Hey everyone!

This is my week! it was fun!!

Monday, P-Day. Boring as usual... Sorry, but it's the truth!

Tuesday: we just taught a whole bunch of lessons. We have three people committed for a baptismal date right now.Jessica from Haiti, and Mylène Dumais, from here. We taught them. It was great!

Wednesday: We went to Montreal to go help out with Transfers. There were more teams than there was space in the cars for people coming up to the Rive Sud, so we had to go even tho we wern't doing anything there. It was fun to see so many missionaries... it is such a different world here than it was in Quebec. We have a huge district now. There are 5 teams in our district. That was as big as our whole ZONE was last transfer! Its awesome! District studies are going to be so much fun from now on! 

Thursday: We had district study! Like I said, it was a blast. We also had the AP's there, so that was tons of fun! 12 people at a district study... crazy. All we were missing was President and Sister Cannon and we could have had a zone conference! We have also been slowly moving stuff into our new apartment, a fridge and a stove, a table and chairs, and a washing machine. No dryer yet... =) But Elder Garcia messed up his back moving the Fridge up the stairs, so I had fun rubbing him down with Icy-Hot cream when we got to the apartment that night.... Eeewwwww....

Friday: I don't even really remember. Time passes so quickly. We had to go drive around to help out the new teams of missionaries, to get everything ready for them. Bus passes, junk like that. I'm so excited to move into a 4 man!!! Elder Lopez And Elder Botello. I am going to be the only person in my apartment who doesn't speak spanish. Awkward.... 

Saturday, More lessons with Luz (our third commited) and Jessica and Sr. Dumais. And we took Jessica and Sr. Dumais to a baptism that another area had. It was awesome!!! They were both like, "Yeah, we are going to get baptized too!!" And they are both so excited! Their dates are both set for April 7th. We are crossing our fingers for them to keep the dates!! =D =D 

Sunday: Church, Supper with Members, way to much food, and way to much fun. And way to much time. We try and keep our meals down to 1 hour, but members don't like to respect that rule to much.....

My new "roommate" Elder Lopez also has a ukulele, and we are excited to be able to Jam together. We don't know when we will be moving in together, but hopefully soon.

We are at the mall doing emails right now, and I forgot to bring my camera in with me, so I can't send my pictures of the new "roommates", but next week, I'll get them sent!

Love you all!

Elder Oviatt!

Hey Hey Hey! 

Did I tell you all that transfer calls were this Saturday? Because they were. But luckily I am staying here in Longueuil! However, we will be moving into a new apartment  A '4 man' as we call them. There will be myself and Elder Garcia, and also the elders for Victoria, the Spanish ward, living in the apartment. I'm so excited, everyone says that 4 mans are the best! 

Things have been going really well with us though. The work is really different here than it was in Quebec city and Alma. We have 9 people committed for baptism in the coming weeks and months. Who knows how many of them will make it, but we just have a lot of work. We also meet people from all around the world! Teaching from almost any country you can think of. It's insane! 

Yesterday was my birthday, and I had a fun time. I got sung to a few times, and got a cake too! The family that was supposed to feed us yesterday called us an hour before the appointment  and canceled. So I called a family in our ward and invited ourselves over for supper. =) It was a terribly awkward phone call, but they didn't mind. They had asked during church if we had someone to eat with, and I said yes, and they told me that if not, they wre going to invite us over. So I didn't feel TOTALLY awkward calling them. I told them at supper that I felt bad inviting ourselves, and they told us not to worry about it, So I felt better. 

I would like to say thank you for the birthday wishes that I received  My birthday was well enjoyed, and I appreciated the emails and letters I received!!

I love you all, and will try and write a longer letter next week, when I don't have to reply to lots of people. 

I hope you all wore a little bit of GREEN yesterday for St. Patrick's Day!

Love,

Elder Austen Oviatt

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I Do! I Do!

Baby Eva

Birthday at Family Maisonneuve's house! 

