Sum up of mission

Hey family!
This last week was a good one!
I got my "trunky papers" in the mail this week haha missionaries call
it that because it was my flight plans and departing letter from
President Brough. I leave at 10:04 AM and I will be getting to Idaho
Falls at 5:55!
Bill L, one of my recent converts from new Albany, came down to
Lexington and took us out to eat at a place called Coba Cocina. It is
a super nice place.

They have a 20ft jelly fish tank in the middle,
hand blown glass lights from Italy, and some DANG good food. For 3 of
us it was about $100 haha they had the greatest strawberry water I
have ever had. It was so good to see him again. He is very active in
New Albany right now. Has a Calling with the young men and also
teaches gospel principles occasionally. I will send pics of the
dinner.
On Friday night Alvin D, our big black recent convert got married
to Tori, she is also a member. And we got invited! It was held at the
Marriott, which is super nice here. The dinner after was amazing. Big
buffet of great food and literally as soon as I took the last bite and
put my fork on the table the waitress took it. Haha it was funny!
Can't believe this is my last week on my mission. It really feels
almost like a dream. It hasn't completely hit me that I'm going to be
home next week... This week is going to fly. We have a leadership
meeting in Louisville tomorrow with Elder Zwick of the seventy. It's
going to be him and like 12 of us. It's going to be awesome!! I feel
like I'm going to get rebuked or something! Then on Wednesday we have
a multi zone zone conference with elder Zwick down here in Lexington.
So that will go all day. And then so far we have 3 meal appointments
of people that want to take us out before I go home haha it's going to
be awesome.
If everyone could please keep Layne in your prayers that would be
greatly appreciated. She has been going so strong and she even gave a
talk in sacrament meeting yesterday and she is getting ready to leave
to college in a couple weeks. But this morning her mom called her on
the phone and told her that unless she promised to stop going to
church entirely she would not send in the check for her tuition. So
basically, her mom was saying, "either you choose college or you can
walk with your Mormon thing". And Layne called us after and just broke
down, she doesn't know what to do. She knows this church is true and
she doesn't regret her decision at all but she has been anticipating
this for a long time and now her mom is just pulling the rug out from
under her. My heart has just ached for her all day.

How can I sum up a 2 year mission in just one email? It has been so
amazing. It's been hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life. And
it's been the happiest, most joyful experience of my entire life. I
will never ever regret going on a mission. And I know I will
appreciate it for the rest of my life. I am so grateful to my Heavenly
Father for trusting me to be here and to teach the people I've taught.
I remember that first night we taught Gabriel and as we were
riding away on our bikes from teaching the best first lesson ever, I
couldn't help but just peddle as hard as I could because of the pure
happiness and joy that I felt. I remember the love I gained for Steve
and Colleen as I watched them change their lives and get baptized. She
was almost like a second mom to me. And as I went to her funeral I
gained an appreciation for the plan of salvation that I thought I
never could. Danny and Spencer were a blessing as well. They
taught me that God cares for his children. And is mindful of families
that have gone astray. I will never forget Emma & Michelle. Who
weren't related but we're both baptized on the same day. They taught
me that God answers prayers and knows the desires of his missionaries
through their struggles. Leiloni and Anara taught me the power of
miracles after her new born baby was miraculously healed after a
priesthood blessing. Bill taught me the importance of being
humble even after 55 years of being alive. Justin  and Nic taught me to persevere even when there is persecution (in his
case it was from family members and close friends). I have learned
many other things from all of my converts. But one of the biggest
things I learned is that baptisms are a gift from God to a missionary.
It's similar to Grace. We don't earn our salvation and we don't earn a
baptism, it is a gift. But obedience, like President uchtdorf put it,
is the outreaching of our hands to receive that gift. I know for a
fact that I couldn't have done any of these things if it weren't for
the Grace of God and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Honestly, I didn't
accomplish these things, God did.
Thank you all of you for supporting me for these past 2 years. For the
letters, cards, gifts, emails, potatoes in the mail, cookies, candy,
ties, and especially love. The Lord will bless you abundantly for
that!

