Elder Austin Cahoon's Mission: Great Desires For This Transfer+Fervent Prayer=Specific Answers!

Hello Family and Friends!!


Missionary Work is Awesome!

Thank you all for the letters!! I love receiving those letter and emails!! Well this week was super good!!! As usual it's always good! (GOD IS GOOD) Well, Elder Lewis and I have been doing some great pondering about this Transfer! We have great desires to get some people baptized and to find those that God has prepared so we have done some great pondering and prayer. We came up with some solutions to what we can do!!

I love the ability to pray and talk to my Heavenly Father. I love being able to have a two-way conversation with Him. Prayer has been something I have come to greater appreciate since being out on my mission!! Also I know that He is listening and is answering my prayers!! His answering my prayers was just relived as we fervently asked what we could do to baptize and find! The following experiences will give you some idea of the answers we were given.

We had a another lesson with our awesome man named David!! I love him! He is super excited to meet with us and loves learning and growing! We read Moroni chapter 10 with him and we invited him to pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. He said he had already received an answer to these questions! Elder Lewis and I got super excited and we asked what God told him. David said, "Well he said to keep moving forward. And I know Joseph Smith is a Prophet!" That was music to my ears!! He has been growing his faith so much! It has been really cool to see him grow. We are meeting with him tomorrow!! We are going to teach him about prophets and then we plan to have a lesson at a member's home on the life of Joseph Smith and then set a date for baptism! Have any of you watched that video? It is called Joseph Smith- Prophet of the Restoration. It is on the media library. It is a little over an hour. It is such a good video!

During our finding, we knocked on a door and a young man that is a Senior in high school answered. As we talked with him he told us he liked to draw. I asked him what he liked to draw and you know what he said??? Dragonball Z!! Can you believe it? I told him I also loved drawing Dragonball Z! I asked him to go get a few pictures he had just drawn. They were pretty good. He is much better at coloring the pictures than I am. It is always good to find a common interest and this was perfect! We are meeting with him again this week.

We have had some pretty funny experiences down here in Florida! So this one day we just ran into some crazy people- they literally had mental issues but we didn't realize it at first! So we met one guy and he just roasted up Elder Lewis!! It had me dead! I was laughing so hard! This guy was trying to trip up our words and things and at one point in our conversation the man asked me a question and Elder Lewis began to answer and the man yelled, "You stay out of this!" I laughed so hard after that! For whatever reason he thought Elder Lewis was dumb and only wanted to talk to me! 😂 After him, we continued on our way and talked to his neighbor who had formerly been taught by missionaries. He said he was an artist. That made me curious since I also like to draw and am kind of an artist. I was like, "Hey show me some of your art." So he allowed us in his apartment and this man does art by PUNCHING HOLES IN HIS WALLS AND MAKING PICTURES OUT OF IT!! Not the kind of art I was expecting for sure. So after those two experiences, we realized we were in a mental care apartment complex!! So we quickly made an exit after that! 😂 Florida is full of the most interesting people I have ever met in my entire life!! I love it here!

Sunday, I attended a devotional at church that was very different than any I have ever attended. We had a "Why I Believe" Devotional at the church this Sunday and it was amazing! Basically, all the recent converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that are in the Ward tell about their experiences of how they came to know the Gospel is true. Then they share their testimonies! It was amazing!! It got me thinking why I believe. I remembered back to my high school experience and how Christ changed me! It was a tender moment to be able to reflect upon. I almost started to cry but I can't have people catching me with those tears so I wiped those real quick! But it was a super cool time to hear their experiences!

And the PROPHET IS COMING TO FLORIDA!!! I'm so happy!! That's going to be an amazing experience to see a prophet of God in person! I/we desire to be as prepared as possible to hear the Prophet;s words and hear what the Lord wants from me specifically as a missionary. So another thing we are doing to prepare for the occasion is going to the Temple. We get to go this week! This week is going to be one for the Books for sure!

I know that Christ's suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross (it is also called the Atonement) can help us in our everyday lives- not just when we need to be forgiven but when we need to be strengthened!! Always remember Him and always follow Him- especially when it's he hardest. You will be blessed immensely for it! I know this because it has happened with me!

Love you all and have a great week!!!