Highlights from his letters....

October 14-November 4, 2013:

At MTC in Provo, Utah

*The MTC is amazing! We learn so much and it's absolutely incredible!

*I'm starting to realize how important things are to me (like my lovely family)!

*My companion and roommates are super cool! My companion's name is Elder Salter and he's from Alabama! He has a super awesome southern accent! My other two roommates are Elder Van Hordan and Elder Feron, they are both great elders too. Elder Salter and I bonded right away! He is a big time football player (since he's from Alabama) and played strong safety (just an FYI). He's a short, shy kind of guy but once you get to know him he really gets comfortable, kinda like Austin!

*Today I was called to be a zone leader (it's day 2). They said they really liked my smile, so I figured I should accept the calling.

*I think I've grown more in the last week than in the last 10 years of my life! (referring to the MTC) It's amazing how much Heavenly Father loves us and how much he did/does for us! I've been highlighting and starting to memorize various scriptures to try to best prepare myself and it's going well so far! The MTC is a very emotional place...I seriously have been surprised at how hard it is here. I've been kinda the therapist while out here and it's been incredible at how hard it is for some people to handle the little sleep, intense classes, and being away from home. I haven't been dying, but I'm not gonna lie, it is hard. I've been working hard to make sure everyone is okay and I think it's been working well so far. It's been one week and it's gone by super fast, yet I feel like I've been here for 3 months! I know that doesn't make sense but that's exactly how it is!

In Australia now....

*I have really started to realize how incredible of a man dad is. He does so much for us that we don't even realize or give him credit for. I hope one day I can become half the man that he is! Maybe not the bishop part though, that doesn't look like fun to me. I'll let him just take that.

*I will always stay strong in the church. I couldn't imagine life without it.

*I have a super cool companion right now! His name is Elder Coats and he is always happy! He is from Utah and doesn't have an Australian accent yet, he's only been out 3 months and yet he's training me! He's a pretty great guy!

*Something really funny happened two days ago, Elder Coats and I were jogging and as we were jogging we said hi to this guy walking on the side of the road. He stopped us and we talked about 5 seconds then out of nowhere he asked us if we wanted some ecstasy imported from Europe! We obviously said no, but that was the first time I've ever been offered an illegal drug by someone who was actually serious!

*Something spiritually significant that happened as a first for me this week was going tracting! Wow, that is no fun! Getting rejected again and again is a lot tougher than I expected. But anyways, so we decided to be done tracting and we started walking back to the car. As we were walking I got this feeling that we should stop by one more house before we leave. So I convinced my companion to stop at this one last house and I promised we could be done after that. We walked to the door and a nice aboriginal woman answered the door, I'd guess she was in her 50's. She tried telling us no, but right before she closed the door, Elder Coats asked why she didn't want to talk about religion. She told us she had her own beliefs that she believed very strongly in. Well we got her to talk to us for about 45 minutes and we even set up another appointment with her. It was so cool to have that experience where I followed the spirit and went to that last door and then my companion followed the spirit and didn't let her tell us no. It was really cool.

*Something that I noticed which is really funny to me is how little we, as Americans, know about Australians, yet Australians know a decent amount about Americans! The only thing that I find funny is that they all think we love fish and chicken for some odd reason. Luckily I love chicken, but I'm not a huge fan of their fish. It's not terrible, but I'd rather eat something else.