Fan your flame of faith

We had a really good week. We are continuing to make progress with Jose. He is committed to living the word of wisdom. He was already keeping it in fact. Mike is doing pretty good except he was out of town for the weekend do go to some Lutheran witnessing camp. He still says he wants to be baptized thankfully. He needs to exercise more faith though since he got his answer. This week, we are thinking it will be a good idea to have dinner with him at our bishop's house and have a testimony meeting afterwards. This kid needs to get baptized so bad! The timing needs to be right though. As for our other investigator named Mike, he found out that he will be able to get Sundays off for the next month so he can come to church! We are excited about that. We also found a new investigator this week named William. We had a great member present lesson with him. He had a kidney transplant recently and so he has been humbled. We knocked on their door during exchanges. They were a potential last transfer but never answered their door. But we felt we should knock on their door again and this time we talked with William's significant other named Brittany. We shared with her how the gospel blesses families and now she is willing to come by and teach her, William, and their two daughters. I remember praying a few weeks ago that we would be able to find a family to teach and I feel that this will be the family. Last night, we found a young single mother named Kaitlyn while tracting in Carlyle. She recently got separated from her significant other and she is left with a newborn of 3 months. We ran into her while she was at her families house. We were actually looking for her brother Thomas that we ran into a couple days ago, but he moved. Since she actually lives in Centralia, we referred her to the sisters. Kaitlyn was very receptive and eager to know more about the gospel. I wish we got to teach her, but it will work out better with the sisters since she is single.
As for our less actives, Brother Barfield came to church for the 5th week in a row! During sunday school the Bishop pulled him aside and extended a calling to be a ward missionary! He accepted. We  think he will be instrumental in helping us in the work in the Nashville and Okawville areas. Another less active member named Jennifer  came to church for the 3rd week in a row. She is getting ready to go to the temple. From what we've talked to her about, she sounds worthy to go to the temple, but she thinks that she isn't for really small reasons like drinking caffeine and watching shows like Vampire Diaries. She recently got a calling as a family history consultant which she loves. That will keep her coming to church.
The Centralia Ward is doing awesome! 

As you are aware, I was in a doubting mind set on Monday. I'm not sure where it all came from. But I'm doing much better now. This week I ended up reading a lot of good talks about believing and faith. Also, for sacrament meeting, I accompanied the Sisters in I Believe in Christ. I think the Lord is trying to tell me something about believing.  We finally got a copy of this month's ensign to finally read all of the conference talks! The first talk I read was "Lord I Believe" by Elder Holland. I like how he said that it's okay to have questions  as long as we don't lead with our unbelief. We should all say to ourselves "Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief." I also read Neil L. Andersen's talk "Faith is not by Chance, but by Choice." This one was cool because it explained how faith is an actual "substance" of light to our spirits that we obtain by our obedience. Our faith never remains stagnant, but is either increasing our decreasing. He said that "Faith never demands an answer to every question but seeks the assurance and courage to move forward, sometimes acknowledging, 'I don’t know everything, but I do know enough to continue on the path of discipleship.^'"

^{Our faith is like a fire. It can become extinguished if we allow doubt to take hold of us. The fire of our faith needs to grow because  "} The difficulties of mortality blow against [us], and evil forces lurk in the darkness, hoping to extinguish our faith" 

The other talk I read was by Whitney L. Clayton "Choose to Believe". He said: "We will not accidentally come to believe in the Savior and His gospel any more than we will accidentally pray or pay tithing. We actively choose to believe, just like we choose to keep other commandments.Sometimes progress in spiritual things can seem slow or intermittent. Sometimes we may feel that we have lost ground, that we have made mistakes, or that our best efforts to find the Savior are not working. If you feel this way, please do not give up—ever. Go right on believing in Him and in His gospel and His Church. Align your actions with that belief. In those moments when the light of your faith has dimmed, let your hope for the Savior’s love and grace, found in His gospel and His Church, overcome your doubt. I promise that He stands ready to receive you. Over time you will come to see that you have made the best choice you could possibly have made. Your courageous decision to believe in Him will bless you immeasurably and forever." 

