An email from a while ago

TRANSFERSS!!!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow we're getting another batch of baby missionaries! It looks like I'll be staying in Grand Junction 1st ward for another 6 weeks and I'll continue to train! After this transfer I'll have been in this ward for just about 6 months! Out of all the missionaries in our district I've been in this area the longest haha it's probably because they dont want to expose the rest of colorado to me haha I'm excited though! I get to freeze my butt of on my bike for another 6 weeks in GJ's record cold weather woooooooohhoooo It's gonna be great! This ward hasn't had many missionaries stay over 4 months here so it's cool to have a chance to continue to build strong relationships with all of them! ANyways this week was pretty good! Elder Green got his stitches out so we were able to get back to work and ride our bikes really fast again! It was kinda crazy tho, we met with this guy who flagged us down a couple weeks ago and told us to come over. he lives alone in this really nice house thats full of all this really cool ancient stuff and lots of guns haha He let us hold all of these sweet rifles and shotguns and stuff. it was sweet! I guess he played semi pro basketball and wwas really successful when he was young so he got to retire when he was like 28 or something. and now he just invests in young singers and all that good stuff. He was a really nice guy but I could tell that even with all that awesome nice stuff he isn't really happy. something is missiing, and all he is trying to do is make up for what he doesn't have. It's sad to see, but hopefully he'll open up to the gospel, but I dont think he will. He's jewish and I think he wants to just bible bash! It's all good though! ANyways! ANother transfer is over! number 4 starts now, and it's gonna be the best one yet, just as long as i dont freeze. It's kinda funny we'll be riding around and its a nice 3 degrees and my eyes will start to water because its so cold, and then the water freezes to my eyes! Its cool! Take care everyoneand keep being cool and stuff!!

Another email from Pickle

HEY! I'm glad you liked the pictures, I guess I'll try to get more with me in them. It has been literally freezing the past week.... I guess we've had record snow and low temperatures for grand juntion! I guess the temp got down to -11 at one point... I thnk irvines record cold is like 50 or something haha It's been kinda crazy trying to get around with it all. A lot of the streets we ride on are side and back streets so they dont get plowed and the snow eventually turns into ice, which makes it almost impossible to ride on... my companion learned the hard way hahaha We were on our way to an appointment (...late) and I was riding pretty fast so i got pretty far ahead of him, and after a while I looked back and he was just walking his bike down the street. I thought oh he's probably just playing it safe, but then he leaned his bike against a fence and started taking off his jackett.... at this point I was what the heck man we're late lets go! So I started yelling from down the sstreet to see what he was doing, but he wasn't even responding and he was leaning over a little. so I started walking over there and as I got closer I could see that the snow around him was just covered in blood... then I was like oh crap. So I started running over to him and as I got there our bishop and his family just happened to be driving by and pulled over and helped us... its was nuts! there was also another member who was meeting with us to teach a lesson and he showed up too to help out. My comp had slipped on some ice and went face first into the ice, and cut his chin open. I could tell right away he would need stitches cause it was pretty deep haha he's scared of needles though so when we went to the urgent care he was a little freaked out, but he toughed it out and got 5 stitches inside and 11 on the outside. Looking back on it now it was pretty hilarious, but we were definitely being watched over when we had a member and the bishop and his family all pull up to help him out. but anyways... we're being very careful haha. I'm just getting over being sick and now elder green is stitched up, but we're hanging in there. one week left in the transfer, and we're looking to finish strong! There is some good that comes out of biking in the cold too though. we were riding home at like 9:30 one night and got stopped by a bunch of diifferent people. they were all amazed that we would be crazy enough to ride around in 0 degree weather in the middle of the night hasha I was a little amazed we were doing it too haha anyways I'm glad to hear that everyones doing well back home and you're all getting ready for christmas too. we have lights up in our place and a little tree too haha and thats so cool about JT too. I remember that litle guy haha he was awesome! I might need some more letter/writing stuff here pretty soon. I love and miss you all so much! Let me know how everything is going and merr christmas! Love Elder Austin

4 month mark!

It's crazy to think I've been out for 4 months already! I still feel like I just got out here. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving week! It was weird to be away form home, but we made the most out of it for sure! We weren't allowed to proselyte so we played football all day and ate a ton of food. It was sweet! We've just been doing our thing as usual, working hard and talking to all sorts of awesome/crazy people. We're coming up on transfers too, which is insane! I really hope I stay though cause transfer day is on December 17th and I'd be sooooo mad if I get moved to a new area the week before Christmas, but I guess its not up to me haha Anyways this week is shaping up to be another crazy one! Everyones saying that we're looking at 18 degrees one of the days this week with some snow too. They're also saying it'll be around 8 deg. at night..... For some reason they like putting the cali beach boy on the bike in the dead of winter! We'll see how it goes I guess. Hopefully everyones doing well back home. I miss you all so much! Thanks for the prayers and letters and all! They help out so much! Love Elder Austin