The Montreal Temple. This building taunts me every single day. I WANT TO GO IN IT SO BAD!

Hey there Y'all!

Sorry... My companion is from Texas. He says y'all all the time. It's starting to rub off.

How were your weeks this week? Great I hope! Mine was crazy... In a good way...

I'm certain that I have complained about how strange time is on the mission. About how things seem to go so slowly but yet are over so suddenly? This week was like that. It started off with P-Day. We played Pickle Ball with the Zone leaders at our chapel. Pickle ball is like a mixture of tennis and ping-pong. It's great. But my companion isn't the most athletic person ever (not a whole lot of us are after being on a mission for almost 2 years) so we stopped that and the Zone Leaders played by them selves. And then P-Day seemed to go FOREVER. Elder Mcmurrin, my zone leader said "You know you have been a missionary for a long time when you hate P-Day. You just feel like you are wasting your time and would much rather be out knocking doors than doing what ever you are doing at the moment." I agree whole-heartedly. P-Days can be so obnoxious. =) But we love 'em anyways. And then, our days are just so... full of stuff, that it seems to drag on forever. Every single day we have tons of stuff to do. And every single day I don't know how I make it through the day. And then I blink and It's Sunday evening and we are in the apartment doing weekly calls and I go "how on earth is it Sunday??"

We met a guy from Madascar this week! It made me think of Elder Bates over in Madagascar! And we had a missionary in the ward I'm serving in come home last week, so he has been heling us out. That is cool, and makes me a little bit more at ease about being done my mission. (I know, I haven't even hit my 1 year mark, but I'm dreading coming home already...)

Speaking of other things that I'm dreading... It's my birthday in less than 1 week. I'm not looking forward to that. Birthdays have always been so much fun, but I feel like this birthday is just going to feel like any other day. Which is sad. But, as long as I don't dwell on it, the day will come and go and I will be old and wrinkly and just as happy as I am every other day! And Plus, I have a super awesome tie that I'm going to wear on my Birthday. So that will make everything all better.

President Cannon is almost done with his mission. He is finished in June. We will be getting President Patrick. He sounds awesome. We are excited to be getting someone new, and a new outlook and a new way of doing things along with him. 

But I love y'all!  Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Austen Oviatt

Hey everyone! 

Goodness, is it Monday already? Wow, does the time fly by. 

Life has been ridiculous! Man, Longueuil is crazy, I love it! My companion, Elder Garcia, is awesome. He is teaching me tons and I am learning (or trying to) tons.

The ward here in Longueuil is huge. There are like 160 active members. I haven't gone to church in a real chapel in so long... I met tons of people and I remember about 1 of their names. Not a great start.  We eat with members almost every single day, so breakfast and lunch are all we eat in our apartment. And that has been toast and nutella lately. We bought groceries today, and we spent 30 bucks. Total. 15 bucks each. I've never even been somewhere that we spent less than 30 bucks each. It was crazy. And like, we bought the nice stuff too, because we can afford it! Hahaha, Our shower is amazing. In a bad way. I almost don't fit in it. Anyone who is taller than me has to sit on a stool while they shower! I have to bend down to get my face and head under the shower head. Gah, It's amazing. Luckily though, we are actually moving into a new apartment on the 16th of March, so I get to be out of here on my birthday! Yeah Happy birthday me! 

We knock lots of apartments. Its tiring. 

I have lost like 10 pounds since I have shown up. I eat 2 slices of toast with nutella for breakfast, and 1 for lunch, then we eat at members houses. It's coming off nicely. =) Maybe not the most healthy way to lose it, but at this point, who cares?!

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Austen Oviatt

HELLO OUT THERE!

Mom, Dad, do you remember that one time that Travis and Brittany and I (it could have been different siblings) took the phone, and recorded as our family answering machine message the E.T. ``E.T., Phone Home!!!``? I don`t know why I just thought about that, but I decided to share it.

