Hi, I'm Austin

I am from Utah. I am serving a mission in North Carolina. I love sports. I'm a Mormon.

About Me

I love to play sports, especially basketball, swimming, and paintball. I will be attending college when I get home to become a pharmacist. I am currently serving a full-time LDS mission in the North Carolina, Raleigh Mission.

Why I am a Mormon

My whole life I have seen the sadness and despair that comes from a lack of God in one's life. I have always been a the kind of person that looks out for myself and my family and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has shaped my family into people that love one another and find happiness in our lives. The values that our Church holds dear are those that will make a good person a great person.

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon has changed my life and a few years ago I would not have believed it. The Book of Mormon, in conjunction with prayer, lead to a connection with our Heavenly Father that is hard to describe. The only way to find out is to read and pray about the Book of Mormon yourself.

Personal Stories

Why do Mormons go on missions?

Mormons go on missions for a simple reason, to share the things that we know and love. We want to see people receive the happiness that we have received through living the principles of the gospel. We know that all can benefit from the message that we have and we have a desire to spread the word. It is not a forced thing, we have the choice to do it and we pay our way, but that is the beauty of it. There is no other inscentive other than we love to help people.

How I live my faith

I live my faith just like most people in the Church, I go to church weekly and I participate in the activities during the week. I read the Book of Mormon every day and I ponder and pray about the things I read. I am currently serving a mission in the Raleigh North Carolina Mission and I am loving the people I meet. I live my faith by sharing it with those that do not know about it and those that want more happiness in their lives.

What is the priesthood?

Austin answered...

Priesthood is the authority to act in God's name. It is one of the largest things that sets our Church apart from any other church. We believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only church that has this authority. This may sound arrogant, but think about the facts. Not everybody in the Bible had the authority to do things ie. Jesus Christ walking for three days to be baptized of John the Baptist. John had the authority to baptize and if it wasn't required then Jesus could have gone to anybody to be baptized. The authority is only available to those who are called of God (Hebrews 5:4).
Ethan answered...

I like to approach questions by looking at the words of things

"priest" has reference to either the concept of one who leads, one who is elder, or one who is holy I like to remember that the words 'holy' and 'whole' are linked by a common ancestry. When something is 'holy' it's essentially saying that it's complete, that it's healthy..

And "-hood" makes reference to the state of being, and not just any state of being but a state of being that's worthy or correct for it's placement. That is, that it's done properly.

So one could say the priesthood is leadership or a point of reference that's completely suited to the position in which it's been placed.

Another way to look at it is to say it's God's perfect order. That is, it's God's perfect arrangement.

In our Church we often give a definition of priesthood as being "the authority to act in God's name" and that's exactly what it means to be a part of God's perfect order. If God commands something to be done by you, and you do it, then you are acting under, and with that portion of God's authority that he's permitted you to exercise within his perfect order.

Just as with any instance where someone tries to act in the name of someone else there are bound to be those who try and do so falsely. That's why God has things ordered in such a way that one can know for certain if someone has His God's authority, or not.

What is the Mormon lifestyle like? How do Mormons live?

Serge answered...

Family is everything to us. Our family spends lots of our free time together because we like each other. Life gets crazy with teenagers, dance practice, after school academic decathlon, usually with a toddler in tow, but no matter what, every Monday night is Family Night.

The kids know that every Monday we spend time together and nothing gets in the way of it. It's our commitment to each other. We bake cookies, have lessons about the Savior, work on personal goals, go to the park, go geocaching, play board games or just go out for ice cream.

We do lots of things together. The point is that at least once a week we spend an hour or two together, just for the sake of being together, just because we love being together as a family. It's not as perfect as it may sound, with all the poking and "she's in my spot," and all the other crazy things family members do to each other when scrambling for a spot in the living room, but we try real hard. It takes effort to make sure we don't miss, but it's worth it.

I'm not sure the kids will remember all the games we played, the places we went or what we did, but I hope they always remember that we loved each other enough to dedicate one night a week to be with each other. And that we spent every Monday night together for as many Mondays as they can remember because family is everything to us, and every member of our family is important.