Christmas Miracles

12.27.10
Palatka, FL

Dear Family and Friends~

Today my time is very short and so I have somewhat of a message written for you...But first, Skype was the best part of my Christmas day. It certainly was overwhelming seeing everyone and I think I felt a little dizzy at times. But, the greatest gift of Christmas was "seeing" my family and speaking with them. If I weren't to have received anything for Christmas, I would be 100 percent satisfied being able to talk with and see my family. Everything else was bonus! I was amazed to see how much everyone had grown. Surprisingly a lot of change can happen in little over a year! But I loved seeing everyone and seeing especially how old everyone seems to be getting. We have a beautiful family, that is for sure. I think a big reason for it is because we love each other so much. Pure love is a beautiful thing.

We had a great time with [the Tilton family]. Despite being away from home, they made our Christmas very close to home. Later that night, I did end up making German pancakes and I also made them some mapeline syrup (they had never tried it before). We made the pancakes in a glass pan and so it didn't rise quite as high as they sometimes get, but they turned out perfectly. Everyone who had some loved it. So I was happy! Funny though, I really didn't do a whole lot of work. I mostly read to them the ingredients and they prepared it. Teamwork is good. :) Sandy, Olivia, and Stephanie basically did all the work for me. Elder Lucas stayed in the kitchen with me and watched everything as it was prepared. I think he wanted to help, but there wasn't anything for him to do, unfortunately. I let them borrow the cookbook you made me and they are going to take some time to write down all their favorite recipes and then give it back to me when they are done. I had a lot of fun being able to make them something good. I think later on in the week, seeing as how I bought all the ingredients, I will make them a skor bar cake. Fun stuff! Later that night, after the German pancakes, we played Uno, but the catch was, there was only one winner and everyone else who lost got to enjoy some delicious "Every-Flavor Jelly Bellies'! That was great! The worst I got was the moldy cheese jelly bean, and it was so gross! I'll have to tell you more about it another time, but let's just say we had a lot of fun!

Christmas Eve was spent at the Strickland's home. We had a great time being able to share a meal with them and then to hear all of their Christmas traditions and stories. I was the only one to wear my Christmas pajamas over there, but the other Elders wore shorts and sweats. I felt to keep the tradition alive... and I shared with them our family tradition of the Christmas Eve pajamas and the letters to Santa Claus and they seemed to think that was pretty fun. They were very kind to us to have us over, but they went even further and made sure to get each of us a couple presents and a week's worth of food and snacks. I couldn't believe it when I saw it, but I was so grateful for their thoughtfulness. They, every week without fail, invite us over for dinner, and are always doing everything they can to be there for us and to serve us. They have a neat family and I enjoy being around them. Perhaps I'll have to make them a skor bar cake as well. :)

At [another member's] family home we spent the time eating and hanging out. They don't have much, but what they do have, they offer freely. They have been members of the Church for little over a year and they truly seem to enjoy being members. they both admit to having a lot to learn, but they don't let it stop them in their pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, [the mom] found out earlier this month that she may only have a few years to live [because of a complication from a previous surgery]. She is doing all she can to maintain a positive attitude and we make sure to stop by as frequently as possible to help keep the spirits up within their home. Despite their difficult circumstances and trying times they have received the blessing of many miracles this December. Elder Lucas and I, at the beginning of the month, gave [the mom] a blessing and promised her that she would be provided for in all things this Christmas. I don't know how it all worked out, but Heavenly Father confirmed the blessing several times over as miracle after miracle flooded that family. Their lights were about to be shut off because the bills weren't paid and as they were walking back from the tax place a lady stopped by and picked them up and gave them a ride back to their home. As they rode together the woman found out that she and [the mom] shared similar health problems, and as a result decided that she would support their family this Christmas. She dropped them off at home, then went to the electric company and paid off their bill. On top of that she went out and bought gifts for all of their family. At one point they were about to be evicted (the father is on disability and relies heavily on that payment as well as social security for funding...he does lawn care service for a living, but it doesn't provide much) because they couldn't afford the bill and the Church stepped in and footed the bill for them. [The mom] couldn't afford her expensive medication and so the doctor taking care of her made it possible for her to get it for free. On Christmas day a man and his wife showed up at their door and said to them that after much praying, they decided this Christmas that they were going to give someone a Merry Christmas by going out and buying them many gifts they wouldn't otherwise have. They prayed about which family they should go to, flipped open the address book, and it so happened that the Lord wanted them to go to the this home. They drove past the first time and saw the Christmas lights in their window and figured they must have picked the wrong family. So they returned home and prayed again, and sure enough, they landed on this family's residence again. After searching their family out a bit, they discovered what each of them would need for Christmas and went out and got it for them. Mind you, this family lives all the way across the river, so they absolutely did not know each other beforehand. I was amazed to be able to witness so many miracles in their family, and to be honest, that was also one of my favorite Christmas presents: being able to be a small part of the many miracles they had!

