Hello Fam,

its been an interesting week.

We had Nalani and Jacob Taylor come to a temple grounds tour. I wish I took a picture of the front of the temple. IT was cold outside and wasn't very well planned out so we didn't get a chance. Nalani needs to get baptized. She is so great. Her family is Buddhist. She is from the Phillipines. She also loves to crochet, which was no coincidence because before we knew that we went to a free crochet class at the public library two days before. So our plan now is to try to get some of the relief society there as well as Nalani where they can become well acquainted. Also it is a great missionary opportunity. The teacher of the class is named Laurie and is Jewish. 

Also, Jacob gave such a powerful talk on Sunday in sacrament meeting. He is about 24 years old. It was general authority good. He is a chemist. Very bright person. Part asian. Very humble and kind personality. I hope that Nalani felt the power of the spirit in his talk. She made it to sacrament which is good. 

Also we had a new investigator come to sacrament this week! Her name is Robyn. She is a former investigator, a referral of Brother York Bennett. She has a very sensitive personality, very kind. We had a few lessons with her and her son, Anthony. There is a little bit of tension between the two during the lesson. We were primarily there to teach Anthony since Robyn is desperate to help him get his life on track, but what has ended up happening is that she has gained more interest than Anthony. 

Robyn found it really fascinating that we live in the promised land. She also was intrigued that she could do baptisms for the dead for her grandfather. During the course of the lesson she apologized to Brother Bennett for misunderstanding our religion. 

When she came to church on Sunday she came in a little late, but the talks were wonderful which is always a relief. She left after gospel principles because she has a brain injury, and also she broke down in tears after the lesson that we taught about Prophets of God. There is a lot going on in her life right now. She used to be catholic and a choir music director (which is quite impressive for that church). But she had some bad experience there which caused her to not like the church anymore. She also realizes that the Catholic church took books out of the bible, which she found very interesting to her that it mentions that in the Book of Mormon. 

She is a work in progress. Hopefully we can get things rolling with her. I have thought that using music would be a great way to build a better relationship with her and help her recognize the spirit. 

well, it appears that I have to end earlier than expected. One of the missionaries in our district is going home early and so we have to drive him to the airport. Also, my companion this past week has had an MRI on his shoulder and will hear back results from Salt Lake at the end of this week. He may or may not have to leave his mission early, too for surgery. We will see. Pray for the best to happen to him. 

I'll close with a brief testimony. I know that Jesus is Christ, he is the Son of God and has the power to deliever us from death, from sorrow, and from sin. Joseph Smith is for sure a prophet of God, and The Book of Mormon is undeniably the word of God and is a marvel and a wonder to me. 

Love you all,

Elder Soutas

Becoming a Saint

Hello everyone! 

Don't have much time to email today due to President's day yesterday. I am so impressed with Brycen's shooting ability. I am also excited that your hebrew book is going well. I have thought recently about maybe going to BYU Jerusalem center some time when I get back. Who knows. You'll be a fine teacher of gospel principles Dad. Just go to the teaching in the Savior's way classes and study preach my gospel chapter 10 and 3  and you'll be good. 

Let's see if I can remember what has all happened this week. Well, we are having a hard time finding new investigators but are finding a few potentials. Last night we weren't able to find anyone to teach and so it was time to bike home. I prayed on the way back that there would be some people to talk to. The first person wasn't interested. But when we got to our apartment complex  as I raced around the corner I was still praying about who we could talk to and I saw a man walking his small dog by some cars on the grass there. His name was Keegan. He was about 30 or less. He actually had lived in Utah at some point. He wasn't a churchgoer because he felt like many of them are hypocrites. Indeed! He had heard about the book of Mormon before but never read it. We were able to give him a copy and he was interested to read it. He also thought it was cool that we had a prophet at the head of our church and we didn't get paid to preach. Didn't get his address though, so I may not see him again. I have high hopes for his next encounter with Mormons though. 

Let's see, what other positive things happened this week. Oh yeah! We have been helping Ken to quit smoking! Brother Bennett (who I need to send a picture of him home) is taking time out of his day to help him quit buying him all of the material for the stop smoking workshop and everything. We were able to give him a blessing! And also we invited him to come to a baptism held within the district! Ken is less active. He has had some unfortunate things occur in his life. His son got home from a mission not too long ago but he doesn't correspond with him. Same with his daughter. He isn't very self reliant either and relies heavily upon his parents who are nonmembers`. He lives by himself in our complex but I don't think he pays for it. He has some mental illness too. He is such a nice guy though and I really like sitting next to him at church and talking to him. He is very reserved and lonely. Good guy though and good things coming. 

Also, we have been serving and preparing food at the senior's center the past couple of weeks. I've decided to make the extra effort to share the gospel while serving and try to interact with the old fogies more. I've been trying to get myself out of my comfort zone and overcome shyness.  It's harder to share the gospel in this kind of setting, but I figured that that is how it'll be when I get home.

