The Lord is my Strength

Hey Mom and Dad,

Doing pretty good today. It's been a good week. Also pretty challenging. There was supposed to be a bunch of freezing rain this week but it never actually happened which was good so we didn't die on the roads. 

We've made some good progress with Julie this week. She has a great shot of being baptized the 29th! She and Brian have been reading consistently and praying. They stayed all 3 hours of church and we had a lesson with them afterwards. We also had a lesson with them over the phone since they are really busy. If you don't remember, Brian is the sophomore basketball coach for the Paris High team. I wish he could've been my coach when I played at Bingham. He's a really good guy. His father passed when he was his basketball coach in high school. He's gone through a lot of troubled times because of that but is returning and I have confidence he will be a strong member! We hope that he will be able to baptized Julie!

In other news, Dusty dropped us again! She reconsidered after dropping us last week, but then she made some poor choices this weekend and now has decided not to come to church for good. Pretty disappointing. 

We met with Amparo and Pedro again last night. We thought they didn't want us to talk to them anymore, but I guess not. We got to teach their daughters and grandkids, too! It's not very often that we get to teach a whole family at once. The lesson went really well, until they all got distracted by making hooooooot pockets! Ugh. Right when we were teaching the apostay. It was a perfect demonstration of how the apostasy happened. We don't know how that happened. Very frustrating. They are originally from the Houston area near Jordan served but I think it was in the north mission (in Humble, Texas). They are pretty set being catholic for now but they agreed to read the Book of Mormon. They just don't quite understand giving up  Catholicism when the book of Mormon is true.   Thanks to those hot pockets distracting their learning. 

We had interviews with President Bateman this week. He gave me a lot of good advice. He referenced 1 Nephi 15 about holding fast to the rod, and feasting upon the fruit compared to clinging to the rod and tasting of the fruit. He also told me that while I am a missionary I am "married to the Lord."

I would go into more detail but am constrained to time. He is a great man though. I had a really terrible day Friday, and he was able to talk me through everything. Also both of those letters you sent me on Christmas were a comfort in time of immense discouragement. Thank you for taking the time to write those. 

I am learning a lot of how to fight through and hold fast to my Faith in times of darkness and opposition. There's been a lot of disappointing things happening, and I have had plently of reason to just throw up my hands and pack my bags and go home,  but I have stayed true and I will never forsake the Lord because in him is my strength. I love my Father in Heaven and my Savior. I know they will help us through our own personal Gethsemanes. 

Hope you all enjoy your week!

Love 

Elder Soutas

 The world's largest golf tee. Casey is home to the world's largest objects and for each of them to pass the test they have to actually have them work like a real golf tee, so they had to actually swing a huge club off this huge tee to pass the test!

Elder Merril, Elder Williams, Elder Burgoyne

                      At a dirt bike course