Hello!

Glad you all are doing super well! it's always exciting to see Brycen drain treys! man, i'm so excited to play basketball today for p-day. Last week we played and I was doing pretty good. i'm a little uncoordinated, but still good. When I get home Brycen, you'll probably be able to beat me. Your shot looks really, really good! Keep it up! Don't quit like I did. If you want to take it to the next level, you can.

On Tuesday this week we met with a recent convert named Damon. Things aren't looking too great with him right now. He got into drugs again and he is not acting like himself at all. to make matters worse, his uncle George, also a recent convert, wants to leave the church. Damon did come to church this Sunday though, but he still isn't himself. He's doubting his testimony and such and says he never really had one, and feels bad that he was baptized without a testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and the book of Mormon. I think he just doesn't understand that he did have a testimony, he just didn't know it. The Lamanites in 3 Nephi 9:30 were baptized with fire and the holy ghost and they "knew it not." I think we all have those doubts sometimes, and it's key to go back to how we receive an answer from the spirit. A great talk I like to turn to, in fact I did this week, is "Have I Received an Answer From the Spirit" by Jay E. Jensen. It basically breaks down many of the ways we can feel the spirit because many people have a hard time understanding the spirit. I've started to categorize spiritual promptings according to the different ways they come in a little notebook I keep in my pocket. I highly encourage you all to read the talk, especially if you have doubts about your testimony ever.  And thanks Dad for sending me what you did this week in the email because it was an answer to my prayer. 

Also on Tuesday we taught the U family. Sister Giraud-Carrier (pronounced jzo-cally-ay) came to fellowships. She did an awesome job. have the missionaries ever had you guys help them fellowship in a lesson before? If not, you should. Even missionaries in utah are looking for fellowshippers, truuuuust me I know. Just call the missionaries up (should be on lds tools) and say "I want to help you guys out." Because our family is too good not to help out with missionary work. But anyway, R  weaned himself off coffee without us telling him to. We taught the word of wisdom and they are all living it. I got to learn a little bit more of there story this week. So they go to DV a lot. At DV they talked to a young woman who attended BYU who was catholic. They were really impressed with her and so they went to visit BYU campus. They really want I to go there (she is 15. in fact she is going there this summer for an art camp. G wants her to attend BYU for college because they have connections in Utah and it's a safer place to send your kid obviously. The U also told us that they are inviting their member friend and two other family friends who are members from California. They are all going to fly in to the baptism on march 5th! 

On Wednesday I listened to a talk that is now one of my favorites. it is called "His Grace is Sufficient by Brad Wilcox. BTW before I forget, MOM, can you find my notes from his class I took at BYU and perhaps email me the notes when you get a chance? It doesn't have to be that soon or anything. I really like that talk he gave though because in my prayers a couple of times I asked if I could understand the atonement better. Well in this talk it relates the atonement to taking piano lessons and it makes a lot of sense to me, so I was grateful for that. Grace is something that more people need to understand. That talk is just full of great lines. Here is one of them:

I have born-again Christian friends who say to me, “You Mormons are trying to earn your way to

heaven.”

I say, “No, we are not earning heaven. We are learning heaven. We are preparing for it (see

D&C 78:7). We are practicing for it.”

 He has many others that I wrote on sticky notes and put all over my wall. I'm going to print them out and laminate them or something I think they're so great!

I think Brad, in his spare time, just sits there and thinks to himself what is something profound I can come up with today. Haha. He's the greatest. i'm so glad I got to learn from him at BYU. 

Speaking of being profound, Elder Petersen said something really nice to me the other day. He said that he enjoys being around me because of the spirit that emanates from me-that I reek with the spirit. He says that though I don't really say anything profound, it is powerful. During dinner, Sister Giraud Carrier just call her Sister G.C. if you have a hard time) said how much she enjoy the spirit that I brought to the lessson the other day at the U's. She went to visit the U's on their own time to give them herbal tea (as a joke kind of because apparently it's not against the word of wisdom) and to have a chat. She told me that Sister U said that she really enjoys having me--"he's quiet, but peaceful." So later that night I was talking to Elder Petersen about how it is possible that other people can feel the spirit from me, but I haver a hard time feeling it myself because of depression. How is it possible to have depression and not feel the spirit yourself, yet others can feel it? it never occurred to me that was possible. I always thought that if I'm not feeling the spirit then others wouldn't be able to, but I suppose that is not the case.

