Elder Nate Austin

  It was so fun to see Nathan and talk to him for over 2 hours on Christmas.  He is doing great!  He told us that he eats about 60 eggs a week- 6 eggs in the morning and 6 eggs in the evening-every day!  He is doing great and says to say Hi to everyone! Hey mom it was great to skype all you guys and actually talk face to face which is way better than emails.  It sounds like you guys did a bunch of really fun stuff around Christmas.  Good job with the bowling, I bet Rich wasn´t too happy with that ending.  Its too bad I wasn´t there to beat you all.  For our Christmas gifts the bishop gave us talks.  Church on Christmas day was really interesting, they also asked us to sing in a choir and so at 10am when church was suppose to start there was the 7-8 people in choir practicing and 1 person sitting in the seats. We then started the meeting 15 minutes later when a few more people showed up.  During the meeting a hermana ...

 Ok thanks I think I am good with skype. They definitely did the right thing to win the Ginger Bread contest and win my vote. There were so many other variables that I had to take in. Everything went really well with Gabriel`s Baptism. He had is interview last Thursday and everything went really well. He then asked me to baptize him so Sunday morning before church we had the baptism and I got to baptize him. He was then confirmed in the sacrament meeting after. And there are always cats and dogs around but now we don`t sleep with the windows open wide enough for them to get in. Have fun with all the Christmas parties and Christmas stuff. I love you and I will talk to you soon. Love Elder Austin   Click to Read President Gwilliams weekly email

Yes I finally got a permanent companion and he isn´t training and this is the area I have been in so we just have to work together as missionaries.  We speak in all Spanish but I think he understands a little English from being in the mission and being with Gringo companions but I don´t know exactly because we always talk in Spanish.  He has been in the mission for about 21 months so he will be going home soon. Last week I uploaded some pictures that are shared with you and I sent one of the Christmas tree up. Last week with Gabriel we went over the baptism interview question with him and he still had a few doubts he wanted to resolve and so we decided to do a fast together to help him decide. On Monday we met with him after the fast and he told us that he wants to be baptized and the baptism is now planned for this Sunday. A few people have fake trees but there aren´t real trees here. Bowling looked like so much fun! I can´t wait to be bowling again with ...

This past week my companion was Elder Gomez he is from Concepcion Chile but he already has an assignment working in the office so I was just in the office for a lot of the time. The Other times when I had to go back to the ward to teach a lesson I went back with Elder Gomez and if he couldn´t do it I went with another missionary who was available.  I got to see Elder Kau a lot this week because he works in the office now and I actually got to go back with him to teach Gabriel the law of chastity. Things went fine in that lesson and since he is dating a member he should already know about it and so there was really only two options that could of come out of it.  But Everything went well and his baptism is planned for this Sunday.  All he has left now is the baptism interview. Yesterday I got my fourth companion in these last couple of weeks and he is Elder De León from Guatemala.  He is finally a set companion and I will be with him for more time. I am ...

Hey Mom! I know you want it to go back to summer already but I wish there was some snow here because it is getting hot.  This past week went well having a latino companion.  It was really good practice for my Spanish because I was forced to speak in Spanish the whole time.  Communicating really isn´t a problem but one thing that is hard about learning another language is developing a personality in that language.  Because I can speak and talk to people in Spanish but it just isn´t as fun because you are limited on the ways you can say things and don´t speak like a native.  So it wasn´t awkward because we couldn´t talk, just that is harder to have a personality. The bread here is very different than bread in the states. In the US everyone just eats sliced bread which isn´t very good and even then people don´t eat bread that often.  But here the world revolves around bread and you eat it for every single meal.  I can´t explain exactly how ...

 This week was a very interesting week on Saturday presedente Gwilliams called us and told us that Elder Kau was getting moved to the office this Tuesday for a transfer right in the middle of the change cycle. This was weird because I was expecting at least another 2 weeks with him. So he left for the the mission office yesterday and my new companion is Elder Tocigl from Santiago Chile.  He is going to be my companion for the next week but he is leaving to go serve in Las Vegas now that he has his visa. This was a surprising change especially because Elder Kau and I have become such good friends.  But I am exciting now to have a Latino companion that will help my Spanish a lot.  And I will be leading the sector now so that will be a great challenge. (I asked a question about the inactive members) That is very true about a lot of the inactive people here. There are some inactives that were baptized 20-30 years ago but never went to church after that and ...