So I like these talks because it's okay if you don't know some things. I BELIEVE many of the things of the gospel and there are many things which I of course now KNOW. But you should always focus more on what you do know than what you don't know. If we desire our beliefs to work within us then as Elder Holland has said: "what was once a tiny seed of belief [can] grow into the tree of life. so if your faith is a little tested in this or any season, I invite you to lean on mine. I know this work is God’s very truth, and I know that only at our peril would we allow doubt or devils to sway us from its path. Hope on. Journey on. Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe. Never apologize for only believing. The Lord said "Fear not, only believe."

Love you all! I'm going lazer tagging again today. Yay

Elder Soutas

Hi Dad. Those are some really scenic pictures of California. At first I thought you were in South America. How come you are traveling so much? What's the deal? You should travel to southern illinois. Just kidding. There's nothing to do here except harvest corn and soybeans. There's no mountains that's for sure. The highest point around here is 500 feet above sea level. Lame. It's getting a little frio here. Good thing I ordered a coat from this catalog this guy gave me at Subway the other day. We went there the other day hoping to run into Brother Mills. He is an old man known as the "Mayor of Subway." He and his cronies go there like everyday and they heckle people.
Is there really a tornado coming this Wednesday?! Sweet! I'm not aware of any tornado shelters around here but I think we will figure out a way to be safe. I hope I get to see one so I can have some cool stories to tell. 

Hopefully BYU wins by forfeit because it sounds like they don't stand much of a chance against Mizzou. My companion always wears his mizzou shirt since he served in columbia. 

This week went pretty well.

Here's a quick rundown of all of the people we taught this week:

Jose- Met with him twice. We use Fransisco to translate for us. He is on date for baptism december 3. The challenge will be the word of wisdom. 

Mike F. - 18 years old. He's not progressing. He found out the book of mormon is true but having a hard time making the next step. His dad doesn't support him which doesn't help.

Mike Y. - 28 Came to church this week. Usually works sundays, but is trying not to. Hasn't been reading a whole lot from Book of Mormon. He comes to YSA activities a lot. Family is really important to him. He's pretty cool and looks like Bruce Springstein. His ex-girlfriend is in a coma. Has an 8 year old daughter. We're having dinner with him and a family tonight.

Bro. Barfield (LA)- Came to church for 4th week in a row! Trying to quit drinking and doing a great job at it! 

Hunter J. (LA)- didn't come to church. He's less active from church for 11months now. 

Jennifer S (LA).- came for 2nd week in a row! 

John M.- probably going to be dropped at some point. He's set in his baptist ways. He likes having "bible study" with us though.

Gene- new investigator. Seems promising. 

Beau- Has a lot of issues to work with but really respects us. A few poor decisions has led him to where he is now. He's really a cool guy though.

So that's basically a rundown.

Have a good week! 

Elder Soutas

HapPpy BIrthDaY Elder Soutas

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes and packages! It was a really good birthday. The weather was perfect (71 degrees). Couldn't have asked for better weather. At church people sang me happy birthday, and when we got home later the family we live with fed us really good chicken and gave me a birthday cake.

It was a good week. We didn't get in with a whole lot of our investigators, but made some progress with some less actives. We helped a lady named Jennifer come to church this week. She is a single mom who works lots of hours and has to deal with really rambunctious kids so it is hard for her to make it to church. She has really been wanting to go to church so we were glad she was able to make it.

Brother Barfield is still going strong. He fed us dinner AGAIN. Lasagna. He is such a great guy! That's 3 weeks in a row that he's come to church. He is really appreciative of what we've done to help him.

This week was the ward's Fall Festival at the Mooth's farm. There was a corn maze, chili cookoff, and such. One of our investigators, Mike the older, (not to be confused with Mike the younger) brought his 8 year old daughter Aubrey to the party. He helped us mummify our car with toilet paper for the trunk or treat they had and we went through the corn maze with him. Apparently he looks like Bruce Springstein. I should know who that is, but I don't. We also had a good law of chastity lesson with Mike. He says he really wants to get married to a Mormon and doing so would solidify him being baptized Mormon. He kind of wants to set his own date to be baptized. Great guy.

That's pretty much it for this week. It went pretty well. Thanks again for all of the birthday wishes!

Scripture for the week:

I'm redoing the one from last week. Since I didn't do such a great job of ponderizing it.

Mosiah 24: 14

"And I will ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders,that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions."