Well I think I've said to much. I'll close by saying that i'm very grateful that God is aware of me and is answering my prayers. As I seek to understand the role he plays in my life, it strengthens my testimony that he lives. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and his Grace is sufficient for all of us. Grace is only able to work in our lives if we excercise faith, repent, keep our covenants, and follow the spirit. "The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled but that we can 

be transformed (see Romans 8). Scriptures make it clear that no unclean thing can dwell with 

God (see Alma 40:26), but, brothers and sisters, no unchanged thing will even want to. Being 

on a mission is hard but really great. I wouldn't trade it for the world (cliche intended). The Book 

of Mormon is true. Why? Because it leads us to do good and all good comes from God. By the 

spirit  leadeth to do good—yea, to do justly,to walk humbly, to judge righteously...which shall enlighten your mind, which shall fill your soul with joy---by these things I know the book of mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that Jesus is the Christ. When we have feelings and actions the opposites of these then we will surely know that we are being led by the Devil who only brings misery. He sucks. Jesus Rocks. 

Have a good week! Happy Valentines Day in 6 days xxxoo

Elder Soutas

Teaching in Springfield

Elder Petersen  and I had a great week! We started teaching the Uhe family this week.The family is on date for baptism March 5. Yesterday they fed us dinner and we had a lesson with them. They really enjoyed church. Rodger looks like and acts like a Deacon already--that is, a well-behaved deacon. In our lesson yesterday, we noticed how he had created his own tabs for all of the books in the Book of Mormon, and he highlighted a verse beforehand in 3 Nephi that we shared about baptism! 

At church, Gretchen and Rob (the parents) got to know quite a few of the members (The Flahrety's, Whitings, etc). Gretchen made the comment that she loves the way the sacrament is done, and also how the children, though squirmy and loud, are allowed to stay in the meeting rather than be put in a nursery. Ingrid and Leisel both enjoyed Young Womens it sounds like. The ward did a great job fellowshipping. I think the auxillaries are planning on inviting kids to scout and stake activities/mutual. The Uhe family continues to amaze me. They arrived at church 15 minutes early and were already sitting reverently in the pews. They just do everything right. Such a terrific family!

Our other solid investigator is Carl. Brother West has taken Carl under his wing. He takes him to home teaching appointments and to all of his recovering alcoholic meetings. In his prayer, Carl said something along the lines of "Lord, be with me as I learn from the missionaries and read from the book of mormon so that I may soon join your church." He's read in the past week 1 Nephi1- 2 Nephi 10. He came to church again and is looking really solid at this point. He's been sober for over 10 days now. 

This week we should be setting a date with him.

i DID get to shake Elder Rasband's hand . he asked me where I was from and I just said Utah. not even south jordan utah. His countenace is definitely like lightning. 

We had the worldwide missionary broadcast on Wednesday. I enjoyed the mission broadcast, particularly about what Elder Bednar had to say. I always enjoy what he has to say. i don't have my notes on me, but he said something to the affect that we need to let our investigators identify when they are feeling the spirit themselves. We shouldn't point it out to them, but we can help them recognize the spirit by asking them inspired questions. Our job is to help them act and be agents, not to be acted upon. That is something I want to work on. I feel like a lot of our lessons we are treating people as objects, rather than agents. Our job is just to invite and entice, and we should never get in the way because the Holy Ghost is the teacher, the revelator, and the testator. We can get in the way if we are not worthy. We need to be EXACTLY OBEDIENT or the we will get in the way. Also, I thought it was cool how teaching is more than just speaking, it is eyes to see and ears to hear. We need to allow the holy ghost to guide our utterances rather than rely on the arm of the flesh. i need to do a better job of discerning the investigators while my companion is teaching. I also need to refine my teaching skills by practicing teaching. I loved the mission conference! Now I just need to remember to put it into practice. 

