Happy Mother's Day (early)

Elder Askins sent his mama some pictures from Sao Paulo for Mother's Day.

We LOVE our missionary!

Letter #5 Living on a Prayer

                                                                
Ola Family and Friends! I love you all so much! This past week has been so amazing! I still love every second of being a missionary.

I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for the letters of love and encouragement! Thank you to Nanie, Sandra, Sami, Dallas, and Erica! I loved all the letters.

Now next order of business. Eric Wayne Whitlock! You leave on your mission tomorrow! I am so excited for you. You will love every second of it! There is an elder here from Billings, Montana! You will love it! You are so awesome and will be the best missionary ever. You are so prepared and I know you will move mountains. My thoughts and prayers have been with you. I don´t know if you're nervous about going, but if you are- you have no reason to. You will be amazing and the Lord will provide for you now. Like my dad said in my letter this week, He will be on your right hand and your left. He's on mine.

This week has been fantastic. So many wonderful experiences I don't know where to begin. This Friday my district is going prosolyting! I'm nervous because I am horrible at getting to know someone in Portuguese. But I know the Lord will provide. Yesterday in class, each companionship was given a scenario. We felt prompted to teach about the Plan of Salvation or Plano de Salvaçao. We planned a great lesson about our life before earth, on earth, and after our life on earth. I felt comforted to know that through Heavenly Father's plan, we can be with our families forever. As we got ready to teach we found out the lesson had to be in Portuguese. Talk about nervous!!!! But we walked in, said a bajillion prayers and started teaching. We were teaching Elders Gessel and Wells. Well, the lesson was very butchered. It took a long time because you have to think of what you want to say in English, then translate and conjugate to Portuguese and then say it. So it was hard, but Elder goom and I remembered the words that we needed to say. And at the end when we bore our testimony, the Spirit flooded into the room and it was so strong. Even in another language.  It was a wonderful experiance.  

I know that Christ lives and that Heavenly Father lives and loves us. The Book Of Mormon is true and the Church is true. Joseph Smith was a true prophet! I love this gospel. And I love you.          

Elder Nathan Askins!  

Pictures from Brazil (finally!)

Elder Askins at the Sao Paulo Temple.  Wow!  It's beautiful!

Elder Askins with Elder Groom. Finally nice to see a face to put with the name.

Elder Askins and his District at the CTM

Letter #4: "LET´S SEE HOW FAR WE´VE COME"

*First of all people- we've been BEGGING for pictures.  Nathan left his camera cord at home and so we are trying to come up with a solution.  Be patient.  It's a virtue. 

Without further adeu...

To family and friends! I love you all so much! And before I tell you about how awesome I´m doing, I just wanted to tell you how much I love all of you. I want to thank my sisters for the letters I got this week. (Al-I got the pictures. EVERYONE PLEASE mail me pictures!) Thank you Elder Smith (Joshua) and Courtney Neilson! I love getting mail. It is gold here.

On April 22, 2010 at 10:06 in the morning, (Brazil time) I met and shook the hand of Elder Russel M. Nelson! He came to the CTM and we had a big morning devotional. What an amazing Apostle of the Lord! He was amazing. He said this, "The Lord uses the unlikely to accomplish the impossible." He was so amazing. Our MTC pres told us we probably wouldn't be able to meet him but when they walked in the Spirit flooded the room. Our choir sang "A Child's Prayer" in English/Portuguese and Baptism in English/Portuguese. I thought of my primary friends back home. I love them! Then President Clark said that Elder Nelson wanted to meet and shake every missionary's hand. I was so excited!

On Sunday, I was called to be our District's District Leader. Our old District Leader is now the Assistant to the President. Our district is amazing. I'm gonna try to email some pics. I love it here. But I am sad right now, but not the bad kind of sad. I´m sad because I got to be best friends with some Brazilians and they left this morning for their missions and I miss them. They were great friends. Last night we got names and emails so we can chat for the rest of forever and we said, "Voce, eu- amigos para seimpre" Which is portuguese for, "You, i- friends forever."

The people you meet out on the mission are amazing. I love it! The church is true! I know it! Next week we get to go tracting and get to hand out Livro de Mormons. I'm excited! "Don´t Stop Believin´!" I know I won't!

P.S. Do you know what's weird? I am 1/24 done with my mission in a few days. It's a weird feeling. Eu te amo!
Elder Askins

Letter #3: One Day More

Dear Family!                         

