Season 3 Episode 4, November 23, 2015

Dear family and friends,

Kelsey, please give me updates on silver rush and get as involved as you can.  (Mom note: Silver rush is a December only service based fundraiser that RHS does every year.  Each year it gets bigger and better. Alex participated almost daily in it his last two years of high school.)  For thanksgiving we are going to a members house. We are not sure what the whole day will be but, it won't be a

effective day. We are not going to knock doors. People here are rude

enough. Haha not a good idea. 

Tuesday

We were on exchanges with another set of elders. I stayed in my area and

Elder Moore  went to the other. Tuesday was a pretty crazy day. To start off we went to visit an investigator. Then we knocked a few doors right by the investigators. We met a way nice lady. She wasn't interested at first, but we just kept the conversation going. Then she let us in and we taught her. It was awesome. Then we decided to street contact in the cold and rain. We found out really fast that no one is on the street when it's cold and rainy. It was a really crazy rainstorm. The rain was going in my face matter what way I was going. After that we drove down to dinner. I don't know the area well enough so I was trying to find parking. We found some at a Wendy's. When we left dinner we didn't remember how to get to the Wendy's. So we were running through the streets of Portland. We finally asked a guy who turned out to be from another country where Wendy’s was. He told us how to get there and after jumping over the largest puddle in the world we found the car. We had a good laugh about that.

Wednesday

Nothing too crazy happened. We teach at a prison. I am not cleared yet to go in. (Mom: “YIKES!!!”) So I get to hang with the Spanish missionaries and Elder Moore goes in with a member. We were on the street and talking to a guy. Who was a really angry gang banger. He didn't want to talk so I offered him a picture of Jesus. He then was even more angry saying, “Jesus doesn't look like that.!” Haha it was the most memorable moment. He told Jesus was black not white and didn't have long hair and the picture makes him look like a hippie. After that I laughed pretty good.

Thursday

We had our mission tour. There was a member of the seventies here. He was really good. We taught at Concordia University. We taught a class {of like 15) the restoration. It was a hard lesson because it was presentation style. No one was interested in what we had to say. It was a cool experience but hopefully it started a spark.

Friday

We didn't have that cool of a day.

Saturday was awesome

We took a member out for a couple hours and then found a way awesome

investigator. But the highlight of the day is Saturday night. We have been teaching this part member family. They are our most promising people to teach. We have been planning on how we could help them progress. The wife is a less active and the husband is a non member. This guy is like a hard guy. He is 6-5 with tattoos everywhere. He has snake bites. He looks like he could be in the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has long hair and is built. We were teaching them the plan of salvation. We we're talking about Adam and Eve and how the fall was planned and they were not  sinners. He started to cry, but we kept going. He left the room because he was crying so hard. It was funny because while this

was happening, the ward mission leader was with us and was reading the

scriptures that we were reading. He looked up and saw that they had left and asked what happened, he had missed it all while reading the scriptures. We told him that he had felt the spirit. While this was all going on we both felt so strong to invite him to baptism. We put him on date for the December 19th. He said that date was already in his mind. We are planning on taking them to the temple

visitor center. They will love it. And we have special permission to

do that. What a cool lesson. And what a great experience.

✌Elder Astle 👊

Apparently they found the Weiner Mobile and Alex had to have some pictures!

Season 3 episode 3, November 16, 2015

Dear friends and family,

This week was a little rough.  We have worked hard and didn't really have that much success. We are teaching some really solid people. We went 0-7 at church this week. We did the same last week and the gators we are teaching said they would be to church. A few of them committed themselves by saying we are definitely going to be at church. Then they weren't there so that was kinda a rough go. We talked to a bunch of people that don't want any part of us this week.  Nothing super miraculous happened this week. 

Tuesday we taught this part member family. They want to come back and have done everything except come to church. We think we can get the father put on date for baptism. We are going to pound church attendance. 

Wednesday we had exchanges. I actually enjoyed it so much. I was with the Spanish missionaries for a day. We talked to some people who were not interested but they were nice. That is a thing with the Hispanics I have met,  they are nice and friendly even though they don't want to listen to our message. We also talked to this guy who was on cloud nine. He was high and wanted us to smoke with him. So we tried to leave him with a Book of Mormon, but he wouldn’t take it. I can understand abut 15% of the Spanish being spoken. That is basically the week.  Sorry it is a small letter, but it wasn't very exciting week. 

Love,

Elder Astle 

(Alex said that he could only receive packages through the mission home, He is in an apartment building, so packages aren’t safely sent to his physical address.  Also, if he is emergency transferred somewhere, the package will get to him if sent to the mission home.)

Notice the caption: Save Portland from Hell...with praying hands.  

Hmmm......