I can now say to every one, SEE YA NEXT WEEK!!
Love ya!
Elder Eastin

I'll send a bunch of pics in another email

Sent from my iPad

Short and sweet

Hey Family!
Well this week was interesting. I think it will have to be told in
person to do it any justice! Haha sooooo I'll tell it later to ya when
I'm home! We just got back from playing laser tag and now we are
playing pool at our apartment complex!
Sorry for the short email today haha things are going good and I'm
looking forward to seeing yall soon!
Much much love,
Elder Eastin

Sent from my iPad

Another baptism, YSA Conference, 4 weeks

Hey family!
Well this last week was awesome. Laynes baptism was on Saturday at 7
and it was awesome. There were a lot of people there. Probably like
30-40 people. And after she was baptized she shared an amazing
testimony (of which I have a written copy of!)
On Friday and Saturday the branch had a regional YSA conference.
Friday night was games, dinner and a devotional. We were invited to
the dinner and devotional and also our mission President and his wife
were there so we got to spend some time with them! The food was great!
They got city BBQ catered for free haha it was so good. And then the
devotional was a talk by Elder Hymas of the area seventy. But before
he spoke 3 of the branch members and myself sang a duet "come thou
fount of every blessing" it was awesome! Everyone said it sounded
great. I basically got volunteered for it haha. The next morning they
did breakfast and a variety of service projects. Breakfast was super
good and we chose to do the blanket making service project and then
they were going to donate the blankets to hospitals. So that was a
great time. There were about 50 other church members from stakes
surrounding ours. President Sproul even made the announcement over the
pulpit that I'm going home in 4 weeks.....and said "Girls, he's going
back to BYU-I-Do in 4 weeks". That was super awkward haha
This morning we went golfing with a member. It was a pretty nice golf
course, had a lot of fun! I can't wait to get back to it and have my
own clubs again. I love golfing.
On Tuesday night we drove to Beattyville Kentucky to blitz the elders
down there. Blitz means that all four of us work the same area for a
day to get it going stronger. So we went down there to work with them
on Wednesday. They didn't have any baptismal dates at the time but
they had a goal to get 4 by the weeks end. Coming out of the blitz we
had set 3 and then over the next couple days they set 4 more so they
now have 7! It was a miracle! Beattyville is sooooo far out in the
country. It was so fun staying there. It's about an hour and a half
drive south west of here.

So, 4 weeks left.....crazy stuff. Everyone at church always talks to
me about it, I hate it! I wish no one knew when I am going home. It
would make things much easier haha. I love the branch members here so
much. Such great friendships.

Thats about it for the week. Sure love y'all!!

LAST TRANSFER, food poisoning, progress

Good morning family and friends!
Well it's a partially cloudy day here. It's been raining a lot this
week (as usual).
This week was a great start to the last transfer! We have 4 new
district leaders in our zone so we trained 2 of them this week on how
to be district leaders and we are working with the other 2 this next
week. Lots of driving to do this transfer.... Haha probably close to
1900 miles I would guess! After training one of our district leaders
we went to a Mexican place in town called El Gran Taco. It was really
good but long story short my companion and one of the other Elders
basically got food poisoning from it haha all because they didn't eat
the radishes that came with it! Apparently they are to help settle
your stomach and helps prevent food poisoning (kinda fishy) but
anyways I ate all of mine after I was done and I didn't get sick but
elder Russell did and so on Friday he was in bed all day! So that was
a boring day. Did a lot of journal writing and scripture reading in
that time! Finished the Book of Mormon again this morning! What a
great book.
Layne is set to get baptized this coming Saturday! She had a great
baptismal interview with one of our district leaders. She recorded it
on her phone and then had us listen to it haha it was really cool to
hear! She is so so so excited!
This week we are going to be driving an hour and a half down to a
little town called Beattyville Kentucky where we are going to work
with an Elder and his new greenie missionary! It should be an
adventure!
Romain, Justice and Alvin are all doing well since their baptisms!
Alvin and Romain have the priesthood and Justice got her temple
recommend yesterday! And Romain is working on getting his!
Not much else to say about the week. Going to go shopping at Krogers
and then play basketball like usual!
Much love to everyone!
Elder Eastin

Sent from my iPad

What a GREAT week!!!!!!! What a GREAT mission!!!