Hola! One of my favorite experiences from this past week was when we did divisions and I got to lead an elder brand new to the field.  Last week we did divisions which means we switch companions for one day, I got to lead someone who had been in the mission for less than two weeks.  It was a really good day and I got to have the challenge of doing all the talking in Spanish and all the teaching.  We had a really good day and to end the day we had an important appointment with our investigator Gabriel.  I was a little worried for this lesson because I had to teach the plan of salvation and he asked a lot of hard questions and I wouldn`t have any support to answer them.  The lesson went really well and we invited him to be baptized and he accepted.   I know it wasn`t the most clearly taught lesson but that was just evidence that all teaching is really done through the spirit.  The spirit was there and that made it is so our weaknesses...

Hola. This week I had a great week with a lot of new experiences.  I had my first earthquake in Chile and that was a lot of fun, we were eating lunch when it started shaking and it lasted for 15-30 seconds.  All the buildings in Chile are built to survive earthquakes so everything was fine.  After everyone was telling us their stories of previous earthquakes.  We heard the news about president this morning and i´m glad that Rodney got some votes for president.  Did utah vote for Trump?  Haha i´m surprised that you think they cut my hair better in Chile I think they cut it just as bad if not worse. The rule change wasn´t from our mission president (about leaving the mission boundaries) it was from our area authority so we don´t know exactly why the rules change. But there is really nothing but soccer in our mission so that is what we are going to be doing. I got my package yesterday! Thank you it was like Christmas.  The beef jerky w...

Hey!  I hope you guys all had a fun Halloween!  Brookie sounds like she is a funny little girl.  I wish I get be there to witness to all these funny things but at least I taught her how to be a night time person. This week was a really good week and every week I enjoy being a missionary more.   It is hard to consistently find and teach our people so it is different people we teach almost every week.  One thing I really enjoyed doing this week was one night we did divisions with two other members so I went one way with Hermano Jamie and Elder Kau went somewhere else with someone else.  This was hard because I had to lead and talk to everyone and share everything but I really had fun doing it. I´m going to have a lot of practice speaking church in this ward I have already have had to give two talks and because there are so few people in the ward we pretty much have to speak every other week. Learning a new language is so much fun but it i...

Hey!  I hope you guys all had a fun Halloween!  Brookie sounds like she is a funny little girl.  I wish I get be there to witness to all these funny things but at least I taught her how to be a night time person. This week was a really good week and every week I enjoy being a missionary more.   It is hard to consistently find and teach our people so it is different people we teach almost every week.  One thing I really enjoyed doing this week was one night we did divisions with two other members so I went one way with Hermano Jamie and Elder Kau went somewhere else with someone else.  This was hard because I had to lead and talk to everyone and share everything but I really had fun doing it. I´m going to have a lot of practice speaking church in this ward I have already have had to give two talks and because there are so few people in the ward we pretty much have to speak every other week. Learning a new language is so much fun but it i...

This week I start my second change with Elder Kau at El Bosque so I will have at least another 6 weeks with him.  This past Sunday I spoke in church about faith and it definitely was a miracle I was able to speak for 20 minutes after preparing my talk that morning.  This week we started teaching someone named grabriel.  He is a really cool guy and the boyfriend of the oldest daughter of familia perez.  Familia perez is the only normal family we have in our ward.  Our first lesson went really well but there is also a lot of pressure too.  A lot of pressure on him to get baptized from familia perez and a lot of pressure on us to teach well. Today for p-day we went to corbatas and got 50cm completos (picture below). Love Elder Austin (Below is part of the letter Nathan sent me answering some of my questions.) Hola! Thank you again for the package but I haven´t got it yet but I won´t be able to find out again until our next district meeting ...