Thanks,

Elder Soutas

Made a fruit Boquet for Sis McAdoo

very creative :)

Love This one: 

Watch out Elder!

No, I am not piling out. We already finished planning and Elder Lovik was just bored and waiting for the zone leaders to call. 

Hogs and Halloween

A kind member texted this picture on Halloween

The hogs we were with are our former ward mission leader, Brother George McKinney. He is a farmer. We helped him fix his pig trough and after were testing it out. Pigs are filthy creatures. 

Teaching and Raking leaves

Hey everyone,

It looks like the Halloweeny party was pretty cool. I really enjoyed looking at all of your costumes. Here in Centralia, they do trick-or-treating on Oct 30 because they do a special halloween parade on Halloween.

It also looks like Sandy Eggo was cool. I'm really happy Brycen got to go with you. I really like his black and green shirt. If you send me a tie for my birthday I would like a green one. Green and silver perhaps or just anything that's green and cool. I have too many blue ties. Also I will be needing a coat pretty soon.

So this week was transfers. I'm still here of course. So is my trainer of course. We got a couple new missionaries though. We've got another missionary from Riverton/Texas named Elder Hatch and a new sister missionary from Blackfoot Idaho named Sister Williams. They both will make some good contributions to our district. They cool.

This week was cool. We got two new promising investigators. One is named Beau. He's cool. We ran into him yesterday. He has a solid Christian background, but is pretty interested in our church since his best friend growing up was LDS. He was invited to his friend's wedding in Utah but never went to it. He knew he was married in the temple, and so the conversation just went from there. He really likes the picture of the Salt Lake temple on the invitation his friend gave to him and wants to show us. I really feel like the Lord has been preparing him quite some time.

We got another potential investigator in Okawville named Lucinda. When we knocked on her door, she just got off the phone with her daughter who's best friend got news of cancer. The daughter's best friend was like another daughter to her so she was pretty upset. We read some good verses from the book of mormon with her to shed some hope and now she would like to meet with us again sometime. The Book of Mormon works better than anything else. It's the most powerful tool in missionary work!

Brother Barfield is doing amazing. Sure, he is still struggling because of his wife, but he was already in 2 Nephi 9 when we met him on Friday! That's exactly what chapter I'm in right now. He came to church yesterday again and he told us he really wants to get the priesthood! We are so happy for him. The ward is treating him so well which is good.

We raked a lot of leaves and mowed a few lawns this week for some less actives--Hunter and Ryan. I think I might buy a rake because it would be a good service opportunity or a way to talk to someone about the gospel. I raked Ryan's whole lawn with half of a broken rake. My back was pretty sore the next couple of days from bending over.
  Hunter is a recent convert who hasn't been to church once this year.  Such a nice fella. We showed "The Gift of Grace" by Uchtdorf  to him. I studied that one a lot this week. I like it.

We met with John M. on Thursday. He is Korean american. He was going to drop us because his preacher doesn't like us meeting with him. Luckily, our ward mission leader Brother McKinney talked some sense into him to keep meeting with us. Something cool happened in that lesson. I had a thought to turn to Moroni 7 to address a concern John had. Turns out, Elder Lovik had the same thought to turn to the same scriptures we shared so it must have been the spirit. John is no longer going to drop us, in fact he said in his stuttering voice that he really felt the spirit and that he will actually pray to know if the book of mormon is true. We hope he does. He's not quite all there so we will see if he follows through. I pray he will.

Another cool thing that happened this week. We were visiting the Velasquez family who have been less active for a little while because of some family forgiveness issues/gossip. Halfway in the middle of our conversation the sisters walked in without knowing we were there. They kind of took over and sang a song which inspired Sister Velasquez to come back to church. The new sister missionary, Sister Williams, has an extremely amazing voice. For our district meeting with President and Sister Morgan this week, I will be accompanying the sisters in I am a Child of God. Anyways..Sister Velasquez and the family came yesterday and the whole sacrament program was centered around forgiveness which was exactly what the family needed to hear. Cool huh? After sacrament it looked like a lot of members talked with her and forgave each other.

Mike didn't make it to church this week. Good news for us though, he will be staying for at least 3 more months so he will most likely be baptized here! We are hoping for November 14. He still hasn't stood up to his parents yet like we've been encouraging him to do.

