August 19, 2013

Aye mum,

I love you so much mom, I'm so thankful that I have you as my mom and not anyone else. You're the perfect mom for me and I wouldn't trade you for any other mom ever. Thank you for loving me so much. I miss you so much. I'm sorry I didn't cry more when I said goodbye at the MTC, because now all I do is cry when I write to you. I love my family so much and miss them so much. I'm so grateful for every single person in my family and all my friends. Thank you all for putting up with me so much. I'm sorry I wasn't better, I will be from here on out. I need a mom hug a lot right now... Well, I'm going to write about the letter from last week. You told me about the stories that Bobbi Pilcher told from her mission and that was cool, the part where you said the guy said he quit drinking and he said yes because he drank it all last night, that part made me laugh a bunch. Oh and the story you told about the girl in the car accident and the guy who showed up out of nowhere, that was a nephite, he told me yesterday that it was him ;) ok not really :P You also asked me if to me the time goes by fast or slow. Well I would first say that I'm so lost in time that this just is my life and I love being a missionary, but if I had to pick fast or slow I would say that it's going by too fast. I just love being a missionary so much and dedicating myself to the Lord that I never want it to end. Also you said that you were watching my youtube videos and I want you to tell me if there is anything inappropriate or not very nice in the videos I want to take it down, I don't want to be remembered like that you know?

This week was good and tough and all over the place. I don't really know what to write to be honest. A lot of things happened but really they're very long stories or personal things of other people. OH! I got sick again! whoo! Also on Friday, Elder Martinez from the Quorum of the Seventy came and spoke to us and trained us. It was really good and he was really great and it was just a feeling of happiness to be around him. I also had a funny idea. There's a mormon message called Earthly Father Heavenly Father and I thought it would be hilarious if we did a remake of that video but with adult kids, I was thinking of us and you and dad for example haha. Maybe it wouldn't be so funny... Something that I saw this week was a family having a trouble. Two solutions were presented, one was that they keep trying the best they can to resolve everything and the other was just to leave the problem and go in another direction. I thought to myself "when we have problems like these and solutions are presented we should consider which of the options would be a more hopeful response?" I think it would help us a lot. I love you mom, Thank you for everything,

Always your grateful son,

Elder Branden Carl Astle

 

 

 

I can't believe it's been one year already!

 

 

He said at 6 months it's cutom to burn a tie, at one year a shirt, at 18 months a pair of pants and at two years a suit. He told me this is the last thing he will burn, If you know Elder Astle then you know burning a shirt wasa very hard for this thrifty young man!

 

 

It's burnt!

 

This is a road?!

 

Found a puppy!!