Hey Family!!

What a GREAT week!!!!!!! What a GREAT mission!!! Love it so much. Yesterday was probably one of the best days of my whole mission. Definitely the best sunday I've EVER had! 

Lets start with Romain's baptism. It was solid and he is such a good guy. He's made a lot of changes and has come a long way. When I first got here he was not progressing at all and we just went over to his house if we didn't have anything to do and we would read some scriptures with him and thats basically it. He wouldn't come to church or anything. BUT after picking him back up he really started progressing and BOOM now hes a member! He asked to share his testimony after his baptism and it was a great one. He gave up friends and moved out of his old apartment just to get away from the negativity they were giving him about the church. And then the next day at church our branch President interviewed him for the priesthood before church, we confirmed him in sacrament, he was sustained for the preisthood and then was ordained in Elders quorum. And then to add on to all of that greatness, Alvin was at the branch this sunday and he was also interviewed for the priesthood and I got to ordain him to the Aaronic Priesthood AND Romain got to stand in on the Ordination because he had just been ordained. It was awesome. So much priesthood work done in just a few hours!

Then after church at 4:30, Layne, Us and our branch mission Leader left to go to the fireside in Louisville and Justice Smith (our recent convert) rode up with another member. But the point of us leaving so early was so we could go to the TEMPLE! :D And it was fantastic to see it. Just being on the outside of the temple you can feel the peace of the spirit. 

Layne and Justice loved it also. They are so excited to go to it! And then at 7 we went to the fireside. I'll admit, there were a bunch of 'Life story" types of testimonies haha but it was good that those people got up and they tried their best to share their testimonies. Towards the end Layne got up and shared her testimony! And it was soooooooooooo good. So powerful and she testified of the importance of everyone opening their mouths to share the gospel, because if her friend Thomas wouldnt have she wouldnt have known about the church. It was inspiring.

So if these past 3 weeks hasn't been the best of my whole mission I don't know what else could be any better haha. 3 baptisms, another one on the way, 2 priesthood ordinations, seeing the temple with an investigator and recent convert, and then a great fireside. Praise the Lord. 

We need more people to teach and baptize haha we have a few pretty solid referrals we are gonna start working with so that will hopefully turn out good!

Every other week we have branch council before church and so this week we had it. With our branch President (President Sproul) the conversation can go anywhere and i mean anywhere. haha but at one point he asked me how much longer I have on my mission (and i hate telling people that because it makes me realize how short of time i have left) but my companion told him i have 7 weeks left, and President Sproul just stopped and started to cry. I have never had a leader of a church express so much love and appreciation like he did than in any other area I've had. And i dont mean to boast or brag at all with this story, because I really dont feel like that great of a missionary, but he just....doesn't want me to leave. It was so emotional. So glad i get to finish here. 

Much love from KENTUCKY!!!!

Baptisms, a famous WW2 Veteran, and Snakes… Oh My!

Hey Fam!!

What a great couple of weeks this has been! Alvins baptism, now

justice's baptism on Saturday and then we have another baptism this

coming Saturday! It's going to be so miraculous! And Layne is set for

the 18th of July!

Justice's baptism was a great one. Her dad was baptized when he was 18

and then was less active for most of his life. Missionaries found him

and his family and they baptized the mom and son this February.

Justice was a part of another church and didn't want anything to do

with the Mormon church. But over time she became more curious and she

began going to church with them and she wanted to go to the YSA. And

now she got baptized by her dad and then she asked me to confirm her!

That is one of my favorite things to do! There is a great spirit

during a confirmation.

Well it's sad to say that I have 8 weeks left...:/

Oooooooooh so we had some super cool stuff happen this week! We went

on exchange with some elders and I went to Paris with Elder Asay.

While there we were walking down this street and we saw this old guy

working on his truck and so we went up and talked to him. Come to find

out he is a really famous world war 2 veteran and that he was one of

the first soldiers onto Utah Beach on D-Day. He invited us inside and

told us tons of stories and showed us pictures and old war stuff. He

just got back from France where he is honored there every single year

and he's a hero to them. He's on the news and in the papers all over

there when he visits. It's crazy! So, I got a picture with him and got

his signature!