Jose came to church. He is very hard to meet with. His baptismal date is Dec 3 because of that. He has come to church consistently every other week because of work on Sunday for the past 3-4 months.

This week was pretty good. Saw some cool miracles happen. 

My scripture for this week: 

Mosiah 24: 14-15

"And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. And Now, it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his bretheren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord."

If I were you I would read this verse along with Elder David A. Bednar's talk he gave last year, 'They Did Bear Their Burdens With Ease"

Love you all. The gospel is true.

Elder Soutas

Bro Barfield

Carlyle District doing the President Morgan pose
Elders Keller, Serage, Soutas, Lovik, Sisters Schow, and Oldroyd.

This week went by so so fast! The highlight of the week was this:

We've been teaching a 60 year old man who lost his wife 3 months ago. His named is Brother Barfield. On Tuesday, he invited himself to church for Sunday!! We were taken aback when he said he wanted to go. We didn't even have to ask! He hadn't set foot in the church for 20 years! He also hadn't gone much before then since he doesn't even have the aaronic priesthood! But he came Sunday, and the ward welcomed him back with open arms. It was really cool to see! He came in a slick looking silver suit as well. His face just lit up like a jack-o-lantern (he is missing a few teeth) while everyone was saying hi to him. He felt the spirit really strongly. There were a couple of really good talks by our bishop, Bishop Kretschmer (who is probably the most entertaining bishop out there), and one of the Sister Missionaries, Sister Schow, who is such a great missionary here but is leaving and becoming an STL in O'Fallon. The sisters get work done in Centralia and now we Elders need to step up our game since she is gone. But I was so glad that church was a great experience for Brother Barfield! We had a lesson on family history work/temples in Sunday school which was exactly what he needed to hear since the passing of his wife. He was pretty emotional the whole time, but it was really amazing to see how welcomed he was. Many people have stopped attending church because they don't feel welcomed.

Bro Barfield:

Well other than Brother Barfield, not a whole lot happened. We didn't meet with Jose this week, or one of the Mikes. But the other Mike didn't come to church which was disappointing. He could have been baptized next week if he came this week, but now it's looking like he isn't ready to be baptized here in Illinois. He still wants to be baptized, but it probably won't happen until he moves to Clarksville, Tennessee. Luckily there are 3 wards in Clarksville so he'll be taken care of.

Well I am all emailed out for today, but I will just close with my testimony.

My first 6 weeks in the field has been quite an experience so far! I have come to enjoy getting to know so many wonderful saints and future saints in the area. I have learned thus far that best way to get through hard things is to call down the powers of heaven through prayer, and to lose yourself in selfless service. Also, I am learning that it can be hard to be kind to certain people sometimes, but it is possible if you ask the Lord to help. I know that Heavenly Father is helping me and I'm sure that he answers prayers that are heartfelt. I'm still learning to become better at prayer, but I at least know that it helps. I know Jesus Christ went through a lot of pain but he did it out of supreme love. He loves us all unfathomably, and even when you are not sure if he is really there you've just got to believe he is or else things only get worse. He is the light of the world which can never be dimmed. He showed us the way to eternal life. The Book of Mormon is true. It completes the bible, and I have seen in people's lives how without the Book of Mormon and the restored gospel life is incomplete. And of course Joseph Smith is a prophet and helped bring about this great and marvelous work. He saw the Son standing on the right hand of The Father. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true.

My scripture for this week is:

3 Nephi 18:24
" Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do."

Love you all,

Elder Soutas

The Gospel shall roll forth

Good evening,

I don't usually send emails this late in the day. Normally, p-day should end at 6, but I guess in our mission as long as we get 3 proselyting hours in, then it's fine to do emails after 6, though it's not preferable. I would have sent an email much earlier but we got a call from Brother Lefferts to help him load/unload a bunch of junk he had been keeping in a storage unit. Brother Lefferts is a recent convert, vietnam veteran, and just a funny old guy. He's like another grandpa to me, though he could never replace Grandpa Allen or Grandpa Bob. He helps us out a ton by fellowshipping for our investigators. He also drives us around a lot so we can save miles. He usually will take us to our lessons with Mike in New Minden. Speaking of Mike, he is doing excellent. Mike is pretty much ready to be baptized, just needs to come to church more consistently. He could get baptized as early as October 24. We are going to talk to him about this week. He is moving to Tennessee at the beginning of next month so we will see what he wants to do. He came to church for the 2nd time this week. It was Stake Conference in O'Fallon which is a good hour away from here. Stake Conference (saturday and sunday) was really really good. Elder K. David Scott from the Seventy came to speak as well as our mission president and wife, President and Sister Morgan. I can't really remember a whole lot what they said at the moment. A lot of it had to do with hastening the work of salvation and having the missionaries and members work in unity. Elder Scott did a neat demonstration where he had a recently activated gentlemen come up to the pulpit and share his reactivation story. Then he had all of the people who influenced his coming back to church come to the pulpit as well. There were over like 15 people who played a key role. There were others as well. His demonstration just goes to show how important it is for members to help out as well, because missionaries can't do it by themselves. I think most members do a pretty good job at that, but in order for the work to hasten it would certainly help if people sought for more missionary opportunities. When I return from my mission, I can't wait to keep bringing people back to the fold. There is no greater joy than saving a soul. There really isn't. Don't believe me? Try it :) 

I really like this verse in Dand C 65:2  "The keys of the kingdom of God are committed unto man on the earth, and from thence shall the gospel roll forth unto the ends of the earth, as the stone which is cut out of the mountain without hands shall roll forth, until it has filled the whole earth." The work of salvation is hastening. The stone is rolling like a snowball and is growing and growing. Elder Scott said something pretty cool. He said that it's not too far distant that there will be a numerous amount of people joining the church because of the increasingly wicked world. They will have nowhere else to turn to, no other church to either. Eventually the decision to either join the church and follow the lord, or follow the devil will be pretty black and white. I thought that was interesting.

Anyways, Our other investigator, Jose, said yes to being baptized on December 3. Kind of a long time from now. But there is a language barrier between us so it takes us longer to teach him the lessons. Thank goodness we have Francisco help us translate everything. Bless his heart. He is the most humble, willing Mexican man I'll probably ever meet. He'll do anything for us. Jose is the best. He gave us homemade horchata afterwards. Muy sabroso (I think sabroso means tasty)! Aparently those 3 years of spanish didn't do a whole lot for me. 

Jose also came to stake conference on Sunday! He probably didn't understand much, but at least he came. He's actually been coming to church every other sunday for quite some time now. 

But anyways, after stake conference, as we backed out of the parking space, the axle (or something) to Fransisco's minivan came completely off! It was such a blessing that it did in the parking lot rather than while we were going highspeeds! The Lord was looking out for us, except poor Francisco still has his van in the church parking lot. He asked us this morning if we could drive him to O'fallon but we aren't allowed to because of mission rules. Unfortunately, he drove all the way there but we were unable to find anyone to go with him so he could bring his mini van back. Poor Fransisco.

It was a fairly fruitful week. We had another lesson with Brother Barfield, an inactive gentlemen of about 40+ years! We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, and before we even got into the bulk of the lesson, he basically invited himself to come to church this coming sunday! It really is a miracle. He has a lot going for him right now. His wife died a few months ago so he is still grieving over that. He is pretty lonely, but is such a good-hearted individual. He loves his St. Louis Cardinals, that's for sure! A lot of people around here like the Cards except for a few who are Chicago Cubs fanatics like our Bishop, Bishop Kretschmer. He took us out to pizza the other day. We also went to his house for a halloween party where we played a fun game called "Would you eat your neighbor?" I don't have time to explain, but you should look it up. It would be fun to play for my annual halloween party. We also played a mummy game where the first person to wrap their teammate up into a mummy using toilet paper wins. We won. I was the mummy. We were tempted to take all of the toilet paper home because we are low on it. we didn't though because that's kind of weird.

How has your ponderizing all been going? Last week my scripture had to do with being humble. And so whenever I needed to humble myself that scripture would pop in my head. It works!

My scripture for this week is D&C 123:17:

" Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

Check out these links i found on lds.org I wish I had time to read it, but at least you all can.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/answers-to-personal-questions?cid=HP_WE_10-7-2015_dPTH_fGC_xLIDyL2-3_&lang=eng