I got your mission ties (letter) around Thursday or Friday. I love it. There is a way that mission ties works while you are in the field- like on your mission and it supposedly cuts the mail travel time in half. Ask Zach (Brough) about it. If he thinks it's a good idea or a waste of time/money. I like mission ties because I make notes about what you talk about during the week so I know what to write you on my computer time. BUT I left my notes upstairs!!!! I'm so mad! But what I will tell you is I am so proud of my family! You guys are the best family in the world. I love you all so much.

Katie! Good job on the run! I can't wait to come home and do it with you. Audrey- I am sorry I didn't give you a shout out last week. Forgive me former roomie. You know I love you. Allie- I am so proud of you for being on the Honors Roll. I knew you could do it. Aaron- you are so awesome and such a motivation and example to me. I'm so proud of you!!! Mom and Dad- I love you two so much. Mom- I love you and I think you are the best mom in the world. My favorite conference talk was the one about mothers. It made me cry because I know how much you have sacrificed for our family. Dad- this week my companion, Elder Groom, and I are studying the Christlike attribute of Charity. It made me think of you. You are the most Christlike, charitable person I know. You are always making people better and making me better. Family I love you and today I am mailing you a letter- so you'll probably get in like three weeks. hahaha.

Donks (Nay's pet name for our family), remember how when I was little you used you ask me if I thought about you during the day? And then you would ask when? Well, I just want you to know that I think about my whole family every day all the time. I love you all so much and I can't wait until we will be reunited again in 2 years. It will be faster than you think. And the mission will bring so many blessings to our family that we will never be able to understand. I love  you  all!                                                                                                                                               
Family and Friends- Thank you all so much for the mail and the love and support and the prayers. They mean so much to me. I want to thank my family, Erica, Elder Andersen, Elder Smith (Chad), Carlie, and Auntie, Nanie, Courtney, and Uncle Bob and Aunt Dolores. I loved loved LOVED your letters. Thanks to anyone else I may have left out and please forgive me for not remembering, I left my note card of what I wanted to write upstairs. Please bare with me.

Today I went to the Federal Police Station. What a nightmare. It was a ZOO!!! We were there for 4 hours and all we had to do was give them our finger prints for our visa. But it was fun to chat with the missionaries in the other districts that I don't get to see that often. This past week has been crazy. I love the mission. It is the best choice I have ever made. I feel so close to the Lord and I am so grateful for His help.

KEITH MEYERS!!! Holy Momma!!! Congrats!! Australia!!!???? I am so happy for you!! That is the coolest thing in the world. If I could give you any pieces of advice (As if it would help...)
*Know the Book of Mormon better than you do now
*Read it more than you do now
*Know Peach My Gospel more than you do.
It helps so much. I love the Book of Mormon. This week I have really grown to love it more than I ever have before.

Here is something cool. I've gotten a lot of questions on conference. Yes, it was so awesome! Me and my district's favorite talks were the one on mothers (We all cried, we are like the stripling warriors, fighting a spiritual war, having faith in the Lord because of our mothers) and Elder Holland's talk! What an amazing man! Brazil is 4 hours ahead of good ole G-town, so we started conference around 1 and the second session at 5 and then watched priesthood sunday morning and then the same schedule Sunday afternoon.

The only downside of Brazil is that we didn't get to see any general authorities for conference. BUT GUESS WHAT! Elder Nelson is coming to visit the missionaries in the CTM on Thursday! I am so excited I can barely sleep at night sometimes! It is so awesome! I cannot wait. Elder Holland is also coming to Brazil. I think he's here now. There is a slight chance he might stop by, but probably not. Oh how awesome!!! I get to meet an apostle of the Lord! I am shaking with excitement. (I loved the Duty talk and thought of the same thing.)
  
I was thinking about something I wanted to say this week to my loved ones (For you are all loved by me) back home. This week I was walking upstairs to my room (seventh floor, top story HAHA) and a song popped into my head. It was an old one I was raised on. This is the reason this email is entitled One Day More.  It's from a musical entitled Les Miserables. Many people wonder and ask tons of times "Why do you want to serve a mission?" or "What made you decide to serve a mission?" Well to me, Val Jean puts it best... "My soul belongs to God I know, I made that bargain long ago. He gave me hope when hope was gone, He gave me strength to journey on," and that is why I am serving a mission. I love the Lord! I love my Savior Jesus Christ and I know that He loves me and I know that He loves you too. The Book of Mormon is true.

