Things here are going great!!

So I hope everything is doing alright with you!!! Things here are going great!! Just can't get anybody to come to church so please pray for us!

Elder Herrera left me a 35 dollar hammock and we hung it up and every time I lay in it with my coke I feel like I am on vacation hahaha! Ate lots of Pupusas with Elder Hallman and we haven't had a single problem with Spanish, we just need to shoot up our vocabulary A LOT!

This week I have been the most tired but besides that everything is going good!!! It has been raining sugar cane pieces because they are burning them and they are getting everywhere!!!! It is annoying! It's still crazy hot, I don't think the weather changes here but besides that everything is going good!!

I started eating froot loops in the morning and starting to eat breakfast and I feel a lot better throughout the day haha. But besides that this was a pretty normal week.

But I'm really excited to go to the Temple on Wednesday!!!! Hope your Thanksgiving was good and please pray that our investigators will come to church or we will be able to find more! Our area is really small and I feel like I've talked to everybody I can! But thank you all for everything and I hope it all is going good!!!! I love you guys and until next week!!!!!

I LOVE HAMMOCKS!!!!!!!!!

picture of fire is: clothes that the ants destroyed

and it put off so much smoke it was ridiculous!

I don't even know what that was but ew hahaha!

This was before we were companions!!! hahaha we had no idea!!!!!

Elder Hallman

So this week was crazy!!! It started off with me winning in basketball of course (still working on this pride thing) and then Tuesday we had a meeting with the president where we had a thanksgiving lunch and that was so good!! It was American type of food for thanksgiving!!

Then I found out that my companion was going to Belize that next morning at 3 we had to wake up, and since I didn't have a companion I was called to be Zone leader with Elder Ford and Talledo. Wednesday and Thursday was really easy because Elder Ford was leaving that Friday so we really just went around saying goodbye and taking pictures.

I also made my first pupusas with the Cordova family and that was so amazing!! The family I just baptized! I'm in a really crappy computer area because our zone leaders lost the keys to the good computers and I have 89 pictures to send so I don't know how that is going to work! But I love this so much and hope all is well. Elder Herrera also left me a $35 dollar hammock so that was amazing.

But then there were changes, and my name popped up as the SENIOR COMPANION so I was crazy scared..and then, ELDER HALLMAN!!!!! We had to be the loudest companionship ever yelling and saying no way and we ran up there screaming and that was so amazing!! Elder Hallman is this guy I found on Instagram before my mission and we talked a lot joking "I can't wait to be your companion out in the field" and we have talked a lot since. We came to the CCM (Mission Training Center) together and talked a lot and he is a really cool person! Just we are known as the gringos bajos because we are both short haha! BUT HE IS SO COOL!!!!

And everything has been amazing with him and we are working like crazy and haven't had a single problem with Spanish although we are both relatively new. We definitely have help. He gave me a CTR (HLJ) ring in Spanish so that is really cool and we are working and following the rules and I just could not be happier!!!! Ever since I've had him I have not wanted to leave my mission! I love this so much and this is so fun with him and we are working so much harder!!! I just hope I can have at least one baptisms with him so please help pray for us!

Saw a guy on a bike got hit by a car and there was an iguana running around our house and I got a video of Elder Hallman chasing it around with a broom haha, just wish I could send it. Also though we got lost in a bus and Elder Hallman said a prayer and this random member said "wait you aren't the missionaries here right?" And we told her we were lost and she helped us get back and ughh this is so amazing!!!!

And I get to go to the temple December 2nd!!! I'm just hoping since things are so perfect right now it doesn't flip soon!! But I hope you all have had a good week and that things are okay!!! Thanks for all your help and I hope you have a great week!!!! -Elder Austin!

The beach was so pretty and the food there was so amazing!!!!!!

 Baptism

 Making pupusas!

The kids had the camera so there are so many pictures haha

 ELDER HALLMAN!!!

Had lunch at the stake and the HLJ ring Elder Hallman gave me:)

Iguana in our house haha (I think it's an iguana) and last picture!!!!!

I learned not to bring a fan in the bathroom...

Sorry it's late and I can't really email a lot today because we have been searching for a place with internet for the past 3 hours and finally found a place but it is really slow.

Everything is going good and I HAD THREE BAPTISMS!!!! :) 3 kids of a non active family and I have lots of pictures of the beach and baptisms but I can't send them this week :( But the kids names were Hanz, Paola, and Natalia and I baptized Paola and Natalia and my comp baptized Hanz. Really cool!

I bought my companion beats ear buds to be nice to him for when he leaves for his house soon... :) And also helped this lady set up and decorate a Christmas tree! The beach was so amazing I can't explain and the food there was so good! I will have to send pictures soon just this week I went without bugspray but I have some this week so I`m very grateful! Played soccer and I scored a pretty cool goal :) Also played dodgeball with a stressball I bought with my companion in the house and I got to peg him in the face so many times and it was so fun hahaha and he can`t throw so it was amazing.

I'm being challenged to basketball today so I'm excited for that this week.  I learned not to bring a fan in the bathroom to go pee if you are going to stand up...so glad I just bought toilet paper...but anyways..about the soccer, the missionaries beat the best team in the stake so that was very cool thanks to gringo power.

I'm really loving the food here just ready for changes or a new companion. Could possibly be training this transfer on Friday but I will see.   Hope all is going well and so sorry it's so short and late!

I love you all and have an amazing week!!  Also if you have any questions or curiosities feel free to ask!!! -Elder Austin

P.S.
I decided not to buy anymore soft drinks because they are killing my body, haha you were right all those years ..hahaha!
It's amazing what you figure out the more you learn - garbage food makes you feel like garbage:)
But it does taste really good haha just all my muscle is leaving. Haha I have found out you were right about everything you have ever told me I just don`t like admitting it hahaha!

