Snail mail letter 10-1-15

Alex’s latest letter, 

Snail mail, received 10-1-15

Hey!

I am going to do this the old school way like I said in the email.  I tried to update to the new software for my ipad.  The new updates prevent me from rotating my screen. I have called a few places that fix broken cellphones and tablets and they gave me a rate that wasn’t worth spending.  I thought it might be a good bet until they told me that it wasn’t guaranteed.  So I prayed about it and I am going to play it safe and not take the gamble, so whatever you did before to get me and ipad, you will probably have to do it again.  *Mom note: we got his new ipad this week and have sent the receipt to the mission office.  Hopefully this takes care of the ipad issue and Alex keeps it FAR away from water. 

This week was really busy, we had a lot going on.

Tuesday

On Tuesday we had a district meeting. This is where we meet to discuss business items and have a little training.  We were looking at our district’s numbers/  My area had 80% of the numbers, which wasn’t good.

Wednesday

Our teaching pool is very small. This last week we only had like three scheduled lessons.  So we went out and are trying to find some really solid people to teach.  We found a really good one.  We tracted into her and she was very familiar with the church.  Her neighbor is a member so we are going to try to have the neighbor attend the lesson.  Also, we are going to try to have the lesson in the member’s home because that is such a better experience for the investigator because it will be more likely to lead to a baptism.  The members are really the most important tool.  All the referrals that we have gotten have been people who are golden (really receptive and ready to convert) and are ready for baptism.  Later this day we taught a recent convert, Alex T.  He is hard to teach because he is a high functioning kid, but he has a little mental disability.  In order to teach him, we have to simplify it down as well as keep him interested.  We have to break up the lessons and teach him slower than the other people, but it is good to go slow.  It is better he understands it than that we get through a lesson.

Thursday

Thursday we had a long day of visiting people.  We were given a large list of people the bishop wanted us to go see.  We were trying to see them before Friday.  We have been doing that for a couple of days now.  We have the privilege of going on splits with our ward mission leader.  (He is the big guy in the picture, the really tall one.)  We wanted to stop by a lady who we visited once.  We haven’t been able to go by and see her again because she is having some problems with her health.  IT turns out that we felt like we should go see her and she was actually going to call us to ask for some help doing things around the house. So we felt the prompting to go there and she needed our help.

Friday

We had an awesome Friday!  We started out with Crystal’s baptism.  The other set of Elders called us and said they had to move her date to Friday.  So, we headed over to a baptism.  She was so nervous.  I don’t think I have ever seen anyone so nervous.  There really weren’t very many people at the baptism.  We had only a few from our ward and only a few from their ward.  That is partially because of the weird time it was at.  In the end it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  She doesn’t do well in large crowds, so it was actually good that not very many people were there.  It was a great baptism.  Her longtime friend baptized her and as well he was the one who had led us to her. We were also able to participate in the circle where she received the Holy Ghost.  Super Cool!  After that, we did some tracting in some apartments.  We ended up finding two new people to teach within five feet of each other.  That was a pretty sweet way to end the day, picking up some new gators.  Those people we found came after some crazy opposition.

Saturday

We met another really good potentially golden investigator.  He is a really nice guy and was willing to have us come back and teach him.  We also met this way crazy old lady.  She had some Jehovah’s Witnesses come by and she thought they were Mormons. She asked us if the book they left was ours and it wasn’t.  We told her it was a Jehovah’s Witness Bible.  She then said this: “Jehovah’s Witness! I thought they were Mormon!  I have to give this to Goodwill!” (That is their version of the DI) So at this point we were laughing because she doesn’t like them, but she loves us.  It was so funny!

Sunday

We had lots of meetings and attended Crystal’s confirmation.  We never have a lot of time on Sundays to do anything because of meetings and church.

I hope next time I can get my Ipad back and don’t have to write another letter.  Hope you can read my scribbles!

Love Elder Alex Astle