Also, that night we went to a members house for dinner and after we

ate they brought out their pet...... Snake. 4 ft long Boa. The hairs

on my neck stood up when I saw that thing. They finally got me to hold

it. It was actually pretty awesome to hold and was a nice snake.

Finally over came that fear. I still hate snakes....

That's all for this week! Love ya!!

Elder Eastin

A Baptism and down to single digit weeks

Hey Fam and friends!
Well it's been a typical pday. Lots of basketball. It's getting really
humid so we just sweat bullets. So, like I said, Alvin got baptized
this weekend. And he was here today playing basketball with us. It was
just us 3 playing ball. He's really hard to play against, he's super
good.

So this weekend on Saturday at 5 Justice is going to be
baptized. She is really cool and loves the church a lot!
And Layne is an 18 year old who knew a few members of the church and
they brought her to the church a few times and now she's meeting with
us and loves the church and its teachings and is super excited to get
baptized!
Romain is a 23 year old from Congo, Africa. He is getting baptized on
the 27th and he came to church this Sunday even thought he got 4 hours
of sleep the night before. I think he's pretty committed! He said that
he's excited for his baptism!
Let me tell ya, when you set a prayerful and an inspired goal and you
make a plan to work towards it, the Lord provided the way for it to
happen. I wish it would have set goals like this my whole mission! God
is good, amen? Amen. Praise the Lord. (There's a taste of Kentucky for
ya)
A missionary told me that I'm into the single digit of weeks left....
Wish he wouldn't have told me that. :(

Love yall!!
Elder Eastin

Lots of answers to prayers,

Hello from Kentucky!
This week was a great one. BIG stress reliever and lots of answers to
many prayers. Let's see, where to start...
Well first off, our mission tour with Elder Zwick was cancelled:(
Elder Zwick has to be in Salt Lake for something, I'm guessing it's
because of the passing of Elder Perry, he was very close to him. But
it's ok, we were able to see him quite a bit in the past 2 weeks!
Alvin Davis is set to be baptized this Saturday! I can tell he has a
lot more desire and drive to join the church. Little background on him
if you didn't already know. His Fiancé is a member and she and her
family are from Corbin, that the last ward I was in! And I knew her
and Alvin before I came here! So, the baptism is going to be in Corbin
and we'll be able to go there for the baptism on Saturday night, spend
the night with the Elders there and then go to church and I will be
confirming him a member! It's going to be great. Y'all would love
Alvin, he is such a funny guy. Super awesome. He played on the UK
football team when he was in college. He's a big guy! I'll send a pic.

We have a new investigator named J____ S_____. The Georgetown Elders
have been teaching her for a month or so and they handed her over to
us because she wants to come to the YSA here in Lexington. Georgetown
is only like a 20 min drive. So, she is super solid and she is getting
baptized the next Saturday on the 20th!
We have an investigator named R_____ N_____, he is from Nigeria.
Missionaries have been working with him for about a year. Soon after I
got here we dropped him because he would not keep commitments. But, we
picked him back up about a month ago and he's been coming to church
and keeping commitments. We invited him to pray about being baptized
on the 27th of this month and he said he would. He came to church
yesterday and after gospel doctrine was over he turned to us and
started asking us what time his baptism would be at and we asked him
if he had prayed about the date and he said he did and we asked how he
felt and he said he felt good! So, he's gonna get baptized on the
27th! What a blessing and miracle. We could never get him committed to
a date before.
At church there was a non-member girl named Layne who has been to
church a couple times in the other ward and she wanted to come to the
YSA and she is SO solid. Some other missionaries have taught her once
but since she is college age and is going to come to the YSA she will
be taught by us.

Here's a funny story for ya. So the other night we were at Alvin's
place for a lesson and then we helped him do some service for his
neighbor and after we were done he wanted to take us to dinner down in
the Hood of Lexington haha so, here we are with this big black guy
driving in the ghetto of Lexington and we went to this place called
Krispy Krunchy Chicken. It was so good haha straight up soul food.
Everything was deep fried. We bought so much fried chicken and honey
butter biscuits. Wish y'all could have been there. It was quite the
experience. And yesterday after church we went to his house and him
and tori made us dinner. We had grilled salmon, potatoes, corn,
watermelon, pineapple and fruit punch. Such a great dinner. Praise the
Lord, he is so good to us.

