Vegas Boyz...

This week turned out pretty good for me. So we had the transfer and I'm staying for 3 weeks until I'm home in the same ward, but I'm in a trio again. I'm with Horito and he's a chill dude, he's also from Vegas which is funny, and being with him has been the most fun I've had in a long time. It's making leaving a lot harder for sure. It's crazy that I'll be home so soon, these last few weeks have been really fun lately, and super productive. Part of me wishes that I would have some more time here because I finally feel like I can do literally anything I need to right now and that's a good feeling. It's tough that I have to leave now that I finally have the skill, but I guess that's just life. Things are going great though and this week we have a super busy week planned. The work is going awesome, and we are grinding out some great meetings, and really helping some people. It feels very real right now, and it's such a cool feeling. This last week we had some really cool meetings that touched me that I want to share with you. 

We have been trying to meet a family for a while, but they have always been busy and we haven't had the chance yet. We called their ministering brother and had him meet us, and we went to their house, and they also live on a mountain. It's becoming a trend for us to have people live on mountains. The wife was home, and the husband was at work, so we chatted with her and met her kids for a bit. Turns out she can't read, so she can't really help her kids with their school work at all. That was really crazy for me to hear, so when it came time for me to share my scripture I had the member read the verse, and we explained to her a lot of the words and their meanings. It was cool, I shared my scripture from Enos 1:3, about the joy of the saints, and asked her what she thinks real joy is. I tried to relate it a lot back to families, and how that is where the real happiness of the gospel lies. It turned out really well I think, and I really felt the spirit strongly, and so did she. Then my companion asked if we could help her out, and she said of course. She told us she has no meat for her kids, the government controls the meat prices and they raised them about 30%, and she just used the last of her wood and coal. Honestly sharing this with you guys is hard, hearing this and seeing a person have to say this was the hardest thing I've ever experienced. After the lesson me and my companion decided we are gonna buy her a ton of meat and some bags of coal for Christmas. I want to try and help out everyone here, but right now all I can do is one person, so we are going to try and help her out as much as possible. I really want to go home and start some sort of charity to try and help out more people like this. It's a really hard thing to see and experience on a daily basis.

We met with our other investigator who we have been meeting with for a while now. She is honestly a perfect person to be investigating the church. We went to her house and taught her the 10 commandments, and some other things, but she really accepted it all super easily. Normally it's hard for her to understand us when we speak because of our accents and the words we use, so when we teach her it's really cool to me to see how the gospel can cross culture barriers. She should be getting baptized on Christmas Eve now which is really exciting. 

We met with a new member in the ward to teach her the new member lessons again, this time she wanted to meet on a mountain though. She said that she feels the spirit in nature so she wanted to meet there and take a lesson. I'm not going to argue against going to the mountain and forests either, so we went and met up with Yorke and his companion. They are teaching the new member's friend. It was really cool teaching up in the snow and ice. We found a log and sat down there and ate some snacks, and then taught the lesson. It was pretty cold, but one of the better lessons I've been in. Later that night we went to a member's home and when we walked in he said "hey I've got the tournament on, come in quick." So we sat down with him and his family surrounding this little TV and watched some Mongolian wrestling tournament, and ate some meat and bread. It was really cool, and it felt like what I imagined Mongolia would be like. Then his daughter came over, she has been an investigator for a while, and we wanted to meet with her and see what she was thinking. We shared some scriptures, and then she volunteered to pray when the meeting finished. It was a cool meeting, and then she came to church on Sunday, so there is hope she is going to become actively interested again. 

English is going really good. We teach our classes every other week, so this week we are teaching some classes for the last time. It's pretty weird that we won't be able to see them again, and when we told our class we wont be here next semester, some people got mad and said we have to come back haha. I'm really going to miss teaching English, it's been a really cool opportunity, and it's given me a lot of cool relationships with some of the people my age here. 

That really is the week though, I am still teaching piano and that is going really well. The students are all excited about playing hymns in sacrament, and that's fun to see. Teaching is a pretty rewarding experience no matter what it is, gospel, English, or piano. 

Love you guys, 

Austin

Back wearing the pollution filtration masks. 

 Artwork from around town. 

 One of my students practicing taking our blood pressure. 

My English classes

 

 Our meeting on the mountain. 

 This is at the house of the family the family that we visited.  The swastika symbol is a Buddhist symbol for peace. Hitler inverted in when he adopted the symbol. 

 One of my piano students. Her coat was being cleaned so all she had to keep warm was her deel.