Oh also my water bottle broke and the one Sister Cardon gave me is AMAZING!!!  Tell her thank you so much and it's saving my life!

be careful what you listen to!

So this week has been a good week. We have had 5 birthdays and counting so I have had lots of cake! haha. Also I've heard a lot of the new songs over there and wow...be careful what you listen to!

Also watched another gringo snap a chickens neck and watched this lady clean the chicken and I ate the liver and the heart and some other parts and ughhh...haha. But everyone at my ward says I´m getting fat hahaha! And they all say it at different times. They say my cheeks are getting really chubby haha.

I BOUGHT PEANUT BUTTER!!! For 8 dollars!! When everything here should be cheap but it is definitely worth it. But my companions birthday present was I forgave him and tried to have a new start with him..haha but I´m going to buy him beats headphones today...it was just his birthday was on a Sunday.

Here I was thinking..everybody keeps telling me how dangerous it is here but honestly I would feel 20x safer walking through here with a hundred dollar bill in my hands than walking through Atlanta with a half empty coke bottle. Really the only dumb things are the dogs and mosquitoes nothing else. 
I saw on a bus some guy with his intestines out of his deformed stomach and his intestines were hanging out in bags and ughh!! Almost threw up.

Sorry this message will be so short, I have the crappy computer this time and I don´t know if I´ll get the pictures out even though I have so many but I hope all is going well!!  Have a baptism this Sunday so I´m excited for that!!

Oh also I got really sick Thursday I think from mosquitoes. Every single joint hurt in my body and I have never had a headache as bad as that before. But everything is fine now! I didn't get any rashes or anything like that so that was weird. Just it lasted like 2 or 3 days but everything is going good. 

Going to the beach today for P-day :) But anyways, hope all is well and take care everyone!!!!

 Birthday, a lady gave me that bag as a gift too! Crazy cool car!

twisting the neck of a gallena

P.S.
It´s really hot...haha really really hot but it´s going good. Finally figured out the washing my clothes process and nothing really is bad except the mosquitoes. Doesn't really rain much so everything weather wise is really going well
So how do you wash your clothes?
Put them in water and soap for a while, take them out scrub and rinse haha

I played for the primary program here! haha just they didn´t know how to follow a piano because they have never heard one but I tried haha.

the Atonement is right in front of us...Use it!

 First of all I would like to say whoever is praying for me to be safe from dogs but forgot yesterday, PLEASE DON´T STOP!! hahaha Last week was perfect dogwise except yesterday but nothing bad happened just keep that up whoever is doing that haha!

 Also whenever I get a package they take $5 out of your monthly account so for Christmas don´t send me a ton of packages haha or any at all I´m okay.

 But I found out this week that it is almost easier to understand an Elder Holland talk (favorite apostle btw) (https://www.lds.org/church/leader/jeffrey-r-holland?lang=eng) in Spanish than English haha. He uses such crazy words that they don´t have down here. Also in the translation they actually pronounce their S´s unlike here. Here they say Jalud pue, or Dio or vamo a jalir instead of Salud pues, Dios, and vamos a salir and those are only a few examples.

 So we have two little kids pretty much set on baptism for the 15th and two maybe and one more very unlikely but please pray for these people. José Daniel, William, Familia Cordon, and Carlos Hernandez.

 This week was cool. Helped carry water to people´s houses because the water in some houses has been shut off so that was kinda cool. Also saw the championship church soccer game against the biggest two wards (congregations) in our stake (group of congregations in an area) and that was crazy! haha!

 I need you guys to especially pray for me tomorrow. It´s my zone leaders birthday tomorrow and this family invited him and my companion and I to dinner and they are a recent convert. A mom and a daughter. Just the daughters dad is coming to their house tomorrow for the first time in forever and he apparently is a strong Catholic and he doesn't know about their baptism and we are just gonna show up. But I´m pretty sure everything will be okay.

 We were fasting yesterday and Satan was tempting us at every house, they all brought us food. But the hardest one was Hermano Siro, my first baptism, prepared a huge special meal for us Saturday while we were fasting and my companion said "actually my companion has to tell you something" so I had to to the honors of telling them we were fasting. But we said we would eat tomorrow and felt really bad and trust me, we ate yesterday...

 But everything here is going good it´s just hot and I have a ridiculous tan line already. But something interesting was we were buying food at a grocery store type place and there was this HUGE line and this military person came and grabbed me and said "here Elder you can go to the front" and when I got to the front the couple people ahead of me said "Go ahead" and I tried so hard to argue no but they made me. So after I waited like 30 minutes for my companion because they didn't let him go ahead haha! But I felt kinda bad but ya it's weird and cool being a Gringo missionary here.

 But funny dream my companion told me was he had a dream he brought a girl to this members house after his mission to marry her. And his sister asked him why he brought here to a member's house and he said she is more likely to make covenants with a member present lesson than a non hahahaha!! He has been a missionary for too long!

No we didn't do anything for Halloween although we did get two pieces of candy randomly, but not for Halloween or anything but I´m counting it. Just we were fasting so couldn't eat it haha. But I hope you all had a good week and a good Halloween and we will see who eats more for Thanksgiving!

Take care everyone and a quote I thought of, "Are we sleeping when the Atonement is right in front of us?" Use it!
Love you all and have a good week! :)

P.S.
Are you enjoying your mission thus far? What do you like or not like?
I love the food here but I hate mosquitoes and dogs. Without animals my mission would be pretty easy but that´s not the case. I like it though and pupusas are amazing just my companion doesn't ever let us eat any but my next companion I´m eating a ton!