Whew! Lots of typing with my 2 thumbs on my iPad! Going to play ball
with Alvin today at the church. He's going to do some drills with us.
I am now down to 195 lbs haha!

One big thing I learned this week in my studies. The Book of Mormon
Reminds us of things we constantly forget. We as humans are very quick
to forget things. The word remember or remembering is found in the
Book of Mormon approximately 158 times. Obviously it's here to REMIND
us of what we already know. And the word "forget" and the phrase "not
remember" is found approximately 25 times. This is why we must
constantly read from its pages or else we will become and the Nephite
and Lamanites and "forget the Lord [our] God."

We are trying to become as big as hulk in our gym haha

The UK library, where we teach a lot of our lessons.

A giant rug thing on the wall in the library.

iPad's! New companion

Hey family! 

So, I am writing this email on my new.......IPAD! And it's awesome. Feels so weird to have technology Now but it is already helping the work out a lot. 

So let's go through the week. It was definitely good but at the same time it was pretty rough:

Tuesday we drove to Louisville for transfers. Some of the missionaries leaving the mission were pretty hard for me to say goodbye to. Some of them were pretty close friends and it's like having to say goodbye to your family again! My new companion is elder Russell, he's a good guy and we are getting along and he's a dang hard worker. He's only been out for just under a year haha so it's nice to have a young missionary! On Tuesday evening we had a long Stake coordination meeting that we had to go to, but it was a good meeting and I always receive a lot of insights.

On Wednesday we had to take a missionary to the doctor at 10:30 to get a check up on his knee and then at noon we drove to Louisville again to go to the additional iPad training. We walk into the church building next to the mission office and at the front of the chapel there are tons of boxes and inside those boxes are iPads. It was awesome. The meeting was just for the zone leaders in the mission and there we were trained on how to set up the iPads so that we could then take the rest of the iPads back to our zone and distribute them to the missionaries and train them how to set them up properly. So for our zone we had to take back 37 iPads and cases. Just picture that in your mind. 2 Mormon missionaries driving in a car and in the trunk there are basically 40 iPads. Thats a lot of money haha the church and the Lord have a LOT of trust in us. 

So now the goal was to distribute the iPads to the missionaries. So we broke it up into 3 different trainings. We had 2 different trainings on Thursday and then on Friday we had the last one. The districts within our zone would just meet where they usually have district meetings and we would drive there. The trainings took anywhere between 2 and 4 hours, depending on how fast the wifi was haha. We had to take the missionaries step by step through all the set up and getting everything working right. But gosh I felt like Santa Clause walking into the church with boxes of iPads and then giving them out to the missionaries! I did actually find a Santa hat and I wore it when I walked into the room where all the missionaries were. It was super funny! 

Maggie's baptism unfortunately didn't happen. She texted us this week and said that she wanted to postpone and that she needed some space for right now. So that's all we've heard from her. That was enough to break someone's heart. It was hard to hear that after working with someone for so long. But we have Hope and we are trying our hardest to keep the discouragement down. Elder Zwick told us, in one of the trainings he gave to the mission, that's it's ok to be discouraged for a little bit but you have to get over it quickly. And so that exactly what we've done. 

On Friday we FINALLY had time to sit down and plan out our transfer and set our goals that we want to accomplish in the next 3 months in this area. We set goals for how many baptisms we would have and we made plans as to how we could make this transfer different than others before. As we pondered for quite some time the words of a great missionary that just went home this transfer came to mind. Before missionaries go home they give their "words of wisdom" in the transfer meeting. This is what this Elder said: 

"To sum up a mission in 3 words:

Faith, Hope and Charity.......

Faith, because you can`t let your attachment to the past outweigh your confidence in the future.

Hope, because staying strong while sailing uncharted seas in not possible without the anchor of the Lords promises. 

And above all, Charity, because this work is never about me and it is never about you, love God and love those you serve.