I am really good friends with these missionaries in the Brazilian district and even though we don't really speak that same language we still share a love for each other because of the gospel of Christ. We have the same gym time and afterwards they ran down the Basketball Court shouting "The Church is true! The Church is true!" I love God! I love the Book of Mormon and the sweetness of it. Portuguese is hard for me to learn. But I know the Lord will bless me. He will continue to bless me. Me and one of my roommates, Elder Beach, Read the Book of Mormon in English and Portuguese every night together. The Prophets have promised us that doing that will help. And I know that our prophet, Thomas S. Monson, is a prophet of God. I know the Church is true! I know the Book of Mormon is true. As I began to read more earnestly this week, I found all of my thoughts revolving around it. I'm getting ready to finish it again. I love the mission. I love my mission and I can't wait to "Bring the world His truth!" I hope you all are doing fantastic! I pray for you everynight.

Letter #2: Don't Stop believing!!! HOLD ON TO THAT FEELING!!!

Family- Hello my beautiful family! I love you so much! I was writing a letter to Dallas today and I felt like I should give him some tips. What I told him was to spend as much time as possible with your family because like President Hall said, "You never hear a missionary say that he wished he would have spent more time with his friends." I love you guys so much and every day I feel like I love you even more. 

 

I cannot tell you how amazing my week has been. I love love LOVE Brazil, and if it wasn't for you and the future Sister Nathan Askins, I would spend forever here. I am at Mr. Cheny's. (the people who do Mission ties) The MTC said we can email from here and also from the MTC so it gives me a little extra time. 30 minutes is not enough. Last week I had trouble logging in and a wonderful sister helped me and I jokingly told her that if I couldn´t email my family- I would cry. This is something that I look forward to during the week. Thank you for emailing me back! I brought a note pad and wrote down some things that you all said so I can respond to it.

 

KATIE-CONGRATS ON MAKING THE NEW YORK MARATHON!!!! That is so awesome! I am so proud of you!!! When I get home I definitely want to start running with you!! Hahaha and thanks for the card! The "Don't Stop Believing" really helped. It is the song my district lives by. I would love some pictures that John (Steinaker) took or just of the fam if you wanted to mail them.

 

Allie-I AM SO PROUD OF YOU FOR PASSING THE BOARDS!!! That is so exciting!! I always knew you could do it! You are smart! Good luck to you and Aaron at apartment shopping! Let me know when you pick one.

 

Mommy- The food here is pretty good. They feed us too much. We have a big breakfast, big lunch, and a big dinner and then we have a snack before we go to bed.  The food is good (I think) but the teachers all say it sucks compared to regular Brazilian food. ~That was great you guys went to the temple. I´ll talk about the Sao Paulo temple later but I think I'm gonna mail you all a picture. I am sorry to hear about (Uncle)Ned. I cried when I read it because I could just imagine that wonderful reunion that him, Papa and Erv are having. I'm glad it went well though. Mission ties was great! I was so suprised that you guys did it. I love it! And we get time at night to write in our journals.

 

Dad- The language is coming along and how did the prison go?

                    

This week has been a great week. I love being here and I love Brazil. It's funny because the little things in life make me happy. Like good chicken for lunch or the sun shining. The Lord is really blessing us here. I love Him and I feel His presence constantly. ~I´m not sure how it works at other MTCs but here they teach us a concept, this weekend it was the second lesson, The Plan of Salvation. Every Monday morning and Friday night we do something called Milestone. That is the closest thing to a test and that is where we go and use the concept that we were taught. I don't know if that made any sense, but bear with me. On Friday, Elder Groom and I were teaching another companionship in front of the class. The story was that we were teaching a man that wanted to join the church, belonged to another religion and didn't think he needed to be baptized again. His friend who didn't like the church was over when we stopped by. The friend kept trying to back us up into corners. He was throwing out scriptures and trying to get us to back down. I remembered something Brother Davis taught us. He told us that scriptures will cause a debate. But a testimony will convert. Right then my companion and I just started testifying and the Spirit flooded into the room. The friend stopped talking and got all big eyed and started to listen. The man we were teaching felt the Spirit as well. Once we finished, my teacher (Brother Rebero-- pronounced Hebero) said in his little Brazilian accent "Now just learn to do that in Portuguese Elder Askins, and you will be an amazing missionary." It was a wonderful experience for me because the whole time you are in the CTM you are thinking, "Can I really do this? Can the Lord really use me? Can I be a good missionary?" I know that the Lord can mold the craziest kid, a kid like me, into a missionary. 

 

Everyone has asked me about the food. YES they feed us a lot. Too much. Its all Brazillian food. Some of it is amazing. Some of it is not. One thing I love is the chicken we have. And the rice and beans. One thing I don't like is the pizza. It's pizza with banana's on top. It's nasty. 