I am out of time, and I guess I will just have to share my journal thoughts next week. Thank you Mom and Dad. I love you both and am grateful for all that you do for me. Please tell Aaron, Billy, and Kendall that I love them too. Then tell the rest of the family that I love them. Also, tell Gramps that I'm going to take his funny business seriously. :) He'll get it.

I love you and I'll talk to you next week!

Love~

Austin

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Palatka, FL

Dear Home~

Sometimes I have to wonder at the addressing of the family I make at the beginning of all my emails: "Dear Family", "Dear Home", "Dear Mom, Dad, Aaron, Billy, Kendall, Family and Friends"--whatever, I guess I feel it necessary to make sure everyone knows that I'm thinking about them, otherwise I feel like I'm leaving my loved ones out.

Not a lot has changed since last week, except for the necessary abolishing of milk from my diet. I am sad to lose milk, especially since I've always loved cereal, glasses of milk with just about anything, and so on down the line... I also wonder what that might mean about things that are dairy products, like ice cream? It is somewhat disheartening to think about because I love ice cream. But hey, every once in a while will never hurt, and even at that, it is a good thing to maintain a healthy diet. I thought about it earlier: I wonder if those with allergies are more prone to sickness than those without? It made sense to me. I think if I remove the allergens (or in my mind impurities) from my body through maintaining a healthy/allergy free diet, my immune system will be strengthened and I will get sick less often and possibly have more energy than ever before. To me, it seems like a significant alternative. If all I have to give up are the things that harm me so that I can be free from bad health, then I am happy to be healthy--the other things I can leave alone, I am sure if you really wanted to think about what I just said, you could take it to a deeper and more spiritual level, but I will leave that to you to find out. :)

To be brief, on Christmas Eve we will be over at the Strickland's celebrating the night before [Christmas] with their family. Christmas day we will be at the Tilton's--mind you, once again, there are many Tilton's in our ward... this is the family with five children. They've asked us to come over nice and early so we could have breakfast with them and also open presents! Fun!! So yes, the members are more than taking care of us, they are making Christmas as close to home as they possibly can...and they do a great job!

The mission Christmas conference was a lot of fun. We all enjoyed it. It did last literally the entire day, but it was well worth the time. I also appreciated the surprise letter. Thank you and I love you too. :) I have the Christmas packages and they are awaiting Christmas day to be opened. I gave Elder Lucas his present and he seemed excited for more gifts! He says to tell you thanks. :)

School...I'm not sure what I think yet. Ugh... why is this such a difficult choice, I don't know, but it is. I know what I want to do, and that is to not start the second I get home, but whether or not that is the best thing, I still haven't decided. I guess we'll have to discuss it more Saturday! :)

I think the only black mold I have seen so far is the black mold in the shower and on the shower curtain. I will be removing the mold TODAY! And the shower curtain. Gross... mess has finally found its way into disgusting and frustrating profile in my mental storage department of useful and useless information. Of course, I haven't perfected the system yet, so there are still many useless things that need removing, but I'm sure I'll figure out the correct algorithm and have them discarded as soon as possible. :) And the cockroaches here, for the most part, seem to be fairly small. The biggest I've seen has been about the size of an almond. Either way, it is still gross, disgusting, and frustrating.