Sorry if some of this doesn't make sense. I copied and pasted all of it that I sent to my mission president. i am being rushed right now and need to wrap up. I love you all!

Overlooking Lake Springfield:

Hi Mom,

Sounds like you had a great week. Things here in Springfield are doing pretty well. It's been a little tough adjusting to new companion, new people, new area and such. But I'm bit my bit adjusting. 

I like the grape and jalpeno analogy. I put it in my scriptures. Something that I learned from the scriptures this week is to not let Satan use your weaknesses against you. I was reading in Alma 11 about Zeezrom offering Amulek 6 onties of silver. Amulek as we know was a very wealthy man. It had to have been a lot of money because if it wasn't then Amulek wouldn't have been enticed since he had acquired many riches. Like Amulek, we need to recognize that we have weaknesses, but we shouldn't make excuses to not do things just because we have a particular weakness. 

The other day we found out for Zone Leadership training Elder Petersen and I are going to be doing a musical number, Savior Redeemer of My Soul. We've been practicing quite a bit, which has taken some stress  off my shoulders. I got the arrangement from one of the members named Amy in my last area who was thoughtful enough to give it to me. She knew it was my favorite song so that was really nice of her. 

On Sunday, 2 of our investigators unexpectedly showed up. The Allens. They've been to church several times, and have met with missionaries off and on in the past.  (our ward mission leader and his wife) have done a great job fellowshipping them. Yesterday the Flarhetys and us ate fried turkey at the Allen's house. It's weird, Brother F  looks like Uncle Kelly, and he is a dentist too! 

During the sacrament on Sunday, I was praying what I can do better. Elder Lawrence from the "What Lack I Yet" talk said to ask "what lack I yet" during the sacrament. I didn't really feel an answer come then and there. But later, Elder Petersen said that I need to be more loud and talkative since I am "kind of a reserved guy", so I guess maybe that's what I am lacking??

Cool news..so we are teaching a family . They are a family who was introduced to the church in Deer Valley ski resort in Utah. The family who introduced them to the church is from Califronia and they have been emailing back and forth about the church and BYU  But anyways, the whole family is on board, pretty much knows the gospel is true. They emailed their friend in California saying "so when can we get sealed as a family?" How exciting! it makes our job so much easier when there are people like that. . They took the initiative in calling us and wanting to meet with us 3 times this week! We found that out yesterday. Originally it was just going to be this coming Sunday. It almost sounds too good to be true..

Oh and yeah I can't wait to see all of the lincoln stuff. Didn't get to yesterday. Yesterday was one of the funner pdays that I've had. First time I've got to play a game of basketball in a long while. My whole distrcit likes basektball so that's good. Also, the other Elder Petersen is really good at piano and we wheeled one of the pianos from the relief society room to the primary room where we did like a duet type of thing. It was pretty sweet. 

And about all of the Abraham Lincoln stuff, while talking to Sister Morgan on the phone yesterdray, I told her about "The Lincoln Hypothesis." She was way excited because she read "The Covenant" by Timothy Ballard. I told her that the book talks a lot about the covenant, and now she is really excited to read it. You really need to meet her somehow. She is an amazing lady. Wouldn't be surprised if she becomes a general young women's/relief society president some day. she's way cool. During conferences, she always says "Hi family" and in response we all say "Hi Mom." She's very great and supportive and of course President Morgan is too. They both are great. 

Well I've got to go. Love you all. I know Christ lives

Elder Soutas

Last Day in Carlyle, IL

Hey everybody!

Ben, looks like you had an enjoyable honeymoon and are finally wed. I hope that you both stay married forever.  I wouldn't mind some San Diego weather right now, too. The weather is freezing cold now. 

Brycen, it looks like you are ballin' it up. Keep it up. Read the Book of Mormon and Preach My Gospel.

Kaitlyn, how's dance? Hopefully you are inviting your friends to mutual. 

Jordan, I don't know what to say. What are you even up to? Oh wait, you are still going to BYU. Or are you taking the semester off? Aren't you living at home now? Do you have to commute everyday? Where's Alex working?