Anyways, we had transfers calls on Saturday! It is a good thing that I didn`t give you an address to write me a letter, because I`m headed out! I, Elder Oviatt, have hereby been called to serve in Longueuil, Montreal! That is on the Rive Sud. So the South River. I am not technically on the island of Montreal, but on the shore south of the island of Montreal. I`m super excited. I am going to be with Elder Garcia. He was in Rimouski when I started up in Alma, and I got to split with him once before. He is awesome, and a native spanish speaker, so I plan on ``fine tuning`` my Spanish skills with him (when I say fine tuning, I actually mean, learning more than 2 sentences)! I will be Junior companion! Woot! I love that good ol` junior companion position! Elder Garcia is the District leader, so I will still be enjoying The Sunday night calls. I like those. My district is going to be very similar to the one I am coming from. We have the Zone Leaders, and we have the Coordinating sisters. The Coordinating Sisters are the ones who go on splits with the sisters all over the mission because, for obvious reasons, we as Elders can`t split the sisters missionaries. So I mean, with that, I still will have no extra splits like mist district leaders get, but that is OK. 

Longueuil is actually the Stake Centre, and that is where the Montreal Quebec Temple is located. I am extremely excited to be serving in this area. But I am sad to be leaving Elder Oxborrow, and my new apartment  with my new mattress, and my new pillows, and my new blender and my new toaster. =) 

This week was Good for us though! We had 3 DA`s! Which was amazing. Lasagna at one, BBQ`d Pork Ribs at another, and Mexican food at the last. So good. We Welcomed the new Sister Missionaries into our area, and had to sit down and give them a rundown of the area. It`s going to be awesome to have Sister Missionaries here with us. They bring a whole different outlook to Missionary work. It`s great! And they do everything that we do as Elders, but in a skirt. But with the new announcements for the age change, we have had 8 sister missionaries come into the mission in two weeks. As Sister Cannon said. "The Women are coming". This is a weird keyboard. to do a question mark I have to press Shift+6 and to do quotation marks, I have to press Shift+2. I digress. But, we took Rémy out to knock some doors with us Friday afternoon, and it was great. We didn`t have a single lesson, but we did meet a member... How does one meet a member you ask? Well, good question! We were walking down the street and this guy gives us a funny look, and we go "OK, he is going to contact us for sure, I just wonder what he is going to say". So we walk past us and he see`s our tags and says "Latter Day Saints! Mormons! Nephi, Utah!!!" Elder Oxborrow and I look at each other out of the corner of our eyes and go "uhh... what on earth?" He than looks at us and says a little more clearly "I`m from Nephi Utah, look at my CTR rings!!!" At which point Elder Oxborrow and I both, at the same time, audible say "Uhh.... What?!" His name is David Brown. He is from the Ukraine but was adopted by Mormon Parents in Nephi Utah. He went to work in France for a company and we recruited to work for a different company here in Quebec. We don`t know if he speaks french (we assume so, I mean, he worked in France, and here in Quebec), but he hates that people here in Quebec don`t like him because he is English. He works every Sunday, so he was never able to make it out to church. Guess how long he has lived in Quebec for! A YEAR AND A HALF!!! He told us that we were the first mormons he has ever seen here. Poor Guy! =) It was fun though. We got his address and his phone number, and we will be visiting him this week. 

Anyways, that is about it for me. I will try and get some pictures of me and my new companion next week! I don`t know what the computer situation will be like though.

Love you all!!

Elder Austen Oviatt

P.S. For letters, just send everything to the mission office, I'm a lot closer now, and it will just be easier that way!

                                             

Awesome sign I saw It says "ATTENTION!!! We hit Solicitors, Sellers of Gadgets, Evangelists, Missionaries, Gurus, Ware-wolves, Garou ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garou_(singer) ), Hippies, Hipsters, ETC. Knock at your risk and peril" 

The view from our apartment at night. Gorgeous... Good bye beautiful Quebec...

