Week of Thanksgiving!

Dear Mom,

So my new address is 1404 W. Church St apartment D, Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220

That is really odd, but President should get it all fixed in no time. Assistants tend to drive me a little nuts and I certainly hope I am never asked to be one. Sorry for the trouble. I am excited because now we have a new baptismal date for Ramon and Ashley, they are awesome and are so serious about learning and making changes in their life. I just think Elder Lund is hilarious and I am going to miss him a ton! I still make that weird noise in my sleep sometimes so It is a blessing that all of my companions don't give me too much grief over that! This is going to be my first time to the Caverns and I am excited! I am going to the zoo today and I will send pictures next week! Elder Whitesides is from Idaho, LOVES trucks, and is a little querky but he is a great guy who wants to do good, I am super old in the mission as 75 percent of the mission is younger than 6 months out, meaning that I am an ancient of days in the mission haha. Elder Whitesides is a year out on his mission. 

Thanks for looking at the colleges for me, I just want to get a business degree so people will take me more seriously in my business. I can't wait for the Christmas call! I have so much to tell you guys! That is a really good message and it can be applied to missionary work, usually the people we think will receive our message usually won't and the people we think will be stuck up and not interested are the ones who end up converting to the gospel. Very nice thing to remember throughout life! Brie told me about the football game and she said it was hilarious, I miss being with you guys but it has been nice to spend 2 years away to see how much I can grow. That is a great goal, I have read the entire missionary library so now I am branching out to reading verses line upon line and precept upon precept and I have learned tons more from doing that! The gospel is a wonderful and really cool thing! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

So a summary of my week would be, I got a Permian High School hoodie on my way out of Odessa because it is a very famous high school. We got told a funny story during my last dinner by the member about playing where's Waldo on his mission where they find a woman with Alzheimers that they knew and they would tally up the board. Carlsbad is super beautiful in my opinion, desert mountains and a river! We do a lot of service at a Senior Citizens center. We are putting up Christmas lights for members already and helping people prepare for the season! Love you so much and hope you guys have a great week!

Love,

Elder Farley

Elder Lund - previous companion - he makes Austin look so small! :)

Elder Whitesides - current companion - still small! :)

Week of November 15th

Dear Mom,

Sarae's baptism was amazing! She loved it and she told me afterwards that after she got out she was shivering but she felt a presence right next to her and she felt peace! She was a little late to her confirmation yesterday but that is ok haha! She is now a member of the true church and she was so excited! I know that she will grow up to be an awesome member! Her direct family aren't members except her older sister and her aunt and uncle so they bring her to church. Her parents aren't in the picture, she has a catholic grandmother who loves mormons so it is all good :)

I had a headache and the cold but I have gotten over it along with the sty. I am getting transferred to Carlsbad East to be with Elder Whitesides so it doesn't really matter anymore about who I am teaching here! I will send you my new address next week! Brie and I will have a blast doing that together! We had a really funny moment where I was sleeping and my companion sat-up and looked at me and pointed at the floor next to the bed and said with a "stoner" voice, "Is this my side of the room?" after 5 seconds of silence he laid back down saying "Sweeet" and then did a Chaaaaa laugh and then went back to sleep. I started laughing so hard! That is a bummer that everybody is disappearing but that is the classic life of a missionary! We had a regional conference where everything is going to be changing in our area of the world. With this project, we can go up from 40 baptisms a month to 400! That is going to bless this land a ton!

It is getting super cold here! I am not anticipating it! But I am stoked to go visit the Carlsbad Caverns! That has been my mission dream so I get to have it come true! I was super worried about my friends in Europe when I heard about that! I don't understand why America just doesn't destroy ISIS, we can do it if we really cared! I realized that they are the hardest people to develop charity for and I realized that having charity for them and knowing that they will not go to the celestial kingdom don't have to conflict with eachother. I learned that you can still show love for them even though you know the end for some of them. I am glad that Jesse is doing alright! If you could apply to Dixie, Utah State, or University of Mexico City or Guatemala City University that would be cool :)

Oh yeah, Funny story, while I was teaching Sarae the Word of Wisdom I started to say "So Sarae, we shouldn't put bad things in our body, which means we shouldn't drink tea or coffee, smoke alcohol or drink tobacco..." I just hope you find solace knowing that your son could be mentally challenged :) My favorite scripture right now could be the 7th Chapter of Moses when Enoch is called by God to be his prophet! I love you guys and wish the best and I do have a bunch of pictures!