This past week we had a great week. We were able to find a lot of people through door contacts and that was great. And right now we have a lot of future investigators from our contacting. This weekend we had a lot of rain and that was great but the bad thing was that it discouraged a lot of people from coming to church. A few more details about our chicken killing last week. We killed the roaster with hermano Jamie is our best friend here and also our ward mission leader. We went to the his house and killed the chicken and we hung it up by its feet and started plucking it. We thought the chicken was dead but as we were plucking it it came back to life and started flapping everywhere. So we had to kill the chicken again and make sure it was really dead. We thought we were doing this with a experienced capable guy but it turns out hermano Jamie is just a crazy old man. I love being in Chile and the people. Love Elder Austin

This past week we had a great week.  Mostly because today for our p-day activity we got to kill, prepare and eat a chicken.  Everything else has been great as well.  Each day my Spanish gets a little better but I still don´t understand a lot and make a lot of mistakes but I love learning Spanish.  Chile lost to Ecuador last week (in soccer) and now they might not make it to the world cup.  That would be terrible because every since I got my call I have been ready to support them.   Last Sunday was stake conference and we listened to a lot of talks.  If I really concentrate I can understand most of what´s going on in the talk but it takes a lot of effort so eventually I end up zoning out.  My tastes have already changed a lot too because I now like tomatoes, mayo, avocados on everything with Coke to drink just like the chilenos.  I love being here and it is a interesting and amazing place.  Thank you all for your emails. El...

This week we had the great opportunity to listen to conference. I got to listen in conference English since I was still in my training and conference weekend is like a holiday for all the missionaries.  It was great after spending so much time teaching and helping others to get a chance to listen to our prophet and learn for ourselves.  One of the great talks I enjoyed was by elder Oaks and being a member missionary.  As a missionary there is a huge emphasis placed on teaching lessons with members and it is a great help to have members working with you. I encourage everyone to take elder Oak´s advice and try and do some missionary work as a member. Other than conference we had another normal week as missionaries. I enjoy everyday and each day has its different challenges. Love Elder Austin We didn't get the pictures Nathan was sending the past few weeks,  now he got it figured out so we got a lot from the past few weeks in Chile. ...

Hola! This week has been a pretty great second week in the field.  The language keeps getting a little better each day but everyday is different.  Some days I have some really good days and understand a lot and feel like I am getting it.  And other days I feel like I know nothing.  It really just depends on who I am talking to because a lot of chileanos do not speak very clear or talk very softly but if some can speak clear then I do alright.   I love being a missionary and getting to work and serve every day and see miracles every day. Love Elder Austin Since Nathan sent such a short letter this week I put some answers to questions I asked him... 1.  Have you gotten sick from the food? Hi mom! The food hasn´t made me sick at all and I do eat a lot of mayonnaise. They put mayo and tomatoes on most things. It hasn´t been too bad and I can feel my tastes changing.  I still don´t like mayo but I don´t mind it as much and I am almost...

This was my first full week in Chile and it was great!   It is just me and elder Kau living at a little house in Chile.  One of the biggest changes is not the kind of food but when they eat food.   Chileans only eat one meal a day that is comparable to an American meal, which is a little different then the usual 4 I normally ate.   All they really do is eat a big lunch and that is their food for a whole day, and then they have like a snack for breakfast.  Dinner doesn`t even exist. This does make it easy to eat whatever people give us for lunch because I am always starving.  I have to eat whatever I am given and they do not eat very healthy.  They eat a lot of really fatty meat and put a ton of oil on everything. Chile is an awesome place and I am serving in a part called El Bosque.  In Chile there are dogs everywhere, everywhere you step there are more dogs so I might get a little sick of dogs. My first week at churc...

I am now safely in Chile.  I managed to wait and do all my packing until right before the bus left to the airport but I made it onto the bus and to the airport in time.  We had about a 8 hour red eye flight that I was lucky and got about 6 hours of sleep, some people got nothing.  We got into Chile at 6:30 am ready for a full day of work.  We got picked up and went to the mission office where we had a bunch of orientation meetings.  After that we found out our trainers.  My trainer is Elder Kau from Provo Utah who graduated from Timpview a year before I did.  One important thing I did learn from our meetings is that Chileans are awesomely lazy and because of that our mission hours are from 7:30 to 11:30 instead of the usual 6:30 to 10:30 .  It is a good thing that I never got up for school before 7:30 or I would have just been building bad habits for my mission.  After lunch we went home and then spent the rest of the day worki...