These are some of the kids at Ste-Foy. 

From Left to right we have François-Alexandre Betchi, Sameul Leber, Moi, Alan Leber, Ana Leber. Awesome kids, going to miss them.

February 12, 2013

OK, Lets do a little update!

My life has been crazy lately! Elder Oxborrow and I have been tearing it up.

Last week we went to the ice hotel. It was super fun! Man, when I come back from my mission, and make a comfortable sum of 2.36 billion dollars, I will stay in one of those rooms. =) We had zone conference after that, and met with President Cannon and Sister Cannon and the AP's, it was great! We had 10 missionaries sleeping in our 1 bedroom apartment. we made them sleep 3 people to 2 mattresses. =) It was so squishy. And then we had to shower all 10 of us as quick as possible. I think I had a 3 minute shower. It was not totally effective. 

The Search for a new apartement is over, we got one, and were planning on slowly moving our stuff over to it, so that we would have a week to paint the bedroom in our old apartmemnt for the sisters, but then President Canon called us and said that instead of the Sister Missionaries coming in to the area Febuary 27th, on the transfer with everyone else, they would show up Febuary 18th. A week and 2 days before transfers, and 10 days earlier than we were expecting! So we have to jet to get ourselves moved in time. Oh how this transfer has been a little bit of a gong show. =D 

We had our baptism Saturday! Constance. She is awesome. She knew the church for about 5 years, but only decided to get baptised about 2 and a half months ago. She is loving the support and the friendship from the members, and can't wait to go to the temple on March 2nd for the ward temple trip! She is on fire, and loves her life. We have seen some big changes with her even in only the past 4 weeks. It has been increadible. The Gospel really does change peoples lives, and I can't beliebe that I have the chance to bring this into someone's life. 

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. Transfer calls are next week, on Saturday. I can't believe how fast the past 12 weeks have gone... Goodness... I may have to leave Ste Foy... =( But we will see. Love you all my friends! 

Elder Austen Oviatt

We went to the Army base for lunch, and while we were there we met the only guy in the world who makes the hats that the royal guards wear. He let us try one on. It was super cool. The lunch was increadible too. 4 course, fine cuisine, We had smoked eel as an appetizer! 

Crazy ice sculptures!

Ice-Fire. Bet you never thought you would see one of those!

Just a super cool room. I think we decided that this was the coolest room.

Elder Oviatt, frozen in ice.

We play hockey with the branch every 2nd week. I sucked, but now my slapshots are getting a little bit more power behind them. Sorry Frere Carpentier!! =) 

Baptism of Constance L'Écuyer!! Super cool!!!

Companions

Me and My UKE!

January 28, 2013

=D Hello!

I bought a ukulele last monday! 8] I'm not that good yet, But I've only had it for 1 week. I like to play the childrens song book hymns though! They are a lot easier than the other songs Elder Oxborrow knows how to play.

My week went well though! It has been getting warmer here, and infact it's supposed to be a low of +3 on Wednesday! So we are super exciteed. I'm done with -40 with wind. I actually even started wearing a touque. Still no gloves though usually.

We have found an apartement! And Elder Oxborrow and I (Probably, dependingon what happens with Transfers in 4 weeks) Will move into it here in the next few weeks. It's nice. Big. Big enough for a 2nd team of Elders....

I unfortunately don't have a whole ton of time again today. We are going out to Lunch with the Elders Quorum president. He is an officer in the Army, so we are going to eat at the officers mess at the army base! Cool, hey!? It's a 4 course meal! Ah... I'm so excited, it sounds delicious. And then we are going to go play Volleyball at the Quebec chaple with some of the other missionaries who are up here from Rimouski and Drummondville (That is where Pouine was invented!! Drummondville!)

We have a baptism planed for the 9th of February. We are excited. Constance. She is 20 years old, and super ready to be baptized! I can update next week! I love you all, and have a fantastic week!!! =)

Elder Austen Oviatt