Austin's Missionary Journal

 Hey Everybody! So a lot  of  cool stuff happened this week. First off, this week on Wednesday, there was a world-wide missionary broadcast.  In  it, they changed quite a bit about the missions everywhere. The change is meant to make the schedule more flexible and adjustable to the needs  of  an area/mission, so now there's really going to be a lot  of  differences between missions  in  different countries and how they work. We only saw minor changes over here though. For one thing, we no longer do our planning for the day the night before. Instead we do it  in  the morning before we start studies. Now between 10 to 4, we work  in  proselyting time, as well as companionship study, language study, 12-week, and all that stuff at whatever time works best for us. With these changes, the church is trusting us with our agency to decide what will work the best for productivity. It's an interesting change. P-Days got cha...

  Hey Family! I'm glad to see everything back home is going good. The house is looking awesome, and all the little kids are looking as adorable as ever. I'm really glad to hear that Eric is active  in  his ward now, especially after this week. This week we've been spending a little time trying to visit less-active members, and  in  every single case I notice that these people aren't... joyful. They're either just content, or they just look like they could care less about the world. I know I wouldn't want to be like that. This P-Day a few members who are part  of  the Navy, took our zone on a tour  of  an Aircraft Carrier. It's the USS Nimitz, which is  in  port for renovations. It was super cool. I got a lot  of  pictures. It was really awesome to see a giant ship like that and see how the Navy lives on deployment, but I was the most interested  in  everything about the actual aircrafts onboard. ... Unfortunately...

Ha! I knew it was going to happen sooner or later! A new baby on the way! Congratulations, Ryan and Tia! I'm looking forward to seeing a new niece/nephew by the time I get home! Life sounds a bit crazy for you two right now, but I'm sure you'll be able to handle it all. I'll keep you guys   in   my prayers. This week was pretty fun, although I don't have a lot  of  time to email today. It's zone activity, and we've arranged with members to go to the naval base and take a tour  of  an aircraft carrier at port. It's exciting, I can't wait to see it! So, I'll tell about all the highlights this week: -Our mission president gave us permission to go see one  of  our investigator's basketball games. His name is Harrison, he plays for Olympic High School, and he's a super solid investigator. He's been taught everything, but his only problem is that his girlfriend doesn't want to marry outside  of  the Catholic faith, and Harrison is curio...

  Hey family! So I think I've got a better idea  of  what Silverdale is like. Let me tell you more about my area. The part  of  Silverdale we cover is on the outskirts  of  the actual city, and it's a decent sized city too. Our area is full  of  houses and apartments, more the residential part  of  town. The area itself looked a bit weird to me at first though because there were still so many trees around everything. It's kind  of  like they built the whole town  in  the middle  of  the forest, making sure they cut down as least trees as possible. So, there are a bunch  of  winding roads. And the area is very hilly, which makes for more windy roads, most  of  which seem to always go directly over the tops  of  the hills... which does not make me excited for park day this month. As for the people, most  of  the people out here are either Navy, or they work for the ...

Hey Everybody! I'm finally  in  the new area... well, technically it's two areas. We cover both the Silverdale 1st and Brownsville wards. It's made work a bit interesting as I'm trying to figure out which investigators and members are  from  which wards. Oh yeah, and it's still freezing cold up here. Hopefully it goes away by the time February comes. 'Till then I'll just have to bundle up. Monday: I packed up all  of  my stuff  in  Ocean Shores, made all the preparations for transfers, and sent off the package home with the stuff I don't need right now. By the way, has that package arrived yet? I hope it didn't get lost  in  the mail. That would stink if it did! Tuesday: Transfer Day! We left at about 10 to drive to Olympia to meet up with other missionaries going to Tacoma for transfers. Elder Devenberg picked up his new companion there, and since we had time to kill before we had to go to Tacoma, we had lunch at 5 Guys. Afterwards, I s...