Hi Family,

I certainly did get to watch conference. All 10 hours of it in our church building. It was really, really good. There are so many things I need to work on. The talk by Elder Lawrence about Pondering before praying and then listening was probably my favorite talk like yours was, Dad! I came to conference with a whole bunch of questions and pretty much all of them were touched on. I still need to restudy the talks though. I feel like every year I enjoy conference a lot but don't do anything about the talks they share. One of the things I am going to work on are my prayers because I'm not super good at hearing the voice of the Lord and recognizing that he is answering the prayers I give. I also want to be able to use personal experiences more when I teach, because I noticed that that is what the general authorities all do and it seems to get the message across easier. The only problem is I don't have a good memory at all, and I can't seem to remember any personal experiences that I have had. It's kind of a concern I have, because it's hard to say why you have a testimony when you don't remember any experiences to back up your testimony. Do you know what I'm sayin?

I also thought that the talk by Sister Marriot was good. It might as well have been Mom speaking because she always says "It will All Work Out." That seems to be our family motto as well. She had a cool southern drawl. I like southern drawls for some reason.

So here were basically all of the questions I took to conference, and now I will show you how they could have been answered possibly. I came up with a lot of these questions by reading my patriarchal blessing beforehand.

1. How can I go forward with great confidence and have great joy?

2. How is the Lord answering my prayers. How can I improve my testimony of prayer?

3. What do I need to change about myself?

4. What can I use to cope since I'm not able to play the piano as much anymore?

5. What do I need to do to be an unwavering defender of the faith?

6. How can I go about treasuring up the words of life continually so that I will know in the very moment what to say?

7. What exactly happens to those who die without law?

8. How can I have better self-worth?

9. How can I not get irritated so easily?

Now I will address how these things were answered. At this moment, I am still kind of trying to figure it out as I am emailing you. And also, if you have any ideas that you gathered from conference that answers my questions, please feel free to tell me your insights.

1. From Richard J. Maynes talk, it sounds to me that in order to have great joy you need to give up everything you possess like King Lamoni's father. In Vern P. Stanfill's address, he mentioned that the adversary tries to tell us that we have never felt the spirit's influence. When we do this, he says we need to remember our spiritual experiences. The only problem is that I can't really remember them because my memory sucks. He said that sometimes life is like a dark tunnel, and sometimes we must get help from others and rely on their light for a while until we see the light. Even so, I have the power to choose between belief or doubt. Belief brings in the light of Christ, and doubt dispels the light.

2. Though I'm not exactly sure how the Lord answers my prayers yet, Elder Lawrence I thought gave some great counsel on how I can be better at that. I felt like I should ask more questions when I pray, because answers won't come unless we have questions. He also said to ponder before you pray, which I am going to try. It's so true though, usually before you go talk to someone about something, you have to study it out in your mind first.

3. To know what I need to change about myself, I can ask "what lack I yet?" in my prayers. They holy ghost will give me customed counsel and I need to spend more times listening to what he wants me to do.

4. I still need to study more for this one.

5. They talked a lot about faith. from what I gathered, Randall K. Bennett spoke the most to me when he basically said that we need to keep trying after we fail and walking towards Heavenly Father like a baby learning to walk does. We only fail when we fail to keep moving forward.

6. This one was answered pretty clearly. Devin D Durrant said to Ponderize 1 scripture per week. I am going to do that. I'm excited for that challenge. Pondering is difficult though. He promised us purpose, protection, and power if we do it for the next 20 some odd years.

7. This one was mostly addressed by Mom in the letter she sent me, which I still need more time to think about so that it makes sense to me.

8. To have better self-worth, I just need to forget about myself and be more humble. President Uchtdorf once said: " humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." Another thing that can help is to smile more as Elder Bradley D. Foster mentioned. Life is just too short to put on a frown all the time. Gary E. Stevenson said how we should focus on things we are good at rather than on the things we are weak at. President Uchtdorf said that the Grace of the Savior is sufficient to help us be much greater. He said that Moses wanted to give up and die, but we should acknowledge that it's okay to have weaknesses.

9. To not get so bugged, I can focus on people's strengths more than their weaknesses. The same things sort of apply here in number 8.

So there you go. That's what I gathered from conference. I am a firm believer that if we go to conference with questions, we can receive answers that we need. Imagine if we did this same things when we went to church every week?

This week went pretty good. Mike finally decided he wants to get baptized. He got his answer if the book of mormon is true in probably one of the most simplest ways I have ever heard. Unfortunately, who was unable to make it to conference this week. None of our investigators made it. But it was a good week. 

Dad, That's so crazy to hear that you were so close to me. I looked at the map you sent me, and it looks like I was closer than an hour, because I was just outside of East St. Louis in Fairview Heights and Collinsville. I was on an exchange so I was even closer to you than you realized!!

Mom, that's really cool that Dad repurposed to you in the temple. How sweet.

Jordan, I hope you get into medical school. If not, it "will all work out" like in the conference talk by Sister Marriott. Good to hear from you though. Tell Alex hi for me.

Jenessa, be careful around them boys. You are getting mighty prettier each time I see a picture of you. be careful. Love you my fellow Jew. That's cool you got to do that shalom stuff.

Brycen, expelliarmus! avadakadavra. I Love you so much. keep being a good boy.

Kaitlyn, how is dance goin? Stay away from them boys too. Get good grades and read and pray everyday or else. I'll let you finish that sentence. Love you.

who else am I missing? I already responded to Lindsey and Ben. Sorry I am in such a hurry this week. My companion is waiting on me. We are going lazer tagging.

Love you all. Have a great week! Go BYU

Elder Soutas

in the photos are Fransisco, Brother Bunton, and Brother Gleckler some of the members of the ward.