Have faith and Hope that as you exercise Charity and lose yourself in the service of others you will find yourself.

Remember that if you never let go of who you were, you will never discover who you are and who you can become."

These words penetrated my heart and I felt the spirit as I read over them again and again. We knew that this is what we were going to work on so we could help more people come unto Christ. Since we have set that goal we have had experiences where we really had to work hard at  exercising Faith, hope and Charity. But gosh, those really are the 3 most important attributes we can have! To get through all of the opposition we are going through you HAVE to have Hope. And to really be a true missionary you HAVE to have Charity. 

On Saturday we finally had a day where we didn't have to take care of Zone Leader business and we could work all day! So, we decided to hit the bikes! In a matter of 2 hours we talked to 45 people and gave out 7 copies of the Book of Mormon. Man that day felt SO good! It was hot and sweaty but we felt great! 

Sunday we had Stake Conference and Elder Zwick was there again. He has been to our mission so much. Last we he was here for the iPad training, he was here this weekend for conference and he'll be here next week for our MLC and another mission conference. I guess he just loves Kentucky! He had a very close and personal connection with Elder Perry, so when he passed, it was very hard on him. He talked a lot about him in conference. It was so cool! 

That was pretty much our week! Let me tell you, a mission is not easy. Sometimes it causes a broken body, other times a broken mind, and sometimes it even causes a broken heart. But what I learned this week is that God uses broken things. 

   "It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread,  and broken bread to give strength. It is Peter, weeping bitterly and broken Hearted, who returns to greater power and Strength than ever."  And it has been my broken Heart, body and mind that has driven me to seek Heavens divine help. And I have found it. 

I love you all!!!

Elder Eastin

Sent from my iPad

A view from my desk

LOTS of Pictures

Pictures from a long time ago:

New Pictures:

Good morning everyone!

The great state of Kentucky wishes you Peace and Blessings! It's a great day today and the weather is awesome right now. We started the day out today with basketball at 6AM for an hour, then studies and now we are at the FHC at the church emailing. 

So, we got a call from President this on transfer call day.... and he asked for Elder Trost. I am staying here in UK singles for most likely the rest of my mission! We'll see! Elder Trost is being transferred down to Richmond to open an area and to train a new missionary. That will be his dying area. I am super excited to stay here for another one! My new companion is Elder Russell. Never met him haha but I've heard he's a great missionary.

On Wednesday night we drove to Louisville to spend the night and then we went to the iPad training with Elder Zwick (of the seventy) and Brother Hemingway (head of missionary Proselyting in the church). All the missionaries in the mission were there and it was an awesome meeting. Elder Zwick is such an awesome guy. SO spiritually powerful! A lot of the training on using iPad's was actually pretty spiritual and I learn a LOT. We got to spend from 9-1 with Elder Zwick. During one of the 15 min breaks all of the missionaries were outside the chapel talking and going to the bathroom and I was still in the chapel and I got to talk to him personally for a few minutes. It was really nice. We did not receive our iPad's there but the Zone Leaders in the mission are going to Louisville on Wednesday for additional training where we will pick up all the iPad's for our Zone and train our missionaries on what we learned and distribute them to the missionaries on Thursday and Friday! Its going to be so nice to use iPad's. Only gonna have it for 3 months but it will be awesome!

This last week was a little better as far as appointments not cancelling. We had 5 set for Tuesday and 4 of them cancelled or weren't even there for the appointment. But, we did get to see Jordan a few times this week so that was great! We watched Meet the Mormons with her at the church, had a lesson at the college Gardens and we also saw her at City BBQ and ate there with a few other missionaries and her. She has been super busy with work but she is doing good! Still working on Baptism with her! :) 

Officially hit 21 months last week. That was nuts... Only 2 transfers left...

We set a baptismal date with Alvin for the 13th of this next month. Idk if I have told you a lot about him but his Fiance is a member and he used to play on the Kentucky Football team. Hes a big guy! Also Maggie should be getting baptized this coming Saturday so please pray for her!

Goona go hit up Costco today with our boy John from our branch. Costco has good food and its cheap! Then we are going to Ball some more and just hang out today!

Love y'all lots and lots and lots and lots!