Anyhow, my time is past being out. I love each of you and can't wait to call home on Saturday! :)

Merry Christmas!

Love Always~

Austin

Things are looking up in Palatka

Dear Family & Friends~

First things first...President Barry is cutting down on our time for emails, so my emails are going to be shorter from here on out. Secondly, our phone calls home--no longer than 40 minutes is what we've been told.

When it comes to emails, we have been asked only to write to our immediate family and no one else. For me, that is a tough one because I do get a lot of emails and I enjoy being able to write back so long as time allows, but now things are different. When it comes to letters, however, I am sure that I can write home to just about anybody, but not email.

Elder Murray is now a Zone Leader and Elder Preator is now a District Leader (now serving where Elder Murray left).

Last Tuesday I had the opportunity of interviewing someone for baptism. Her name is Elizabeth. She was baptized on Friday last week and confirmed on Sunday. The interview itself went well, but who am I kidding, interviewing someone for baptism is definitely a different experience. This week I will be doing another interview!

Elder Lucas and I have helped one of our investigators to set a baptismal date, so on the 26th of this month Kerry will be getting baptized. He even went so far as to call his friend (who recently went and took out his endowments: recent convert of a few years) and asked him to baptize him. It is great to be able to teach him and to help him progress in the gospel... He is probably in his late 50's or early to mid 60's. He had a stroke several years back, so he has difficulty walking and functioning normally, however he is very resilient and is unwilling to quit on himself. It is exciting to teach him and I can't wait for his baptism. It will be a great day for him!

...tell everyone that I love them and that I hope they are doing well. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and can't wait to call home in the coming week and a half. The work is speeding up in Palatka and we are finding more work to do than before. We are building up the trust of the ward surely but slowly. Great news however, our bishop wants us over to have dinner with him and his family next Monday. We have also had a few of the members come to us wanting for us to come to their homes to work with their less-active or part-member families. So we must be doing some things right!

Take care everyone.

I love you all.

Love~

Austin

ps. I am also allergic to wheat

pps. I do believe that we have black mold. Funny thing is, every single apartment I have been in we have spent time remodeling and cleaning the entire mess that other missionaries leave it in. Ugh...the apartments can be so disgusting sometimes that I'm afraid to walk on the carpet. This apartment is infested with cockroaches as well (but I'm not allergic to them thank goodness!). This must be paybacks for all the messes I have made growing up. Now I understand the frustration of MESS and failure to clean up after oneself!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Allergies, Ingrown Toenails, and Warts...Oh My!!!

Palatka, FL

Dear Family and Friends~

Well, I guess it has been a fun past few weeks! Who knows, I probably am allergic to Palatka. The doctor prescribed me Singulair to help me deal with Palatka and its air pollution/pollen/whatever else it is problem. Surprisingly, I am allergic to both cats and dogs. I am allergic to milk, peanuts, all sorts of different grasses, a couple different types of mold, and even egg whites! None of the allergies are nearly life threatening, however, all of them are somewhat of a nuisance; more especially the grasses. It explains a lot, though. I remember doing conditioning for football and baseball out in the fields, and I swear, I would run out of breath faster than anyone else! And I knew I was in the best shape!! That always drove me insane, so I would run harder so I could push through it, but of course, that didn't ever help--well, I got in better shape...but I still couldn't breathe! I thought maybe it was asthma, but I never wanted to believe that, mostly because I never wheezed. Unfortunately, out here, on occasion I will hear myself wheeze, but I'm quite sure it has nothing to do with asthma, rather it is probably allergies. Go figure. The doctor gave me a prescription for Albuterol, but I don't really want to fill it because I really don't think I have asthma--Sister Barry said I should anyways...but I don't know...