Your son,

Austin Farley

Week of November 8th

Dear Mom,

I am doing great! Sarai is getting baptized this Saturday so pray that it all goes well. She is the sharpest little girl in the world. She knew more truth as a 9 yr old than scholars have been arguing with for centuries! I am not eating any more candy for the rest of my mission for sure! I ate being unhealthy! I was sick all week and get this, I have another sty in my eye! so we are going to go through this all over again! But I still had a great week! We haven't really met with Damien but Sarai is definitely legitimate! I love Brie so much, she told me about the cheerleader joke I said back home, she is adorable. My carpal tunnel has gotten better, still a little sore but it got fixed for the most part! Exchanges are pretty much the same as a trio because I am always with the extras :) We just have fun because with 3 missionaries in the same car there are never any dead moments!

My favorite experience this week was walking up to the lady at the doctor's office this morning and saying "Hi, I would like to schedule an appointment with.... uh....(struggling to get out of the mind blank I just went in) She says "The doctor?..." and I "Yeah, that's the one." I hope that you find solace in knowing that your son is an idiot. haha I felt like the bad guy in Meet the Robinsons in the scene when he was trying to schedule an appointment. I wished I had a bolo hat robot telling me what to do at that point!  So, I actually have been in contact with old friends and I think that things will go great between me and them so I am not worried at all about home life really. The weather has been getting colder and that isn't fun in the slightest.

I think that the prophets are inspired for what they said and it is time that God's army mobilizes against Satan's troops. I also know that everything that I stand for is true, and I want to be the kind of person that as Nephi can have enough faith and diligence to hike a mountain and talk to God for a few hours and never be shaken by satan's snares! I love you and want the best for this entire week!

Share with me a favorite scripture if you want! How is Luna? How is Bryson? Lori? Alec? Hyrum? Sarah? Anyone haha Love you!

Your firstborn

Week of Nov. 1st

Dear Mom,

I can not believe either how time is flying! And don't beat yourself up about Halloween because you need to make sure you decorate for Christmas now! :) Shane is still being stubborn about the WOW, he is definitely an alcoholic but we will still work with him! We have some new investigators like a kid named Damien who is a football player for Odessa High School and he is really legit, we are also starting to teach a 9 year old girl who wants to be baptized. She bore her testimony of prophets and the Book of mormon yesterday and that blew my mind that a non-member went and bore her testimony before a lot of people did. The district is doing better, just one more elder to work on and we will have it all under control in due time :) What Dallin told me is that, Gods only care about the future and Lucifer only cares about the past because he has no future, so he tries to make us do the same, Gods on the other hand are able to comtemplate a glorious future and thus don't care about your past if you choose to move forward. Tell Jesse and Kason and Hayden and Hyrum that I love them so much and am glad to see all of them growing. Love is the strongest emotion that we can feel for someone, another word for pure love is called Charity. Charity is the most beautiful thing in the world and the reason we are all here living in this world. Once we obtain charity, we can move on to Celestial Glory. Haha I love Caden so much, and I always tell my companions that throughout all of our time together, I will say many things. But the sentence that will never ever come out of my mouth will be "I have common sense" So I am sure the same is true for Caden.

So this is the story of my week. Marlee Satterthwaite told me that she just got engaged which blows my mind! I also got invited to have my honeymoon in Mozambique by a member that is moving there because he will host anyone who comes and he said that if I wanted to go hunting there just to give him a call. He told me that it is much cheaper to get a hunting license in the country so I might take him up on his offer in a couple of years. I learned in Galatians chapter 5 about how just a little leaven can leaven the whole lump. Which means that only the slightest degree of disobedience can lead to whole disobedience in the future, so we need to keep ourselves clean and pure to have fun in this life. We have been going on a lot of exchanges! With every elder in the zone! Hard work indeed! I bought a water bottle that keeps the temperature of the water the exact same the entire day and it has blessed me a ton! We also had a great Trunk or Treat with the ward and we wore moustaches since that was the only "costume" we could have... We had a mission Tour with Elder Foster about how we need to use agency with care and how it allows us to grow if we let it change us for the good. I found out that my last companion has gotten worse and has pretty much reverted back to Catholicism which is not good. We had a great Halloween and we have received 30 lbs of candy from Brother Kelly haha. That is pretty much my week :) I love you guys and pray for you guys continually in my heart. Thanks for the pictures! Love you

