Elder Austin Elkins

Hello again everyone! This was a great week! Elder Enslow and I had a lot of fun and were also able to see a lot of success. It is amazing how God answers our prayers and how truly inspired this work is. We literally don't make the decisions. It is all on God's plate, and we are just he forks and knives. I like to think of myself as the Knife though :) It was super fun to see the pictures of Danny back in Kaysville. I'm super glad that he is doing good and that you guys took care of him. I'm especially pumped that he proposed to Kim and now that will push him into the water ;) We will get the job done! I'm going to keep this email a little shorter today. I still love you all though!

Monday - PDay! Went to Elder Enslows District Leader training meeting. Learned a lot and we went to lunch at an amazing italian restaurant "Vapiano". Love it. We went there again today actually haha. Spent the day with Elder Bishop and Cooper. Love days like this! Much needed!

Tuesday - Went on Exchanges with Elder Bishop. We had a really good day and were able to make appointments and find new potentials. We had a correlations pizza party at night with the ward mission leader as well! 

Wednesday - Finally back with Enslow! We had a lesson at 12 with Danny, a non-active, but he bailed so we ended up visiting former investigators and making new appointments with them. We went to Marcels to teach him and make a smoking program, but he is really slow in the head and is not there. It is really sad. I asked him how smoking is going, and he said "better". I asked how many he smokes a day and he told me 25. I asked him how many he smoked before we came and he said 50 every day. 50 cigs every day!? Are you kidding me! These people are crazy haha. It explains a lot, but honestly. He told us that he didn't want our help with it anymore cause it is all he has in life. It is sad, cause it's true. He cannot leave his house cause of his problems. Gosh. That hurts! We did look ups and went to institute at night with the JOVO's.

Thursday - Today, We tore apart out area book because it was raining really hard. We went out and looked everyone up, and made appointments! Perfect! I called an investigator named Eric to make an apointment, and he talked to me for 45 minutes over the phone. It was unreal. He started out asking just general questions about the Book of Mormon, and they were easy to answer, but then he brought up things he has seen on the internet. We all know that that isn't good. Let's say those next 30 minutes were rough, but the spirit told me just to relax and give him certain scriptures to read. Sometimes I forget that it isn't our job as missionaries to answer some of those evil questions that people pose. It was a rought 45 minutes, and after, I was feeling pretty crummy, but whatever! We had a good day after that and taught Aspacia at night. I have a goal for my mission, to love every companion like a brother, no matter what, and to teach in unity with every single one of them. It is super hard sometimes, but Elder Enslow and I had a shot at it tonight with Aspacia. Aspacia hasn't made too much progress, and was frustrating Elder Yocom and I, but tonight was different. She had a light in her eye. We taught the Plan of Salvation. She was interested, and the spirit was there. Theeeee best lesson of my mission. One I will always remember. She committed to read the scriptures, and she has a genuine interest to learn more. Great night. Hate the rain sometimes though hahah.

Friday - Elder Enslow went to Brussels for legality, so I went to Hoorn with Elder Strikwerda. He is a second transfer, but so fun to be with! Hoorn is such a pretty old dutch city. I will sent pictures. We had a great day, and taught the smartes man in the world, I swear. It was all in Dutch as well, and of course, we were both young so it was a little hard to answer his questions is posed, and understand his words he used. This guy has a million books on his walls. You have no idea. We went to the beach and took some cool pictures. Beautiful day!

Saturday - Did a ton of area book look us, got let in with a lady named Martha! This was a miracle. She was getting baptized the next day in a different church, but felt inspired to let us in. She has 6 boys and a girl, and they all were intersted. Such a cool family. She told us that she was feeling weird about the baptism, but we helped her feel at peace with her life. I felt inspired to share the plan of salvation with her because of her family, and that was great. She has been having a rough time for years wondering what would happen if her beautiful family got seperated. It was a great lesson. We went home and did weekly planning after, and then dinner, then went to Joyce, another new investigator. We taught her the Plan as well, and she asked a lot about if there was a heaven. She started crying when she found out that we have peace after this life, because she has a lot of struggles right now. That was an amazing lesson. It has been fun to crank out missioniary work with Elder Enslow. We have had a good week.

Sunday - Good day. Elder Enslow and I had to teach the Investigator class. We taught about Prophets of God and it went well. We had a great day and taught Ibrahim. He has really bad struggles with both of his legs. Pretty much paralyzed, but we watched the John Tanner story with him and will return this week to give him a blessing. I'm super excited for this. This man has all the faith in the world. He is amazing. 

Well, as you can see, we had a great week. God has been touching our lives, and the lives of the poeple around us. It has been fun to be with Elder Enslow. He is a genius with the Bible, and I definitely am not, so I ask him to tell me Bible stories a lot haha. He is also a genius with movies. Name a movie, and he'll tell you like 100 quotes from it. So cool! I have never seen the movie castaway, but he told me the whole movie, and now I swear I could tell someone the plot and even quotes haha. So awesome. We have fun. We are definitely different, but that is good. I'm learning a lot. I enjoy serving him, and try to also help him be better, because that is what we are supposed to do. There is no time to do anything else, but to improve. Just get better :) Well, and Love ;) I don't really have much of a spiritual message this week, except for the fact to tell you all that the church is true. I know that. I love you guys! Hope you all have a great week, and I hope to get super great letters from you all for my birthday ;)

Loves,

Elder Elkins