Week 2 in Paris

Bounjour everybody

There is nothing about this town that seems to resemble France. The people here are a lot more freindly towards missionaries though it seems. This week was not too bad. Kind of a struggle again, but still good. 

We had zone conference in which we got to drive up to Springfield so I got to revisit that place sort of. We have a really good mission president and wife. They focused a lot on improving our teaching skills, we got a new music policy, focused on how to get referrals better, comp unity, and diligence. 

Some good quotes from Zone Conference:

"Christ is the senior companion. Think of yourselves as both junior companions to the lord

Regarding our new music policy, "You won't realize how spiritually sensitive you are until you get home--maybe on the airport ride home. If you don't do these things (studying and memorizing the hymns) on your mission you cheat yourself of that sacred opportunity."

MSLM Mission Statement

PURPOSE + PREPARATION = POWER

(1) Increase Teaching Skills

(2) Increase Vision by setting goals

(3) Treasure up the Word

(4) Act, not be Acted Upon

"Teaching is not talking. It is ears to hear and eyes to see. Only when you discern can you know what to say. None of us are smart enough to ask the right questions, but if we do our best our utterances will be guided and inspired."- Elder David A Bednar  (fun fact: I actually heard his son speak Saturday since he is in the Stake Presidency).

"Asking more questions will lead to inspired questions and those will lead to finding people to teach."

"People don't care how much you know until you show how much you care."

"We need to act like every person we talk to will be their last opportunity to hear the gospel."

"If you ever wonder if there is an easier way, remember that someone a lot greater and a lot grander asked the same question."

"When you become a hiss and a byword, you are standing with the best man their ever was."

"The only way to salvation is through Gethsemane and on to Calvary."

"Don't get discouraged when things are hard because you are standing shoulder to shoulder with Jesus Christ."

So there are some good highlights from our zone conference. Not a whole lot happened this week that I have time to go into detail about since we don't have much time to email today. We are having a zone p-day in Champgain with President Bateman. 

Got to Go!

Love you all.

I know the gospel of Jesus Christ is is true especially when we are true to the gospel.

Elder Soutas

Burying our weapons

That is so crazy what happened with Jenessa's talk! How is Mikey Henderson going on a mission?  I thought he was 16. 

Things are going pretty good in Paris.  This week a family they taught before I got here got confirmed (baptized last Saturday)--The bemis family. They are super golden and the husband is a scriptorian and has a thirst for knowledge. This area is pretty cool. It's a small town and we live in the garage of a member. It's not as bad as it sounds, it doesn't really look like a garage in the inside and I actually think it is really neat. 

Elder Clark and I want to have good comp unity which is really good, because a lot of my other companions haven't cared all too much about that. I honestly could have put more emphasis on that too. He is really open about things when things bug him because his last companion hated him at first, and would even go to the lengths of leaving the apartment to vent about his problems to our district leader, Elder george durrant (who went to Bingham with Jenessa!) Greg Wrubell's color commentator (Mark Durrant's son). He was on the basketball team too after I quit). Anyways so elder clark has been really cautious in making this companionship work and so we've had a few scuffles but they were okay because we actually care about each other's happiness. He is a really great companion. 

We are teaching a sort of family right now. Two of them were baptized a few months ago (Korbin who is 15 and his grandma Sister Timmerman). i wonder if there could be any relation to our family. not really sure. But her granddaughter Lexi we are teaching right now and she wants to get baptized. Actuallythere are quite a few people in this area who want to be baptized which is something I've never experienced really before where multiple people want to be baptized. 

We have a really dedicated WML, Bro Strait,  who is 78 years old. He is super active and works at a golf course which is fun to talk about. He is in really good health and he comes out with us a lot. He also talks A LOT which makes teaching kind of hard. 

Coming to this point on my mission there is a lot of things that I need to learn. I am still really working on my desire to share the gospel because it is hard sometimes. I'm not sure sometimes if it's just because I have mental illnesses or if I just need to change something in my life. This morning I was studying about the Anti nephi Lehies and that story really impacted me on how they were converted to the Lord and the steps they had to take. 14 And the great God has had mercy on us, and made these things known unto us that we might not perish; yea, and he has made these things known unto us beforehand, because he loveth our souls as well as he loveth our children; therefore, in his mercy he doth visit us by his angels, that the plan of salvation might be made known unto us as well as unto future generations.They loathed sin so much that they would rather die. I've been thinking this mornign a lot about what I need to bury. I even want to literally go dig a hole or something and bury something to remind me more of the thing I gave up like the anti nephi lehies. Of course though that is what the sacrament is for.  I haven't really gotten to that point like the anti nephi lehies. I do hate sin, and I have clean hands. The hardest is having a pure heart. I desire to have desire, but I struggle obtaining that desire if that makes sense. I am really trying to apply the atonement in my life and a lot of other things. There's a lot of things I have to juggle and I need to take the time to set some new goals, but I just haven't been able to find much time to reflect because I am always busy doing something. 

Anyway before I go on an on I just want to thank you for raising me and teaching the gospel. I know that it is the truth. And I thank you so much for teahcing me to love the scriptures!

Love you!

Elder Soutas

School Thy Feelings

Hey everybody,

This letter will be short as I am running low on time, but I will still try to make it worth reading.

This week we had a cool guy named Than Hrang come to church. He is a recent convert from Burma and more recently from Idaho--a refugee. He speaks little English. He made some good friends from the ward, particuarly from another recent convert from Brasil, Andre. Putting those two together is really hysterical. We also helped some people move--The Renshaws. They are living together and both members of the church, but they have a desire to start coming back. We should be teaching them more as well as her sister-in-law's little girl who hasn't been baptized.

Isaiah is doing pretty good. He is still unsure about baptism, but we had a great lesson with him about applying the scriptures to himself. 

