Well everyone thank you for all your letters. I love hearing from everyone. Mom those stories you told me were awesome! I can't say I've had anything that drastic, at least that I know of. Granted there isn't really aren't a ton of people out here in the boonies. So as a result there is less of a chance of that happening. The more people there are the more people there are that don't like you and would think of doing that. Probably. I've only been up here in Susqy so who knows. I don't know what anywhere else in the mission is like except for a place or two that I've been to while my comps have been at a meeting or something. The closest to the city I've been is Scranton and that's about it. Probably the closest thing to anything like that is that we have a new truck with 4 wheel drive with traction control, which by the way is super nice. So I've been protected on the roads probably the most. I'm not saying I haven't been protected I definitely have been. Nothing has happened to me so I have to have been protected. There are some people in this town that do not like Mormons so I'm sure I've been protected more times than I can count. But yes the lord definitely protects us. Actually I do have a protection story. Well not really protection in the way you're thinking but... I don't really know how to explain it so I'll just can it and tell the story. It's nothing spectacular. Here it is. We were walking out of homebody's house and it was dark and there was a speed bump and I wasn't paying attention so I put my first foot on it and I thought that it was funny that the ground had all of the sudden raised and by the time I realized I had put my other foot up there and I was kind of hanging off and I tweaked my ankle. It was a pretty bad sounding tweak. Usually when I tweak them you hear a popping, snapping, type sound. It made that sound and hurt for about 5 seconds. I then thought after that, man if I hadn't been on my mission I probably would've sprained my ankle pretty bad right there but I didn't and it isn't bothering me. The Lord definitely protects his missionaries.
Well now on to my week. Monday was really nothing special. We played basketball in Clark's summit (next to Scranton). That was a lot of fun. My companion is my same height and he was guarding me a lot and he doesn't play basketball. It's kind of fun to be able to fake somebody out with my dribbling skills. I don't have a lot in that area but I have improved a lot since high school and it's fun to be able to drive after you faked your guy out. Tuesday- We went on exchanges with the members. It was a good day. We had multiple lessons. We finally saw the Whitney's. They've been sick for a month and we knew we needed to get over there ASAP so they don't fall out of contact, we almost did anyway but that's a LONG story and I'll summarize later. We stopped by and had a good visit. Then we had our BoM study and then went and saw Chris Knapp. He still isn't getting it. He thinks that he's going to get his answer from a vision. He has a little bit of brain damage but he's still normal but he's not normal enough to throw everything off a little bit. I don't know how to read him. Does anyone know how to help someone realize that they aren't going to get their answer from a vision without coming right out and telling him his visions are bologna? The help would be appreciated. Wednesday- We found a new investigator! The work has really been picking up this last week and a halfish. We had a dinner appointment with a baptist minister, he's a really cool guy, and we were early so we knocked some doors and he was the last one we knocked on. We asked him if he knew if there was a way to tell if one church was true and if there is a certain way to find answers to our questions and he said "I don't know. If there was a way I'd be as interested as anybody." We then told him that there was and he was really interested. We left him a BoM and asked him to read Alma 32 for next time and then we left. (I abbreviated that story. We were there for about 1/2 hour.) You could tell right off the bat that it was going to be a good one. He opened the door and we just started chit chatting which led to a gospel discussion. We set up a return appointment for that Friday.
