Now for your favorite time of the week.

Now for your favorite time of the week.

MY LETTER!!!
How is school going now that it's started. Shaylee- How do you like Mrs. Kelly? Is she cool? Does she have gray hair yet? She's been teaching since the beginning of time. She's was teaching there before I went there. Natasha- How is Mrs. Hanni? Do you like her? I can't ask if she has gray hair yet because she had gray hair when I was there. I can ask how come she isn't dead or retired yet? She was teaching there long before I ever went there. I think Scott or Michelle had here. Did Austin have Mrs. Hanni? I thought he had Mrs. Shupe or something, maybe that was Jordan, I don't remember that was like 7 years ago or something. Oh well. Austin- How is high school? Do you love it? How is it dropping from top dog and a madrigal (oooooo madrigals!!!) to a little youngn? Who do you have for seminary? What classes are you taking and what teachers do you have? Jordan- CHILL! College isn't bad it's a ton of fun. Well my first semester was probably a little too much fun. How is dropping from big dog and madrigal (ooooo madrigals!!!) to the little youngn on campus? (Speaking about college what did my grades end up being for the 2nd semester? If you don't have the info to log on tell me and I will tell you.) But anyway back to college questions. What classes are you taking and how are they? Is the laptop being a poop? It was for me pretty much the whole time I was there. But you get used to it and it isn't that bad after you get used to it. A bit of advice that you've heard from me a bajillion zillion times but now I'm going to make it a bajillion zillion and one. If you haven't heard me say it or don't remember me saying it I'm sorry I probably just thought it or told mom that you need to chill but anyway back the my advice. Chill (oh I have told you at least once I know, just look at my previous words of wisdom to you, well actually they're more like questions but that is beside the point) don't worry about things you can't do anything about. You being nervous about college does nothing. Your being nervous doesn't make college easier it just makes you feel gross and makes it harder to adjust. It's just another barrier. You can worry about tests and things like that but if I hear you're getting sick or getting ulcers or something like that I'm going to have to punch you in the face from here in Susquehanna. (Yes I am able to do that. You've never been on a mission you wouldn't know.) Dad- Thank you for writing me. How goes work and all that stuff? You didn't start school so you don't have a whole bunch of new things going on so I don't have as many questions. But I'll try to think of someting for next time. Mom- Same thing as Dad. Thanks for writing me. I like hearing what's going on. You however do have school starting but you already told me about it so I don't really have any questions.
That story about Shanae was pretty funny I laughed at that one. I bet that teacher felt pretty dumb after that. Well here is a overview of my week. Last monday was p-day and I got to play basketball for the first time in a month. Lets just say that I wasn't on the top of my game but I wasn't horrible. After that we had dinner at an investigators house. His name is John Whitney. He's basically an eternigator (someone who investitgates forever) According to my companion he says that the reason why he hasn't been baptized is because he doesn't want to be in the Celestial Kingdom without his family, but he doesn't realize that if he isn't baptized then he can't go to the Celestial Kingdom and if he doesn't go the the Celestial Kingdom he can't see his family anyway so... ya. His family all like us a lot and they have us over every Monday night for dinner. He's been to church 30+ times but his wife has only been, I think, once. She, as I said before, likes the church but according to my comp. there might be some tension if he joins the church but I don' know what. I've only talked to them once so I'm not sure as to what extent or anything like that. We are going to teach him tonight. We're going to try Mosiah 18: 8-10 it's when Alma is at the waters of Mormon and asks them do you desire to come unto Christ and mourn with those that mourn... etc. then in verse 10 it says something to the effect of "then what do you have against being baptized?" Along with that we're going to teach about faith and maybe if he goes and is baptized then maybe his family will see that he isn't a problem and will maybe follow his example. We're teaching another lady and her name is Joan Hanrahan she says she knows that being baptized is something she should do but "I just don't think I'm ready yet." She doesn't want to upset her siblings or maybe children, I can't remember which. One of them is fine with it but one of the others keeps feeding her anti stuff and she just doesn't have the guts to just do it anyway. She also is kind of flaky. She only goes to church if her friend is going and her friend is less active so she doesn't go very often and when her friend is gone she comes up with excuses not to go like yesterdays excuse