A Week of Learning

Hey everybody!

I really felt like I've grown a lot this week. I feel a lot more confident in doing missionary work. On Wednesday though I got really discouraged and wanted to go home. Some days as a missionary it feels like there is no hope or light to look for. I came across a talk from last conference by Elder Whitney L. Clayton called "Choose to Believe."  It is really good when you feel like you can't endure any longer:

"There may be times when we cannot see any light on the horizon, and we may feel like giving up. If we are willing to believe, if we desire to believe, if we choose to believe, then the Savior’s teachings and example will show us the pathway forward."

Though I read this only yesterday I basically applied this principle the other day when I really wanted to quit. The rest of the week went a lot lot better when I chose to endure and have a good attitude. The joyful feeling I get after I share the gospel with others is definitely worth staying on a mission. I couldn't let myself give up because I knew how disappointed I, my family, and God would be. 

This week we picked up 2 new investigators named Bert and Ty. Those are both good names(especially the latter). 

We sort of experienced a miracle with Bert because we were an answer to his prayer. Bert's water shut off in his house and so he was in panic mode. He didn't know what else to do and so he decided to pray for help. He told us when we met with him later that immediately after he ended his prayer I called him on the phone which he felt was an answer to his prayer. . We went over later and gave him a case of water to use. He was humble and so he let us teach him the next day. We taught him the Plan of Salvation since his mother is dying and asked him to pray if the things we were teaching him were true. He said he would and we are meeting with him again this week. 

Yesterday we taught Ty at Bro. Cloud's house who is one of our ward mission leaders  we work with a lot. We had to convince him to come over with powdered jelly donuts. Ty  knows pretty much nothing about God and has never prayed before. He is very open-minded though and humble. I think we have a pretty good chance with him. We answered some of his questions he had about Prayer and the nature of God. He said he is cool with us meeting again soon. He is really cool kid and is from New York. 

We went to the Payson open house again with a less active family, the Cooks. We hope that the mom will want to get sealed to her new husband. At the open house though we ended up talking with some Indians (not the Native American kind) named Alok and Needi. They are nonmembers who are married and attend BYU. They got really excited about forever families when we took them in the sealing room. We referred them to the sisters in their area and so i think they will probably join the church. So that was pretty cool! 

Saturday we taught an evangjcal family.At least we tried to, but it turned into a good ol fashioned bible bash! Our initial intention in going there was to contact one of our referrals named Shay. shay wasnt there, but her mom and dad sat us down in their porch to talk while they were barbecuing. The wife discredited just about everything we said with a bunch of stuff like the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The first thing she brought up was grace of course. We tried explaining things like repentance but she said of course that repentance isn't necessary as long as you confessed Christ. She told us that she knew her religion is right because of all of the scientific proof and historicity. She talked a lot about Hebrew words, primary sources, and transliterations   I told here that my source of know,edge is God, but then she of course ripped on the Book of Mormon. Yeah I got really heated, and I felt pretty stupid after because the spirit wasn't there because of the tone of voice I used. It was so frustrating, but it was a testimony builder for me though it didn't do a lot of good for the family. Elder Fenton knew what we were getting into when they told us they were Evangelical. His  grandpa is evangelical and told him that if he were to go on a mission he'd end up in Hell!  It was a good learning experience. 

After meeting with them I was really frustrated. We decided to go teach the Cloud family the restoration and bear our testimonies. I felt a lot better after that, and the Clouds were really appreciative of us teaching them because the prior sisters who would come over to their house a lot never would share a message with them. 

Elder Fenton got called to be the new ASL missionary for the mission. We visited a deaf family to learn some sign language. They have a way cool 18 year old son named Parker. I've picked up a little sign language this week since meeting him. It is really fun to do ASL, and I really want to learn more. Maybe I could be am ASL missionary, if not I would like to do some in college. Could be a cool career opportunity. Parker's father is not deaf but it is way cool because he can talk to us and do sign at the same time. For P-day today we took  Parker  with us to play basketball at the church. We taught him how to play the game 7 on the line and we also played 2 on 2. He and I beat Elder Fenton and this kid named Brandon pretty badly. Parker is pretty good at basketball and we called ourselves The Dream Team. It was his idea obviously because he had to show me the sign for Dream Team since he can't hear at all. 

We also took Parker with us to play soccer with the other Elders in our district to play soccer with a bunch of Hispanics. Yeah it was elders against them so we got creamed! I thought we'd be better with Elder Malster who is from England.

In other news, we had a baptism! How could I forget? Isaiah was baptized Saturday by his dad and was confirmed in Sacrament meeting. Elder Fenton and I taught The Restoration and it was really spiritual. It's awesome to see how happy not only Isaiah is now, but his parents too because when we first met them they weren't very sure about letting Isaiah be baptized. Isaiah's dad was also very nervous to do the confirmation in church but he did a pretty good job. 

So today I'll be going on exchanges for a day with Elder Wilcox, another new missionary. He's cool so it'll be awesome! 

Well I love you all! 

Godspeed, 

Elder Soutas