Jenessa, how's college. How's your boyfriend? Just kidding. Do you have a cool calling in your YSA ward at UVU? 

Dad, I'm sorry the stock market is stinking so bad. Is it really the worst it's EVER been? Even worse than the depression? At least you got to go skiing. And yeah, President Nielsen is such a great man. Am I allowed to email him btw? I'd like to if I could. I really look up to him. 

Mother, I'm glad you are having a fun time learning Hebrew.  Thanks for all of the cool insights. I've learned from you the importance of having a great knowledge of the scriptures. All of my companions tell me that I know them pretty well. But I've learned from one of the best.

Grandma Elaine, thanks for telling me who my new mission president will be. No, we did not ever get flooded thankfully.

Grandpa Bob, that's way cool you got to be in the presence of an apostle! I got to too! To answer your question about what I'd say at your funeral, I'd say that you always made me laugh and made the funniest remarks even though I didn't always know what you were really talking about, you carry a comb in your pocket that you use frequently, the many times you supported me at my basketball games and when we went to that BYU basketball game last year and got matching t-shirts.  and of course that I love you! But please don't die anytime soon!

Grandma Lynne, I love you too! Same with you Grandpa Allen! I love all of you. Hopefully I'm not missing anyone. 

So I'm getting transferred tomorrow to Springfield, Illinois. My new companion is known as Elder 007 Petersen. I think I know what he looks like, but don't know much about him. A lot of you reminded me in your emails to be charitable, so I'll be charitable. 

I'm pretty excited to go to the Land of Lincoln though. Don't know much about it, but I'm excited to find out what's ahead of me. 

It's a little saddening to leave Carlyle. I met so many wonderful members and nonmembers. I'm going to especially miss Brother Barfield, Lehland, Jose, and Fransisco. I got a couple of pictures with them which I will send home. Though there weren't any baptisms, it doesn't matter. Elder Rasband in our mission conference told us that some will turn soil, others will plant seeds, others will reap baptisms and see them attend the temple. He said that sometimes we are moved right before a baptism. But it's all one work. IT's not your baptism, it's the Lords.

(Read John 4 as a family)

The mission conference was focused mostly on the doctrine of Christ. Elder James B. Martino (of the 70) gave an excellent talk about the missionary purpose. They want us to focus on nothing but declaring repentance to nonmembers (see D&C 15). We are still to work with less actives of course, but as we do this we need to be realizing that "our purpose is still repentance for converts. We strengthen less actives by letting them participate in missionary work." Every single day we need to plead with the Lord what we can do to better declare repentance. He gave an example of how Alma helped convert a less active (Amulek) who then taught his family and friends. Elder Martino went on to say that the Church is concerned that missionaries are overwhelmed wondering what it is they are supposed to do. Members and missionaries need to be working TOGETHER. They want us to go home and know what we have done to declare repentance and help people enter into covenants. (Read 2 Nephi 31 as a family).

Next, Elder Hansey of the 70 bore witness that the Lord "is pleased with your efforts as you obey his commandments and let your light shine."

Elder Rasband talked focused a lot on our "Divine Call as A Missionary"-see his talk he gave in General conference 2010 I think it was.

He said that it is the love of Heavenly Father that sends us where we need to go. missionary work is the lifeblood of the church. Now that we are through the shockwave of the mission age change, now let us retain our focus on the doctrine of Christ. 

Elder Rasband also gave President Monson's personal message to us that he loves us and that he was thankful for us responding to his call to serve. I had tears when he said that. That came straight from the prophet!

Elder Rasband went through the process of how they pick missionaries. Something that was interesting is now instead of looking at a map of where to send a missionary, they look at the mission president and wife to be with. He said that they will be your mission president and wife forever. That was pretty cool. President and Sister MOrgan are fantastic. Recently they challenged the whole mission to read the entire book of Mormon by april general conference! They promised us great blessings from doing so.

