Week 1 Carlyle / Centralia

Hi everybody!

So I wrote like half of this email but then my time was up so it all got deleted. This will probably be shorter than usual sorry

The mission home experience was fun. It was really humid and hot when we arrived. I placed a book of mormon in the airport actually with an African-American lady named Charmaine who is from St. Louis. Then had a friendly conversation with a guy named Kevin from North Dakota. I beat Elder Fa'Alogo in ping pong. He will be playing for BYU volleyball when he gets home from his mission. President and Sister Morgan are cool. I still don't know a whole lot about them.  

So I'm serving in southern Illinois out in the boonies. There are cornfields everywhere, and not a whole lot of people, but it is really green and beautiful. There are bugs called cicadas that are super loud and annoying. They are gross and sound kind of like a cross between a rattlesnake and a cricket. You can here them everywhere you go.  

Anyways, we stay in the a member's basement in Carlyle. We have another member named Lehland who lives with us. He is the most hilarious person. He reminds me a lot of Donkey on Shrek. He just talks and talks and says whatever he wants. And he is really animated, makes a lot of funny faces, tells random stories. He also does this one thing where he moves his eyes left and right really fast back and forth. It's kind of hard to explain, but he just cracks me up. He has a gap between his teeth and has a wide smile. He also interrupts our studies a lot but I can't help but just laugh. He's my favorite.The poor guy has had kidney stones the last week and has been to the ER a couple of times. He made it to church but started barfing in the relief society waste basket so we had to get somebody to take him to the hospital while we were in coordiation meeting. He has 50 kidney stones to pass. I thought I had it bad with just 1. So we gave him a blessing the other night. Hopefully he gets well soon.  

My companion is named Elder Lovik from Port Angeles, Washington.  He has been training me up pretty good. I like him a lot. We don't have a lot in common but we get along pretty well.

We cover a lot of towns around here. We spend most of our time in Centralia which Sister Schow and Oldroyd cover as well. Sister Schow is from Riverton and a really good missionary. other towns we spend a lot of time in are Nashville, New Minden, Belrosa, Salem, and I'm sure there are others. 

We didn't get to teach a lot of lessons since I've been here, but we have done a fair share of tracting. I think tracting is fun. Most people aren't interested, but most are at least cordial about it. We met this old lady named Jean the other day. She has gone really deaf and is partially blind, but whenever we stop by she wants us to pray for her. She just talks and talks and talks but is just the sweetest old lady. She talks a lot about how she plays bridge and how she used to golf everyday. The first time we gave her a restoration pamphlet and when we walked by later she was still reading it. The next time we gave her a book of Mormon. She also said that since we prayed for her the first time, her hearing has improved. She can't really understand what we say though still, so we tried writing down questions like "Will you read the book of Mormon" and she was like "well of course, I love reading." We are not entirely sure if she is accountable enough and so we are not sure whether to give her the lessons. we probably will though. 

One of our investigators, Mike, who is 18 finally made it to church. He is Lutheran and really knows his stuff. He knows the bible super well and feels like the book of mormon has increased his understanding. He is really skeptical and got into some anti mormon stuff, but has since come to believe (well at least is 95% sure as he says) that the Book of Mormon is true and Joseph Smith was a prophet. He's been meeting with missionaries since May and finally made it to church for the first time this sunday. He prayed at the end of the lesson that his parents would let him go to church and they finally gave him permission. 

We had a lesson with this guy named John who has pretty bad ADHD. He has a hard time focusing. He's a southern baptist.

The other night we had dinner with a family from the Ward. They are extremely poor. We had sheppard's pie. Yum. It was actually by far the worst food my tongue has ever tasted. I reluctantly took a few bites of it and just couldn't do it. Dad, I remember you have said before that Grandpa Bob grew up eating something called smuggledung. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it tasted like. It was so bad. But I felt bad for the family since they are really poor.

I've had allergies or something since I got here. It might just be a cold, but I've had it the last 4 days. Also, until Saturday, my hearing was a little faint. Like it felt like my ears were full of water for a couple of days. I was saying "What?" all the time and couldn't hear what people were saying. But they have since popped. now I just need to get rid of this cold. It might be allergies though.  

What else has happened this week? I'm having a hard time remembering to be honest. But we mostly have just been trying to find some new people to teach. We've got a few people say they would allow us to come back so we will see what happens with them. 

The gospel is true. I believe my Savior Lives and that he is mindful of me. I believe that the book of Mormon is the word of God and "whoso should hold fast unto it..will never perish."

-Elder Soutas

I'm here in Carlyle/Centralia, Illinois. We cover more than just those two towns. There's a bunch of other small towns we cover like Nashville (Illinois). They call it the boonies out here but there's still quite a few nice areas. Yes, it is very very green. It's very beautiful. The weather is perfect right now. The hot humidity is gone until next summer which is nice. My companion is Elder Lovik. He is from Port Angeles, Washington. He is from like a native American tribe-Mcaw or something. He's a great trainer. We live in the basement of the McAdoos. A hilarious black guy who is a member named Lehland also lives in the basement with us. The poor guy has had kidney stones this last week. He was in the ER Thursday and Sunday. Poor guy. He makes me laugh a lot though. He reminds me of Donkey on Shrek because he just talks and talks. Well I'm glad to here from you