 

Today we went to the Sao Paulo temple. I love it.  Not only is it the cleanest place I have been to since we went there last week, but you can feel the Spirit of the Lord so strongly. I am grateful that through the priesthood families can be together forever. I am so grateful for Heavenly Father, Pai Celestial, as they say down here. I love Jesus Christ and I am so thankful for His atonement. I know that He lives and atoned for our sins. I know with everything in my body that He died for us, but even more, I know He lives for us. 

 

There is so much more I wish I could write, but I'm out of time. Just know that you never have to worry about me, you are just wasting time. I have the greatest protection anyone could offer. His protection. 

 

Peace out and Tchoa! Eu Amo voce!            

 

Kate- make sure to get me auntie, nanie, and uncle bobby's home address and email address and I found the papers of addresses.

The 1st Letter: "I'm Alive and I Don't Need A Witness"

Oi familia!!! I'm alive and well in the beautiful country of Brasil!!! But setting up this email address was so hard!!! Right now I only have 24 minutes and this key board is funny so if i spell wrong, it's because I'm not used to the keys.

I know that the Lord protects His missionaries and watches out for them. On the plane ride from Phoenix to Dallas, I was standing in the airport, waiting for the plane and thinking I was so thirsty and a little hungry. I was just about to walk away to get stuff when these giant hands came onto my shoulders and in a deep voice said, "Elder, you look thirsty so I bought you a water bottle and some snacks for the plane ride." This man had seen me walk up and bought me a water bottle and m&ms  for the plane ride. He stood there and talked with me as we waited to board. He sat behind me on the airplane to Dallas and I could hear him talking about missionaries and me to a non member. It was so cool.

But the thing I was most scared about was getting from Dallas to Sao Paulo. As I walked off the plane, I said a quick prayer to Heavenly Father that He would help me make it to Brazil. No sooner had I said amen, the man that bought me food for the airplane was walking off behind me. He started calling "Elder! Elder!" (I didn't turn around right away because I'm not used to hearing that) but when I did turn around he said, "This airport is pretty big, let me help you to your next termanal." He took my things and walked up to a lady and got my information and took me on this train. The Dallas airport is so big that they have this subway train thing that takes you to the different parts. He took me to where I needed to go and I met up with like 15 or 16 other missionaries.

The plane ride was so long and airplane food is not good. But once we made it to Sao Paulo we went through all of the baggage stuff and exchanged our monies. This small man loaded us into 3 volkswagon-like buggies and we made our way to the CTM! One thing I learned is that there are no driving laws in Brazil. People do crazy lane changes and motorcycles use the lane dividers as lanes and people drive on the shoulders. IT´S SO AWESOME!!! The city is HUGE! It's so amazing. The mission pres met us and we took pictures (They should have emailed it to dad?) and then we had meetings. It was a long day but so much fun.

My district is so awesome. Elder Groom is my companion. He looks a lot like Ben Stinnett, but acts almost exactly like Dan Chamberlain. We have so much fun. Our district leader's name is Elder Gessel and he could be the coolest guy ever. He is a lot like me, but way more awesome. One of the missionaries in our district bags didn't make it to Brazil, haha poor guy. The airport finally told him that they couldn't locate it and they would reimburse him. So today was p-day and we get to roam some of the streets in Sao Paulo. Today we went shopping with the elder that lost his bag.

I know that the CTM is a holy place and the spirit is here. I have learned more about Portuguese in 6 days than in the 2 years I took Spanish. The Lord is helping us so much. I love Brazillians. They are the nicest people in the world. My first day, this Brazillian missionary came up to me and gave me a big hug. He pointed to my badge and said, "Elder Askins??? No no no, We give them answers!" And now every time he sees me he always gives me a hug and says, "less asking, more answers!!" But it reminded me that we are missionaries and we are helping people and giving them the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

I don't have much more time. But I want you to know that I love you so much and I miss you guys. I'm not homesick at all, so please don't worry about me. The Lord is helping me and protecting me in more ways than we will ever understand. I love you guys so much and 2 years will fly by faster than you think. Mom- thanks for always taking care of me and loving me and putting me and the girls before yourself. Dad- Thanks for joining the church and being the best example ever. I love you both so much. Girs and Aaron- I love you guys so so so much and when I get back, we have a lot of pounce to play.

If you put this on the blog, let everyone know I accidentally misplaced the addresses so write me so I can write them. I love you all!! The Church is true!!!!