The rest of the meeting talked a lot about priesthood keys. Elder Rasband drew a funnel and at the top put President Monson. Towards the middle of the funnel was The apostles who by the spirit made the call. At this point he talked about one particular missionary who they assigned but didn't feel good about it. The reason they don't feel good about it is because when they assign people (after praying of course), on the computer monitor is a list of missions that need missionaries to "meet their complement." This one particular missionary spoke Arabic, and Elder Rasband felt prompted to send him to a particular mission that needed Arabic missionaries, but there were no missions that needed any Arabic speaking missionaries to meet the complement (or quota). So that missionary was assigned to a certain mission but he didn't feel to good about it. Days later, a mission president from somewhere in the world called asking for someone who spoke Arabic. They knew immediately that that missionaries call needed to be switched to that mission. 

I'm relating this story because something similar happened to me. I know that this is the place where I need to be. I think that part of the reason is that I am tribe of Judah. I felt impressed that is true, but I could be mistaken. So far I've met one jewish guy on my whole mission, but you never know. If you are reading and don't know what I am talking about, ask my Mom.

Another thing that Elder Rasband said that stands out is to ALWAYS, ALWAYS follow your first prompting. Since then I've been paying a lot closer attention to the promptings I get.

I will relate a few promptings that I had this week:

From my journal:

 "Last week we tracted into John, who is the nephew of sister Bierman from our ward.On Wednesday when we were in Carlyle we decided that we would switch the time we were going to see John from 6:30 to 5:30. It was perfect timing because we got to meet his daughter, Madison. She is about 13 years old. She gets to say with her Dad occasionally since John is divorced. We taught a great lesson and Madison accepted the invitation to be baptized and to read and pray. She even was willing to pray in front of us though she never had prayed before out loud in her life. John, though drunk the last time we met him, actually read 10 pages from the book of Mormon. He is really receptive, too. Now that I think about it, we forgot to tell Sister Bierman about all of this! She'd be ecstatic to hear about how well it went especially since they rarely see eachother. Plus, she told us that he would never commit to anything, but John is showing some commitment.

Another instance:

Saturday I felt an impression to ask Brother Barfield where his son lived in Nashville. We went there and they invited us in, and we are going back on Saturday. His son is catholic and he is aware of all of the dramatic changes his father has made over the past few months. 

Another:

"Yesterday I had another prompting that I should call Amy McKinney (the YSA coordinator of the ward) to come out with us to a lesson. The lesson we originally planned fell through but we went to a less active named Carol. She didn't invite us in because of her dogs so we talked to her through her door while standing with Amy on her porch freezing to death. (it was 20 degrees). But if we didn't bring Amy then nothing good would have happened. She said a lot of reallygood things especially since Carol was really depressed and giving up hope. She has a son named Robert who is suicidal and such. Amy did a great job speaking to her since she is a woman. She also offered to come by and bring Robert to YSA activites. Robert is not a member and has had a rough life, being forced to drink at a young age and sorts. The sister missionaries had been trying to get in with Carol multiple times. They jokingly asked us what secret knock we used to get her to the door. Really, it was because the Lord gave us revelation. 

Prompting are cool. I learned that we don't see the big picture when we receive revelation. For instance, I called Amy up to come to an appointment with Emily and Jed, but they cancelled because they were sick. The real reason she needed to come was to talk to Carol and let her know she is loved.

I reiterate, Always, always follow your first prompting

Love you all!

My ponderizing scrip is D and C 100:5-8

Fransisco and Jose. They are a lot happier than this picture makes them look. Hopefully jose gets baptized soon.

Gonna miss Francisco

This is Brother Barton. We visited him quite a bit. Great man. He is kind of a lonely guy. Whenever we visited him he was shirtless haha. Good times.

Can't forget brother barfield. He's still going strong. 

Bishop Kretschmer and his son Cameron

Missouri Floods

Hey everybody! Had a pretty good week. No need to worry about the floods. So far we haven't been affected by it. Some of the fields looked like lakes for a couple of days though. No damage done really. It might start up again this week. We'll see.

This week was pretty good. We dropped 9 of our investigators. We now are only teaching Jose, Mike, and this lady named Karen. Mike isn't really keeping commitments. Jose is still coming to church, but hasn't been reading the scriptures very much. I got him an auxiliary cord for his truck so he can listen to it in the car while he drives. Hopefully he does. 