Jeff we have not been able to get ahold of. 

Other than that there are some other neat experiences. Yesterday was fast sunday. I got up and bore my testimony at the last minute which was good. It is not easy to do for me, even as a missionary just so you know. But I highly reccomend doing it if you haven't lately. 

Also there was a black lady who asked us for money yesterday. I didn't have any cash on me and Elder howlett had a little..i know he had more in his wallet but he only gave her a dollar. She was hungry and looking food for her family. She asked us if we could help her more. I was at first hesitant but then said sure. And so we walked with her for about a half a mile the opposite direction to take her to a place to buy food for her (it being Sunday which we don't really do but the ox is in the mire I guess. It was too far to get to a food place, but luckily we found an atm and so I got her a little money to go buy some food. It was a good learning experience to put into practice the words of king benjamin:

 17 Perhaps thou shalt say: The man has brought uponhimself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and willnot give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of mysubstance that he may not suffer, for his punishments arejust—

 18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this thesame hath great cause to repent; and except he repentethof that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hathno interest in the kingdom of God.

 19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not alldepend upon the same Being, even God, for all thesubstance which we have, for both food and raiment, andfor gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which wehave of every kind?

And I don't include this to boast for any reason whatsoever, just to demonstrate how wonderful it is to help others. 

As you may remember, this month is dedicated to being "not easily provoked." I hope you are all getting along with one another, and I'm sure you are. Already i have had to learn by experience from this. I have been listening everyday practicaly from Gordon B. Hinckley's talk in 2007, "Slow to Anger." I got angry at my companion this week after he got angry at me! I even swore at him! Can you believe that? I won't tell you which swear word it was. We have been trying to learn how to get along with each other and become more unified. It is not easy, and that is one thing that I am trying to learn on my mission since most of my companions I have really had a hard time learning this, and I suppose until I get it right it will remain that way. But luckily those principles I've learned from Gordon B. Hinckley have helped me a great deal this week and right now all is forgiven in my companionship. I have actually gotten upset at each of my companions at least once. 

School thy feelings, O my brother;

Train thy warm, impulsive soul.

Do not its emotions smother,

But let wisdom’s voice control.

School thy feelings; there is power

In the cool, collected mind.

Passion shatters reason’s tower,

Makes the clearest vision blind. …

School thy feelings; condemnation

Never pass on friend or foe,

Though the tide of accusation

Like a flood of truth may flow.

Hear defense before deciding,

And a ray of light may gleam,

Showing thee what filth is hiding

Underneath the shallow stream.

School thy feelings, O my brother;

Train thy warm, impulsive soul.

Do not its emotions smother,

But let wisdom’s voice control.

I have learned that anger, resentment, grudges truly do "make the clearest vision blind." The savior said in Matt 7 "4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out themote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye."

If we are to ever try to correct the flaw of another, we must first look at ourselves. A 'mote' is a very small speck. A "beam" is like a long piece of wood or metal. It is so easy to get offended by something so small like a "mote." For instance, Elder Howlett got offended because since he doesn't like riding bikes, I told him in a tone which I meant no offense to "deal with it." Something I should say of course. Elder Howlett said something mean to me while tracting and I chose to get really upset. Of course, it is not just those things that were said alone which cause us to lash out, but it is the accumulation of things we choose to become offended of that cause such anger. Said President Hinckley: "So many of us make a great fuss of matters of small consequence. Weare so easily offended. Happy is the man who can brush aside the offending remarks of another and go on his way.

Grudges, if left to fester, can become serious maladies"

It is so much easier to forgive as the savior has taught us. I know from experience that the Savior is quick to forgive us, and likewise we should do the same with those around us. Charity is hard, but if we pray for it with all of our heart we may slowly by each and every thought, word, and deed like little drops of water in a great sea become more and more like the Savior. 

Well i said this letter would be short, but I lied. 

I hope you all have a good week. The gospel is simply true. 

Love ya,

Elder Soutas

Grateful for the atonement and the sacrament.

Hello everybody!

This week was pretty good. We still aren't meeting with many investigators except we had a good lesson with Isaiah. He doesn't want to go to church though. We invited him to go on the ward float trip so hopefully that will be good for him if he goes. 

We had a crazy experience with a less active named Brother Guyer. His sister in law is threatening to kick he and his wife out of the house because of some will, and he also has had really bad phantom leg pains lately! Look that up to understand how painful it is becasue I can't really describe it to you. So he told his whole life story the whole hour we were there and then we helped our WML Brother Nevels give him a priesthood blessing. He is planning on coming back to church and said he would go to church Sunday but didn't for some reason. He also wants us to come teach him some more! I'm really glad that I acted on the prompting to call him the other day. He's hit rock bottom kind of. As we left his place Tuesday night backing up in the car, I could see the poor guy with his head down on the top of his swinging front door. i'm not sure if he was just really grateful or really sad. 

That was the highlight of the week. We have another less active family we will hopefully be teaching tomorrow, brother Araiza. He is native american and really cool. We taught him this week and said he'd be at chruch but didn't show either! Goodness gracious! It makes a huge difference getting people to church because then the members actually think you're serious about missionary work. They are kind of judgmental and they don't understand how it is. We have so many good families in our ward and I just don't quite to see how to encourage them to help us find nonmembers and build enough trust with them to turn their friends over to us to teach. It's tricky stuff. 

One thing I am grateful for is the atonement and the sacrament. Forgiveness for little misdeeds I am always grateful for. I become resentful really easily towards certain people but the Lord forgives me still. Maybe one day I will be able to overcome that. That is something hard to repent of. This month's charity topic is "not easily provoked: The talk included is Slow to Anger by President Hinckley. 

Hope you all have a good week!

Elder Soutas