Week #55 August 23, 2017

Today for pday I went to president gwilliams house with everyone from my group and we got to hang out at his super nice house for the afternoon. 

This week was good, we had several good lesson with our Haitian investigators that we have found. Gilot and Claudet are the two of that group of Haitians I told you about last week that have progressed the most, and both of them attended church last week.  We also have this other investigator named Rodolfo he is 20 and has been meeting with the missionaries for a while but has never been baptized, but this last week he got a new job where he only has to work Monday to Rriday and will be able to attend church more regularly.  He also attended this past Sunday.

These Haitians that we have speak pretty good Spanish, a lot of them lived in the Dominican Republic for some time so they speak good.  But there are some that don´t speak as well and it is harder to teach them.  It is kind of like the no child left behind thing, we can´t really get through much, we hold back and teach at the pace of the person who speaks the least amount of Spanish. It can be a hard balance to strike something between teaching to material and making sure everyone is understanding. 

The Chileans don´t exactly love the Haitians or all the other people that are coming into the country. Sometimes they take advantage of the Haitians,  a lot of times because they can´t speak Spanish very well.  Now instead of renting a house to a group of Haitians the Chileans rent each room individually and each person pays for his room.  The houses have like 12 small bedrooms that have room for a mattress and room to put there stuff in the corner and room for the door to open, and then they charge over 200 dollars for that room.  Then everyone that rents in the house shares 1 bathroom and 1 kitchen.  There are mostly Haitian and Venezuelans that come here.  The Haitians are super receptive though, they are people that are genuinely looking for the truth and have a lot of respect for the missionaries.  They are still normal people with their problems and doubts but they have a great desire to learn the truth. 

I did hear a little bit about the Ecplipse and that is awesome that you guys went up to Idaho to see. Its not supposed to happen for like another 100 years right? 

And wow the Timpview attendance policy sounds terrible. I am so glad I made it out before they changed that. You know I think if they did that I would pull my kids out of that school ;)

Right now I am very happy with my mission. I will admit that there have been times when I haven't been as happy with it but now is a good time.

I feel pretty fluent with Spanish.  I will be able to perfect it a little more over this next year because there are still a lot of things I could learn but I can understand, speak and write pretty good. 

If you find any good talks you can keep senting me them. And if you want some black nike socks would be great! 

Right Now I am reading the new testament for my study, because I don´t really think I have ever read all of it. 

Thank you for everything.  I want you to know that I know this church is true and I love being a missionary.

Love Elder Austin