No one will recognize me as a missionary by the way I dress when i get home and so I am trying to learn how to direct casual conversations into gospel related stuff so when I return home I won't just return to "my old ways". 

Anyway, at the senior center usually the missionaries when we have breaks there go sit and study, but I decided that I should try to share the gospel the best I can even if I'm not terribly successful at it. Most of the older people there are all catholic and their minds are like cement (all mixed up at set in their ways) but I sure did enjoy playing "Mexican Train" (a dominoes game) with some of them the other day. I just hope that I can do some kind of good for when  they get to the spirit world and perhaps one of them could get baptized on this side of the veil. We'll see. 

Well there's a lot more that's happened this week that I am forgetting but I have to sign out now. I am very grateful for the atonement. Done some good studying on it this week. I know we can overcome the natural man (like being shy) by yielding to the enticings of the holy spirit, becoming a saint (which literally means holy, spotless, without blemish) and become like a little child. I know that because Christ was sinless he had the power to overcome death since death is the wage of sin. I understand a little bit more now that perfection takes a long time and through Christ I can become perfected in him if I deny myself of all ungodliness and Love God with all of my heart, might and strength. I can become a saint (holy and without spot) if I keep trying to overcome my individual sins and weaknesses. I just have to try and the Lord will accept my effort. 

Love,

Elder Soutas

p.s. challenge: compare mosiah 3:19 and moroni 10:32-33 and look up what it means to be a saint in the bible dictionary. See if you can find some connection between those two passages. 

success teaching the young men

Hey. I'm glad you got my letter. (Feb 6, so no blog post) 

it was a pretty good week. We had zone conference on Tuesday. There were some great trainings about leaving commitment invitations and setting better expectations with those we teach. Towards the last session we were talking about the doctrine of christ and how "all things must be gathered in one." Sometimes in the gospel we treat things as checklists or separate doctrinal principles from one another. But with the doctrine of Christ, as Elder Bednar puts it, "all things must be gathered in one or there is no spiritual power." President Bateman then drew on the chalkboard a cycle with faith->repentance->baptism->holy ghost-> endure to the end-> He showed that if we center Christ around living the doctrine of Christ in our life then the progression of our lives are like a cycle whose circumference keeps getting larger and larger because each time our faith expands which leads to greater repentance, keeping of covenants, feeling the spirit, enduring to the end. Contrastly, if we take Christ out of the center (so kind of imagine christ written in the middle of that cycle) then the complete opposite effect happens.The faith and repentance, keeping of covenants, etc. keeps getting infintesimally smaller kind of like a black whole or whirlpool that sucks us in. This diagram (if you can imagine it based on my great imagery ) represents dwindling in unbelief. So if we look beyond the mark this will happen and life just is terrible. That's why I know it is really important that we rely on Christ. 

Well I felt a little upset at myself listening to that because for some reason I felt like I was dwindling in unbelief (It might have been because I forgot to take my medication that day and so I had a hard time feeling the spirit). Well, I went into the restroom after zone conference to be alone, and I prayed that Heavenly father would send help for me and that I could talk to President Bateman about how I was feeling. Well almost immediately as I was walking down the hall, President Bateman approached me almost as if the spirit already told him to go look for me. I told him how I felt. He helped me understand that I wasn't dwindling in unblief and that I was doing a really good job. He also brought up how he had called you (DAD) and how you told him how much you loved me as your son. I don't have time to go into more detail but it was a sweet experience. I am so blessed to have President Bateman as my mission president. 

Also, I can't recall a time in my life where I have had a prayer answered that immediately! It gave me the assurance I needed to keep enduring. 

This week has been good. We got all 0s with our key indicators. We were really surpirsed that Nani and Cora both were sick and couldn't make it to church. 

We had a great opportunity to teach the young men 3rd hour at church yesterday. We trained them a little bit from the preach my gospel dvds of how to fellowship and things they can be doing now to prepare for a mission. I was praying that at least one of the young men would be motivated to act. It felt really good to share my testimony to the young men and to reflect on my growing up years in priesthood quorums. Kaleb Bunker approached us afterwards and asked us what our advice would be of how to share the gospel with a friend of his at school whose grandparents recently died. We stopped by at his house later in the evening and gave him the complete set. member missionary work at its finest! I was really proud of him for stepping up. Also, there is one other potential nonmember who was present in our discussion sunday. His name is Carson, and accepted an invitation from one of the young women to come to church to hear her piano solo which was amazing. So we are working with the youth the most right now, which is the best I think because they will affect generations. WE have another youth investigator who is 15 named Evan. He has a great relationship with our WML who is next door so we have high hopes for him! He has a great heart, but just got involved with the wrong crowd. We were unable to have a lesson this week but the good news is he expressed more interest to have another meeting with us. We have found some service ideas for him to do and he has even been taking the initiative of looking for service opportuities like we encouraged him to do. He called our WML up the other day and asked if he could borrow a chain saw to cut up a broken tree branch on the neighbors lawn. Such a good kid. I hope we can make an even greater impact in his life. 

Love you. 

Elder Soutas