We had pretty good success with some less active people this week. 

I'm probably getting transferred next week it sounds like. 

On Saturday Elder Rasband and Martino are coming to our mission! I'm looking forward to that. 

So how has everyone been doing on their ponderizing?

I have been a slacker, but I am going to start up again. 

Elder Durrant in his talk said: "You might ask, 'Why should I do this?' I would answer that we are living in a time of ever-spreading evil. We cannot just accept the status quo and be fed ugly words and sinful visuals almost everywhere we turn and do nothing in response. We must fight back. When our minds are filled with uplifting thoughts and images, when we “always remember him,”⁸ there is no room left for filth and trash."

This is my ponderizing scripture for the week:

Mosiah 4: 30 

But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not.

Love you all

Elder Soutas

Teaching update

Dear Family,

Another good week is in the books. I got pretty homesick talking to all of you on skype. Sorry you had to watch me break down in tears. I just love you all so much. I've never felt so much love before. I'm very grateful to have you all in my life. I can't believe Ben is getting married this week. That is so weird to think about. I wish I could be there. Oh well. 

Thank you everyone for sending me packages and letters. Thank you Mom & Dad and siblings for the new shaver, sweater, and goodies; Feil Family for the Christmas card; Grandma Lynne and Grandpa Bob for the sweet BYU sweater;  and Grandma Elaine and Grandpa Allen thanks for the awesome tie!

We had a few experiences this week that are worth sharing. On Monday we ate a dinner with Fransisco. He cooked us some kind of mexican soup that was really good. After we talked to him about the importance of reading scriptures everyday. He said that he doesn't read very much because he is pretty illiterate. But we told him that it would help him a lot in his life if he would even just read a verse every day. Fransisco is one of the most faithful members of the ward. He drives us around a lot, too. He doesn't quite understand everything because of the language barrier, but he is doing his best. Plus, we found out that he is 1 of 19 siblings in his family.

On Wednesday Mike F. dropped us. He had been reading anti-mormon literature for the last little while. The thing about anti mormon literature is it's primary goal is to get a person to "look beyond the mark" as Jacob describes. Mike had so many concerns about things that are so unimportant such as, why is it that in the pearl of great price it says nothing about Abram changing his name to Abraham, but in the Old Testament it does. Or, it can trick a person to taking things out of context. Mike told us that in Galatians 1:8 it says "Though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Mike took that to mean that the Angel Moroni ministering the gospel to Joseph Smith was a fulfillment of that scripture. Personally, I don't see any angels from Heaven giving me false information, maybe an angel of the devil from hell (see Alma 30:53). There's a reason why the Book of Mormon is the most correct book on the earth, and the Bible is not. The Bible is still pretty good though :)
It was disappointing to see Mike make this decision especially after he knew the book of mormon was true and wanted to be baptized. At one point, he wanted to be the bishop his own "Mega-mormon" church. Of course we told him he couldn't do that, but that just shows how much he really enjoyed the gospel. But for now he will be a Lutheran. Perhaps one day he'll change his mind. He'll be held accountable.

Also on Wednesday we talked to a guy named Ben. He is a former army guy. He has severe PTSD. He cussed the f word so many times while we were there. He knows the gospel is true, he is just afraid of being around people because of his anger problems and PTSD. He told us while we were there that he tried commited suicide several times but got wouldn't let him. He pulled the trigger to his head with a loaded gun a couple of times and the gun would just click. Also, in the army he told us how God preserved him after being in an explosion. Turns out, in the convoy he was in, his commander had him switch his seat to where he normally sat. The place where he normally sat was his friend, who was killed in the explosion. So Ben has obviously been preserved by God. No  question about that.

On Christmas Eve we had district meeting. We each bore our testimonies. It was a good experience. We all pretty much expressed that missions are super hard, and God's grace is sufficient to magnify our efforts if we surrrender our will to him. Be completely dependent on him.

