun! That was basically the highlight of that day haha it was a long day filled with lots of driving!

On Wednesday we drove down to Corbin to help out a member to do some yard work. It was the funnest yard work ever! They had just had someone come in and trim a lot of their trees and so now all of the branches were sitting on their lawn. So they had us start a fire in their backyard and we would constantly throw more and more branches onto the fire. We had a hose near by so we could spray it down for when it got too big. It got so stinkin hot, we couldn't stand very close. So that was a fun day!

On Thursday we had to drive an hour to Richmond for interviews. Usually, while each of us interview with the mission President, the Assistants give a training to everyone on a certain topic. But this time they surprised us with watching a movie! Guess what movie we got to watch?? Meet The Mormons!! We got to watch it a week before it even comes out! It will be coming to Lexington and Louisville on the 10th but they don't want missionaries going to movie theaters to watch it so they sent a special DVD to the mission President and they let us watch it early. It is awesome! Its my new favorite movie! You should all watch it when it comes out!! Anyways, so when we got done with interviews at about 4:30 we had to drive the hour or so home. But on the way back we hit super bad traffic. It was literally bumper to bumper traffic for at least 10 miles… 

My GPS said our average speed was about 5 miles an hour. We were in the traffic for an hour before we even got to the sign that said "Construction ahead, right lane closed 7miles". We just wanted to die at that point haha So anyways we finally made it through and got home. What was supposed to be an hour drive turned into 2 1/2 hours!

Oh and that night when we got home we went and saw Jessi and Barbra! Our most favorite investigators in all of Kentucky!!:) They are doing soooo awesome! Jessi told us that the day after our first lesson with them, they were able to find 4 of his boys that he hadn't seen since they were babies. In our first lesson we promised them that if they put got first their families would be stronger and happier. Well lo and behold, he finds 4 of his boys on Facebook and he talks to them almost everyday now!! What a miracle! So they are both doing amazing! On Saturday morning at 10 we went to their house and Elder Burns and I made them French toast and sausage and bacon and eggs with orange juice. 

And then after we ate we watched conference together on their laptop. They said that they liked it! And while President Uchtdorf was talking about how in our church we don't judge people, Barbra was like "Now that's a true church!" haha it was so awesome. They both know that these things are true and they want their whole family to get baptized!! Barbra has 4 girls that live within the ward boundaries and she wants us to teach them! Like I said, Favorite investigators in all of Kentucky!

The other sessions of conference we watched at a members house down in corbin. About 30 mins from our house haha lots of driving to do! It was so nice to watch it there. They had a huge flat screen tv and really nice couches! And Sister. Helm made us breakfast lunch and dinner! I didn't want conference to end! It was so great and filled with the spirit. I cant wait for next conference!

So as you can see we had an awesome week here! On Thursday this week I have to drive to Louisville again to go to another leadership meeting. Rumor has it that its about getting iPads because 2 members of the mission department are coming to this meeting. So I'll let you know about that next week!

I love you all!