Alex loves Star Wars, this guy had to make his day.  a unicycle riding, fire breathing bagpipe playing Darth Vader!!!

yup, found basketball....

Season 3, episode 2 sent November 9, 2015

This week definitely was a lot better then the last week. No last minute transfers.

Tuesday-

We started off the day doing knocking. Then we got a call from the hospital to go visit somebody. We thought we would be giving a blessing. We headed over there and found out she was in the ICU. We found out this lady had pneumonia. She was really crazy. She told us her dad was killed when she was a kid. She said that he told her just barely to go build a home in Salt Lake City. So she didn't want a blessing. She just wanted to talk. She only wanted to talk for a couple of minutes then said, “Bye, see you in Salt Lake”. It was a little weird. Later that day, around like 7:50 pm, we were knocking doors.This is not a good time to knock on doors. We went to try to stop by a former investigator’s house. We noticed he had been dropped because of not keeping commitments. We like going to formers because they are usually more cordial then the rest of the people. So this guys wife is a less active member. She wanted us to come by... we found out later. We were walking up to the apartment, it was one that locks you out and you

have to call a number to get let in. We were just going to see if we could be let in. As we were walking in, we saw two people that were outside. The lady stopped us, and said we are Heather and Michael R. They were the people we were going to go stop by to visit. They were headed out and we caught them right before they could leave. She said it was too good timing. We went up to their apartment and talked to her a little bit. We answered some of her questions and it was a good chat. The husband Michael left to another room. So we didn't teach him anything. Then later in the week he texted us and asked us when our next appointment with them was. We said it was for Friday at 8. He thought we were coming on Thursday. Then he told us he was reading from the BoM and would be at church. That was so cool. What a blessing! What a way to finish off the night.

Wednesday-

Wednesday started out with a lesson scheduled with a new investigator. We had to bring a member to the lesson because it was a single lady. The lesson fell through but we still brought the member with us. While we had him with us we took him tracting. It was very unsuccessful tracting experience. We had another lesson with a guy right after the cancelled lesson. We had talked to this guy on the street a couple days ago. We set up a lesson with him but when we got to the lesson, he wasn't home. His wife was home and since we had the member with us we were able to go in and teach her. They are honest speakers of truth. We taught her the restoration and she loved it. None of this could've happened if we didn't bring the member.

Thursday-

Thursday we were on exchanges with the traveling assistants. I had a pretty cool experience this week. We are doing a lot of finding people by relying on the promptings of the Spirit. We prayed for where we were to be lead. My companion got a prompting to park and walk up this road, which we did. I got a prompting to turn left, so we headed left. It was a little ways down the road before there was finally a guy walking down the road. This is again at a time in the day where no one is out and it is the dark. We talked to this guy. He isn't a new investigator but

we planted a seed of faith with him. It is so cool finding by the spirit. The rest of the week wasn't all that good. It was kind of slow.

Love to you all,

✌Elder Astle 👊

Season 3 Episode 1, 11-2-15

Dear family and friends,

This week started off really weird. Tuesday we had a bunch of lessons that were in a row. They all canceled on us. It was really stupid. We had four lessons scheduled and all four cancelled.

Wednesday

We had a really good transfer meeting. I got a lot out of President Taylor's message. My new companion is Elder Moore. He is from St. George. He is a cool guy we like each other so far haha, JK. We are pals. We found out that there were going to be four missionaries in the ward. So they were going to live in our little dinky apartment. So the whole day we were getting set up and placing bunkers.

Thursday

Me and Elder Moore don’t have a car. We are in a car share. The other missionaries, Elder Barton and Thomas, have the car. We talked to so many people. Oh yeah, our area book is empty. So I know how that goes. It is just like last time. We need to do some finding. So that is what we did. You can't teach unless you find. So we went out and found a couple of people who we could teach.

Friday

This was a crazy day!  Elder Thomas got ET (emergency transferred???) out to another Ward so we had to work that out. So that consumed the day because we had to work that out. So that means we were in a tripanionship. That consumed most of Friday.

Saturday

Saturday we were together in a tripanionship. We had to do some area book work.  Once we went out, we tracted a neighborhood. It was raining so hard. Like it was raining ridiculously hard. We were all drenched in a matter of minutes. We only had part of the day today because we had to go in after dinner. We were not supposed to be out doing work after dinner because that's when the crazies come out. So, after dinner we headed back inside and got to chill there the rest

of the day.

Sunday

Sunday was another crazy day. Elder Barton found out he was getting ET’d. So we had to figure that out and that was kind of a crazy day. Fast and testimony meeting was interesting. The members in this word are weird. They are really, really, really weird. The testimonies were a little bit strange. It wasn't false doctrine but it was close. So, we decided we have a lot of work to do.

I will get more pictures next time. This is been a crazy week.

✌Elder Astle (fistbump)