Well, Here I Am!

G'day Everyone!

Well, I'm officially here in Australia. I can't believe I'm already here! I realize I haven't been able to write in over a week, so I'll try to catch you up as best as I can.

Leaving the MTC was a lot harder than I'd expected. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone in my district as well as my teachers. I couldn't believe I had already been there for two months! It finally hit me when I got to the airport that I was saying goodbye to Utah for the next two years! It was nice to see my mountains again one last time before I peaced out.

The plane ride wasn't bad at all, I slept for a lot of it (surprise surprise) but tried my best to get adjusted to Australia time while on the plane. I was super lucky and didn't have hardly any jet lag (thanks for the advice, Dad!) so it has been easy getting acclimated to Australia time. It was so wonderful to talk to everyone on the phone, I'm so glad to hear you are all doing so well!

Once I got off the plane I met President Howes (pronounced House) and his wife, and they took us to the mission home where we camped out for most of the day.The first missionary I met there was Elder Esplin, he was an SBO at Brighton when I was a sophomore (so Katie's age) and I was on sem council with his sister, Olivia! Small world, isn't it?! He was going to be a trainer and had about a 30% chance of training me, but instead I got assigned to Elder Han. Elder Han is awesome, he left the MTC the week I went in, so he's about 2 months ahead of me. He learned Korean in the MTC too, and his teacher was actually the same as mine! It's hard to practice Korean (especially since there aren't really any Koreans in our area), but we still try to study it. Since transfers didn't happen for a few days after I got here, I was actually assigned to a trio, Elder Han and his trainer, Elder Jun. Elder Jun is from Korea which was great, but his English is perfect and he didn't like speaking Korean at all.. but that's okay! He just got transferred yesterday to a new area so now it's just me and Elder Han.

So the first area I've been assigned to is Summer Hill. It's the southernmost district in our Mission, and it actually covers part of the city which is super fun. I love this area a lot, the ward is awesome and very diverse. There's lots of Tongans, Islanders and Asians (mostly Chinese). Native Aussies are actually really unreceptive to the gospel, so most of the new converts and investigators are Asian students.

So, as I'm sure all of you would like to know, here are some of the main differences of Australia to America:

-THEY DRIVE ON THE WRONG SIDE! Haha I'm sure you all already knew that, but I've had so many mental car crashes from thinking everyone's going the wrong way.

-The Street Lights don't hang over the street, they stick straight up from poles on the side. Kind of different.

-All the trees in the suburbs don't grow by the sidewalk, but are planted straight in the street (I'll take a picture sometime and send it to you)

-The birds make the WEIRDEST sounds. I feel like I'm on another planet!

-There are millions of different kinds of trees, and right now they're all flowering, which is actually very pretty.

And no, for some of the Aussie-slang I've picked up:

Boot=Trunk (like of a car)

Hectic=cool/good

Flat=Apartment

Biscuit=Cookie

Sauce=Ketchup 

Mackers=McDonalds

Gas (for the Car)=Petrol

and may favorite so far is this slang format everyone uses for just about anything. If you want to say something's sweet, you'd say "Sweet As", which means like "Sweet As Pie" but they drop the pie, so it sounds like you're swearing which is pretty funny. They say things like "Cool as", "Hectic as", "Sad as", so on and so forth. I can't get myself to say it because it's too dang close to swearing, but it's hilarious to hear all the missionaries say it.

So exciting news! I got a baptism! Haha well kind of. Elder Han and Elder Jun had been teaching this Chinese Student, Harry, and he got baptized on Saturday so I got to go to his baptism. Very cool. He's a golden investigator and it's been sweet getting to know him better.

So there's my first impression of Australia! The weather's a bit chilly, but it's warming up slowly. I haven't seen any Kangaroos or Koalas yet, but I'll keep my eye out. I love it so far, and I'll let you know as soon as we find some more investigators to teach! Thanks for all you prayers and thoughts. God Speed!

Cheers,

Elder Easton