Elder Farley

Week of Halloween

Dear Mom,

If it is any consolation to you, my internet is doing just fine. My companions get mad at me all the time (not really) because after they say something sad I will immediately say "If it's any consolation, and then I realize that I have nothing consoling to say, so I just say it how it is." Trust me, we have a lot of funny moments. I also got diagnosed with Carpal tunnel in the right arm so I wear an arm brace every night for the next 4 weeks to correct it. I also got my first heartburn attack at the Stake President's house while he was showing us his collection of 1st edition book of mormons and Bibles that he has spent thousands on. Shane is doing well, still stubborn about the Word of Wisdom. We have dropped Jeff because we fell into his friend zone, but we will continue to see him every now and then. We are now teaching a few other people but for the most part we are worried about our zone and their disobedience. We have a lot of good ideas to help them improve though.  At this point in my mission, I am fine in both languages. I am so proud of Jesse and I have faith that he will do good!
 Dallin sent me a letter that changed the course of my mission so tell him thanks for me. I ended up giving my companion a concussion a couple of weeks ago if I haven't already explained it. We have had 2 floods and a lot of rain lately! It was crazy! I also received a revelation during my studies when I read about Christ and the Samaritan woman. I realized that if you look at it, mormons are Jews, Christians are samaritans, and muslims and hindus and atheists are Gentiles. We tend to think that we are better than our brethren because of their degenerate beliefs and doctrines but they are still our brothers and sisters and we should see them as Christ saw them. Christ, being a Jew, still did not care that the woman was a Samaritan. So we need to do the same. That is my favorite moment is receiving that insight. My favorite candy is Mike and Ikes and Rolos. Everything is doing great clothes wise. But if you could send me pictures of the family that would be great!  I love you guys and want everything great to happen to you guys! Sorry for the shortness of my email but I feel that we are now equal :) I love you!

Love,

Austin Farley

Week of October 18th

Dear Mom,

My favorite fruit is Guanabana, Tuna tastes super good but has too many seeds, and star fruit is a little tart at first. Guanabana is a fruit that only grows in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Super good, tastes like gummi bears sometimes and peach at others. I liked the Popcorn quite a lot, we joked how my parents were cruel for sending me a bag of air in the package and started saying that it was witchcraft how I would reach into this "empty bag of air" and pull out colored popcorn ;) (The bag was Camouflage :) ) I found out that I prefer mammals to birds as well. Those geese were so obnoxious. Jeff and Shane are the two main people we are teaching. Jeff is your stereotypical Texan who we watched Meet the Mormons with and that was really enjoyable with him. He said he felt the spirit and would read the Book of Mormon more. Shane is a really great guy who is our neighbor who gives us free barbeque, we are trying to help him live the Word of Wisdom. He is a really funny guy. Elder Moschetti is from Syracuse and his strengths are that he is super focused and Elder Lund is from Washington and he is super personable. I am really content with my mission and know that I have changed a lot and will change more. I don't really look at the next 8 months but more what I am going to be like when I get home. It really inspires me to make improvements daily.

Those are some great tests and I think I have passed 4 out of 5. I am trying to pass test 3 but it is hard when the Assistant to the President tells the zone leaders with you present that they are the best missionaries in the field, which I found a little offensive at first but I got over it when I realized that that elder wasn't perfect and he could make mistakes too. Tell Hayden Noel to e-mail me, I would love to hear his advice! Where is everyone going exactly? I will write a letter to Jesse today when I have time! I teach only English right now but I still speak Spanish every now and then. It honestly has just become second nature to me, I will just find myself accidentally eavesdropping on a spanish conversation and understand literally 100% of what they are saying. It is really interesting that you get to speak something when you really show that you are willing to put down everything to speak it. I am still wearing the same shoes because I want to be the first missionary to go through the entire mission with the same exact pair of shoes haha (I know that is not a first but it seems like it) We drive mostly because our area is Huge! I miss Taylie, sadly she will have no clue who I am when I come back! Gives me something to work on when I get home. Thank you so much for your support and love, I will pray for everyone and work hard this week! I am also swearing off Caffeine completely. Love you!

Elder Farley