Pickle's B-day

Latest Email

There was a cool experience I had the other day. We went to go contact a referral that we received from a member in another ward and it seemed pretty solid. So we went to the door and he basically shut us down and said he wasn't interested and slammed the door on us. We started heading back to our bikes when he came out and walked his wife to her car (probably to protect her from us haha). All of the sudden I got this strong urge to try again. All I could think about was talk to this guy one more time and see what happens. So I ran after him before he could get inside and basically just bore my testimony and told him a little bit about the Book of Mormon. He was like a whole different person. He seemed interested and grateful for us, and he invited us back next Sunday. I'm glad I followed that prompting. Another cool thing happened on this last p day. We went with the zone leaders to Bangs Canyon, which I think is a part of the Colorado National Monument. We went on this hike that started off pretty cool, just kinda jumping up big rocks and stuff. Next thing I know we're going inside these caves and climbing straight up and out of these holes in the roof. It was so cool. WE kinda had a crazy weekend this past week. So it was our stake conference and Elder Ballard and Elder Hillier came so it was just hectic and insane. My comp and I and the Zone leaders had to be at the church at like 1:30 for some interviews with President Murdock and it was really busy. Anyways I was in my interview with President Murdock and after, I stepped out the door and Elder Ballard was right there. It was crazy! He came up to me and shook my hand and asked me where I was from and stuff. I'd never even seen an apostle before and it was pretty cool to shake his hand and talk for a bit. So then we took Mark Hillier out and it went really well. Conference was great too, and after the Sunday session, Elder Ballard had all the missionaries meet in a room and he gave us a kinda training thing it was really cool. Then after all of that went down we went back out and put 2 more people on date for baptism. It was a good end to the week.

The most recent email from Nick

Hey Everybody- My collar bone broke again :) just kidding it's fine. I've been working out pretty hard this past transfer and its doing fine. I'm glad you're all doing well back home! We had a good week this week. WE've been wokring hard and its paying off. Transfers is coming up next week... I'm alread through my second transfer... its crazy! It'll be interesting to see what will happen this time around. My comp and I helped cut up our members elk this week. He smoked some of it too, and I gave us a whole bunch of it. It's unreal how good it is. Some people say its really gamey but i love it! We also had a crazy thing happen to us this week. A lady from the newpspaper interviewed my comp and I and a few other sisters. A photographer came to one of our lessons too. We thought it would just be a small article in the back of the paper, but on sunday all the members at church brought us copies of it haha they put a picture of me and elder jacobson and a pair of sisters on the front page hahaha it's really wierd but cool too i guess. I'll be sure to send a copy home so you guys can check it out. It's actually a pretty cool article. We also had our primary program this sunday, and it was awesome! Love you all! keep writing and doing your thing! Take care! Check out the article: http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/a-higher-mdash-and-increasingly-younger-mdash-call Love Elder Austin

Elder Austin's email from the 21st

Ooh man we've been having a pretty good week! The leaves are changing colors and they're all over the ground. It's cool to bike through all of it. Sometimes the wind picks up like crazy and all the leaves start flying around like snow... it's really cool. We're about 5 hours away from Denver. We're what they call "over the hill" or "out west" its cool. Grand Junction is what they call I guess an elevated desert? It's still really high but it's kinda dry and stuff. It's been getting cold though. We we're riding around yesterday and I didn't bring my gloves so my hands were frozen and my face too haha! We'll probably start getting snow soon too. (if there is snow we have to ride our bikes anyways) The fall social/trunk or treat/ chili cook off was awesome! It's pretty big here. We had a ton of investigators and non members and less actives show up. They all enjoyed it too. Elder Jacobson and I must be doing something right cause we've been having a lot of good happen to us (knock on wood). We now have 3 investigators on date for baptism. One of them was this lady who came running up to us one day yelling "I missed my elders" she told us that it had been years since she'd met with missionaries and she wanted us to come over. So we did and taught and invited her to baptism. She said she's put it off for too long and that she knows its true. She's on date for November 23! We've had some pretty funny things happen to us lately. Elder Jacobson has eaten it on his bike like 3 times in really funny ways. He's fine though. And I crashed my bike into someones mail box haha I was trying to get dirt off my back tire while riding ( not the smartest thing) and I look up and there was a mail box right in front of me. The guy came out and was laughing and it turned into a good thing ,but anyways right after that we went to a lady’s house and we're sitting there as she forces us to eat ice cream and we start calling each other by the nicknames she gave us ( Jacobson- Prince William, and ME- Harry conick jr.) It was a pretty funny visit. I'm supposed to sing for them next time we're over there cause apparently I’m Harry Conick jr. haha- we did have spiritual experience too. For prep day we usually just play basketball. It’s awesome. We're lucky enough to have a zone with enough somewhat athletic elders in so we can have a decent game going. I've also played soccer and of course nerf. but we don’t do that one as much. We'll probably try to do some cool hikes and climbs soon too. I love you guys! Take care and let me know how you're all doing. SEE YAA Elder Austin