was " I have an apartment inspection that I have to clean for." Pht ya right. Were not stupid. Even if you do you could've cleaned earlier or delayed it some for church. But oh well you can't force them into the church or it'll do no good. So the lady that we baptized my first Sunday here fainted and is having surgery on her brain today. She has some kind of brain mass and she's been in the hospital for about half a week. We gave her a blessing and I think she'll be fine. When we went to visit her the day after she fainted, she doesn't have a phone so it's hard to contact them so we go to her parents house which is pretty close to our apartment instead of driving 20-30 minutes to their house to hope they're there. While we were visiting her she told us that she needed to be out of the hospital before Sunday because that was when she was being confirmed, the date for surgery hadn't been set yet. We chuckled and told her that she could be ordained the next week or whenever she gets out of the hospital. Then she asked us when tithing is due. We also chuckled at that and told her just when you get some money and that as soon as she gets out of the hospital that we'd show her how to pay tithing. She is so faithful. She told us all these things about how she feels now that she's been baptized and how she want make sure everyone else has the joy she has now that she's been baptized. She has such great faith and it's amazing. There is another guy that we've been talking to. We haven't sat down and formaly taught him, well we've only had one formal sit down lesson but that's beside the point, his name is Don Potter. He owns a dairy farm and we go and help him from time to time. He's a pretty cool guy. I like him a lot. When ever we go and help him he gives us some of his milk that hasn't been pasturized. It's soo good. He came to church this Sunday which I'm happy about. His farm makes it hard for him to come to church so we will sometimes go and help him Sunday morning so he can come. I think, and so does my comp, that he will get baptized. Totaly off topic but cows are big gross animals. I like them but they're gross. their back forth of their bodies are always encrusted with old dried poop. All those things do is eat poop and give milk. But I like them. On Friday we had our bi-monthly free hot dog stand. It's a thing we do every other friday. We give away free hot dogs to anyone who want one. We didn't have a very good turn out but there was one plus. But before I can tell you the plus I have to give some background. Ok so Susquehanna is a super rural hicktown. Nobody likes to work. To illistrate that I have a story. We were talking to a lady, she's super nice and I think she'll be baptized but she owns a farm and she says that she cant find anyone to come and pick corn for an hour. She pays them 20 bucks an hour. I said heck if I could I'd come and do that. 20 bucks a day for 6 days a week that's $120 a week. That's good money. I did that same thing at Dee's, oh how is he doing by the way?, for 5-6 dollars an hour. But everyone here is on welfare and as I have stated in previous letters lots of people here smoke. But when we were doing the hot dog stand some high schoolers came up and got a hot dog. There were a couple girls and a guy. I was surprised, that was the first time here that I've seen a teenage girl that 1. couldn't beat me up 2. smoke 3. have nasty tats (tatoos) or 4. just plain old look gross. I was pleasntly surprised that all the population wasn't nasty and gross. If I wasn't on a mission I would've thought she was very cute. Well I thought that because I'm human but it's not going anywhere. Don't worry. They were all pretty nice and we gave them some pamphlets. I don't know that anything will happen because of it but we'll see.
On Saturday I talked to the mose depressed person on the face of the planet. His name is Pat Graves. He's had two wives, at different times, (I have to put that because I wouldn't put it past anyone in Susquehanna to have multiple) who both left him and he's devestated. He basically uses us as a shoulder to cry on. We shared a scripture with him and talked to him about how the church will help him and we almost got him to church. He said he was good Saturday night but on Sunday morning he flaked.
I'm doing fine I'm trying to get comfortable talking to people and starting conversations. Jordan and Austin, make sure you can just go up to anyone and start a conversation with them. If you can't, get to the point you can. It'll make your mission sooo much easier. It's just one less barrier you have to overcome. We pretty much don't have any formal sit down lesson so my lesson knowledge hasn't really improved a ton but that's something we're working on is having more formal lessons.
Well that's pretty much it for my letter. If I forgot something I'm sorry or left something out that I said I'd talk about I'm sorry. Just tell me and I'll try to tell you next time. Please write me especially you siblings of mine. I like getting letters. I'll see you all (except Jordan) in 2 years, Jordan, in 3. I love you all.

Sincerely,
Elder John Schouten