Ingrown toenails...I can't say they have been too enjoyable, but I will say that I am fairly certain I have had these ingrown toenails since before my mission. I know that I've dealt with them as I played football, but I never did anything about them....but when all was said and done, the operation itself was relatively painless and the shots taken to the left big toe weren't nearly as painful as I thought they would be. One of the doctors (i.e. one of the students watching) commented that I was taking the shots very well, better than he had seen in any other "victims"... I have a couple others that I may have to get removed. Yes, you heard right, a couple. Luckily, there was only a wart on my left foot...and it was attacked with some type of acid and all I have to do is watch over it with wart (chap)stick and it should go away. The piece of glass [in my foot] was easily removed. It was so small I was amazed that it was causing that much discomfort...

Before I continue, I keep forgetting, but will you please tell the Rowberry's thank you for the Christmas package. Also, the Relief Society sent me a package as well, so will you please announce to them my gratitude for their thoughtful gift and tell them I am grateful to have heard from them. And finally, tell the youth and the youth leaders of the ward thank you for sending me letters and treats.

On another note, I am grateful you were able to talk with Sister Barry. I love both President and Sister Barry. Both of them are so loving and thoughtful and they are a great example to me as to what person I would like to become. They see us for who we are and what we can become and they don't judge us if we're not there yet, rather encourage and inspire through loving words and a loving example. They both said in a recent mission-wide conference they consider each of us their children and I told them in a letter to President Barry that I was honored to be considered such. Over the past few weeks I've been able to talk with Sister Barry quite a few times, mostly because of my sickness and injuries, and she has been so helpful. She always wants to know what more she can do to help and never fails to follow through. President Barry is the same way. They weren't sent here to judge us, but they were sent here to love us and to love the people and to help all of us become better. I trust them both and I love them both so much. It will be sad to leave when it is time to come home because I will have enjoyed being able to serve with them a little over the last half of my mission, but I won't ever forget them. Hopefully I'll always be able to keep in contact with them.

Transfers are in, Elder Lucas and I are staying together and so are most of the elders in the district. Elder Preator is leaving and is becoming a District Leader and Elder Johnson is going somewhere else as well. But that is all. Elder Murray is leaving Mandarin and might be moved from District Leader to Zone Leader, so that would be really neat! Other than that, our zone and district is pretty much the same.

Missionary work is progressing in a better direction than before. Elder Lucas and I are finally to the point where the ward semi-trusts us. Of course there are a few who always support the missionaries...however, there is still quite a bit of mending to be done. We're working on it though, and in the end, it is all going to work out. I love serving the people here and although I'm still working on getting to know each of them, I feel like I'm developing good relationships with many of them. Hopefully before I leave the area things will be worked out. At this moment we have a few people we are somewhat teaching--more or less we're taking it nice and easy with them. We are spending a lot of time getting to know them and showing them we care so we can earn their trust and teach them at their own pace. It is a little difficult because often it is nice to have instant results, but that...we are not getting, and sometimes I get frustrated. I think my frustrations lie more in this department, however: who is going to be disappointed with me because I don't have many people to teach and those I am teaching are moving slowly? Fear and doubt--great friends. Right?! The fear of disappointing others always seems to find its way creeping up underneath my skin. I continually have to remind myself to "blast down" the negative, like Uncle Mike told me. This scripture has frequented my mind so often lately that I am surprised that I still fall in the trap as many times as I do:

"Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against Him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually. But behold, that which is of God inviteth and enticeth to do good continually; wherefore, every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve Him, is inspired of God." -Moroni 7:12-13

So it comes down to figure out which voice it is that is talking to me, and then to act on the one that is inviting me to do good, and the one that tells me loving things, rather than the negative and accusing voice that loves to jump in and wreak havoc inside my mind. I guess the solution is this: work hard, be happy, love everyone, and all things will work out in due time. :)

Before I go, I want each of you to know that I love you and that I am grateful to be a part of our family. I hope all of you have a wonderful week. Tell Dad to enjoy his business vacation to China for me. :)

Love~

Austin