Hope you are enjoying the holiday season. It's been fun.
This week we spent a couple hours making this plaque and Christmas light fixture which says #light the world 25 days 25 ways, visit mormon.org. I wish my camera had battery so I could take a picture of it. I am pretty proud of it.
Other than that this week, we drove 3 hours to Springfield early in the morning to go to an impromptu zone conference about planning. Apparently our mission struggles with effective planning so we spend 4 hours learning how to do that better. They want us to Think Outside of the tiny box that we are in without leaving the "trust box" or framework of rules that we are to live by. They really want us to increase our vision of finding people and try to be more creative.
Another way we tried to be more creative this week was to play music at the old folks home. they sure enjoyed it but it didn't turn into any people to teach. We will have to re evaluate that.
This week we made some lee-way with Amparo. We brought Sister Large with us and her homemade cookies. They became instant friends. It was funny we couldn't go inside because there wasn't a man with us so we were left out in the cold while Amparo and Sister Large developed a friendship. Sister large also invited over our other investigator for lunch and a bible study as well as dinner! She is a fantastic member missionary.
Our hope this week is to be creative by "calling members on a mission" since there has been increasing emphasis in our stake about sharing the gospel. I thought we would kind of mimic a full-time missionary call letter and give it to the members and also even give them a print out of the mission they are called to with a map of the Paris branch, key indicators like "awkward situations, pass along cards passed, church invites, etc... just make it fun for them. WE will see how it turns out.
This week we also made some great progress with Dusty. She had us over for dinner and is a great cook by the way. She made home made chicken and noodles. We also were able to last night travel all the way to Champain with brother strait and sister strait to attend the annual stake musical fireside which was very very good. IT was kind of funny because one of the songs was an arrangement of "O Holy NIght' which Elder Kama and I performed just the day before at some one's baptism, except it was waaaay better. The reason being is that the stake pres. daughter who is my age has a voice that is unbelievable. Elder Kama and I thought it was funny because the stake president was at the baptism just the day before and heard our musical number knowing that the next day his daughter would perform it and would sound much better. Haha kind of hard to explain. I'm in a hurry typing this.
Also this week I learned in church that I need to be better at spending my time more wisely. In the sacrament a phrase in the hymn stood out "and choose the better part." Then in 3rd hour they read Mormon 9 28 which says to be wise in the days of your probation. So apparently I need to use my time more wisely, and choose better things over good things since I have A LOT of good ideas, but I need to be careful. It's one of those gift/curse type of things that I have.
Well I better wrap up this email!
I am so glad for this Christmas season to reflect on my personal relationship with Christ. It could honestly be a lot better, but I know that everything that is good in my life is because of him. My family, good people that are in my life, trials to be able to develop Christlike attributes, the book of Mormon. It is all because of him.
I love you all!
Keep enjoying the holidays and serving others!
Elder Soutas
p.s. I am staying in Paris another transfer! and getting an elder burgoyle
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