Yesterday at church was a music program. I was asked to accompany singers on the piano 4 different songs (O little town of bethlehem, beautiful savior, the first noel, and He sent his son). In one of the songs, the Bishop sang O Holy Night since he has a really good voice. His daughter got up there at pretended like she was playing a hard piano piece, but really it was just a cd playing the song. It was pretty funny. I don't know about that one though. 

AFter church yesterday all of our plans fell through, and so we walked around in the rain for a while. The wind broke my umbrella. We did find a guy in his 20s who said he was going to come to church. He was pretty interested. We didn't drive our car to church that day to save on miles, and so we tried to figure out how to get back home. While walking in the rain I was dreaming of eating a delicious honey baked ham. A few hours later we got a call from one of the members of the ward inviting us to their late-Christmas dinner since their father worked christmas. So, we got a ride back to their house by Lehland and got to eat one of the best christmas dinners I've ever had. They had goose, smoked turkey, and ham. Remember how I was dreaming of eating a honey baked ham? The Lord answers prayers. The food was delciious and I really want to eat some right now. After dinner we shared a message about hastening the work of salvation. We seriously need help from the members to find us people to teach. There's know way the work will hasten on our efforts alone. Tracting is super unaffective. Elder McMullan finally realized that yesterday. He looooves tracting. It's okay I think. There is a much better way of doing missionary work though and that is through the members. The members here don't like coming out with us that much though. Our new ward mission leader, Brother Cox, is determined to change that though.

Well I better wrap this up. I know that Jesus Christ is at the head of this church. The Book of Mormon is definitely the word of God. Any person who reads it with an open heart will know that it is true. It is impossible to find the Book of Mormon to be false if your heart is open. It's okay to have doctrinal questions, but they can be resolved through prayer and study, not looking at Anti-mormon literature. Elder Andersen said, "Studying the Church … through the eyes of its defectors,” Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, is 'like interviewing Judas to understand Jesus. Defectors always tell us more about themselves than about that from which they have departed.'” This week I have also come to know how important it is to write down spiritual impressions that we get so we know how God is involved in our life. i've been keeping a little notebook in my pocket to do that.

Also, since it's almost New Years, take a look at this video when you get a chance.
http://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/new-years-look-not-behind-thee?cid=HP_MO_12-28-2015_dPFD_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_

Love,

Elder Soutas

Oh my goodness, BYU! It's so hard to be a BYU fan. I'm so glad I didn't have to watch it. I'm so happy for Jordan and Alex!

My letter this week is going to be pretty short.

Our mission has been pushing to reach a goal of 375 baptisms for the year. Unfortunately, our area isn't going to have any baptisms. I'm not sure if there is something we are not doing or if it's just the agency of others. It's kind of frustrating. This area is such a huge area and is so hard to juggle so many things at once. 

However, we did get 2 new investigators up in Vandalia which is really far away from where we live. Brother Gleckler takes the missionaries once a month up there to do his hometeaching visits. We got an online referral a couple days before. A lady named Mary stumbled upon mormon.org somehow. She had been praying to get her life back on track. She didn't expect us to show up at her house. She and her husband Troy are willing to have us come by every Sunday now.  It was a cool how we were an answer to their prayers. We were also an answer to someone else's prayer too. This guy named Will who was a referral, has anger issues and one night he was praying for help. The next day we showed up and set up an appointment. A few days later we had a short discussion with him and towards the end he realized that we were an answer to his prayer! He is willing to meet with us after the holidays because he will be out of town. It was cool to see how God will send help to those who really seek Him. I studied a little bit about prayer this week. It's been pretty hard to have meaningful prayer lately. I wake up most mornings super beat. But prayer is a form of work. I learned that praying in the name of Christ isn't just something we say at the end of a prayer, but it means that we surrender our will completely to him. Then we cannot ask amiss. My whole life I haven't relied on prayer all that much. I would always do it without fail every morning and night, but I didn't really try to recognize God answering my prayers. I still struggle at that honestly, and I'm not really sure how he does it,  but it's something I will be working on.

Well I've got to go. Look forward to talking with you on Christmas. it will probably be around 4pm.