Thursday- We had district meeting and did our weekly planning. Then after that we went and saw a less active lady and talked with her for a while and then just talked with some old ladies that we're friends with. Friday- We started off shoveling some driveways because it had and was snowing. After that we had lunch with a member. So we then took break and we had a dinner appointment but they cancelled because they didn't want us driving out there because their roads were really bad. (I'm sure we Colver handled it with our 4 wheel drive and traction control but we didn't say that.) So instead we stopped by a referral we had and we finally got in contact with her. She has a crazy schedule and is hard to catch but we caught her in about a 45 minute window that she had between running to the next place. She seemed semi-interested. She studies religions as a hobby because her old hobby is now her job so she needed a new hobby. But we taught her. The lesson went okay. It went a lot better toward the end when we asked her to pray and read and had a closing prayer. After that we went to see Jeff (the new investigator) he had forgotten and was just walking out the door but he said that he had read and he really liked it! He also said his friend was interested and told us his name and address and said he could stop by on Monday, the day we set up another return appointment. Saturday- We helped someone move and then saw the Whitney's. Now for the condensed story. We didn't see them for a long time and apparently, according to his wife, he changed a lot, he was angry more and she said that he was thinking about telling us that he was going to go back to his old church but she told him that he never went to that church except for Christmas and Easter. Satan was REALLY working on him. We went over and had a little lesson. It went rather well. It was just good to reestablish contact. Sunday- Church was cancelled here and in Montrose, the next closest building, because of the snow. It only snowed about 4 inches but a lot of people live on dirt roads and there were dirt roads to get to the church so they cancelled it so we went to the Johnson's, the senior couple, and watched a session of 2009 October conference. The first talk by President Eyring was perfect for John Whitney. It talked about what to do if your children don't believe if you do and that is John's major hang up. We want to show him that talk and hopefully it can help him. After that we went and saw a couple people and that was it.
Hooray for BYU basketball! I'm glad to hear they beat stinking UNLV! It's too bad the Jazz haven't been doing too hot.
Thank you for looking up the Book of Mormon thing for me. I appreciate it.
I guess I need to guess where Jordan is going before the call comes... wait I guessed Texas last week didn't I? But I could see him going some where like Spain or something. Just because I went state side doesn't mean he will. I would also like to hear, when you find out of course, why Pres. Felt said that he thought Jordan was going foreign. I think that would be interesting to hear.
Dad- Which Alan were you talking about? We have two cousins with the name Alan. Tanner? How long did it take you to replace the master cylinder thing? It didn't sound like a quick breezy job. If it says master then it's probably something big and controls a lot of stuff and you said that it is the brains of the brakes? I doubt that's as easy as changing a tire ay? Thank you for the letters and encouragement.
Mom- Are Natasha and Shaylee taking over Jordan and my room? Thank you for those stories. They were really cool. Oh those ice pictures that you thought they were waterfalls? They weren't waterfalls. It was just from water dripping off the rock. It does that around here. It's weird. There is WAY too much water in this place. I'm not a big fan of water as you know. It surprised me when I got here and saw all this water dripping off of rocks and everything you can see. You also see peoples wood decks that they haven't painted all green because of the moisture. It's strange. Keep me posted if you hear any other interesting news about Ryan and everyone else. I think you'll know what I'm talking about if you hear it. I don't really know why I wrote this because you already do so... ya.
John- Wait that's me. Why would I write to myself. I already know what happened to me this week and I don't need to write my self a section. So I wont.
Jordan- Where do you think you're going? Canada ay? Mexico? or Idaho? How is school? You started your second semester right? What is the Jazz's record? Have fun at college while you're still in it. Date some people. It'd be good for you and the people you teach on your mission.
Austin- How many dates? You've been in school for a while you've had ample time to ask someone out. DO IT! How is play practice? It has started right?
Natasha- You have makeup? Icky. I would never wear makeup unless someone knocked me out and put it on me and I couldn't wash it off. Then I would probably have to beat that person up. Did you get my card? Funny ay? I thought it was a good one.
Shaylee- Why didn't you make a hat? Did you do any flips while you were skiing? Did you die? I think you have kissed some boys before. A lot probably. How was tangled? Did you like it? Inception is a super good movie but I don't think you would understand it until you're older but I don't know. Maybe you've changed a lot in 5 months.
I love you all. Thank you for everything you do for me. Thank you for the letters, I don't mind if they're long. I love you and I'll see you all soon.
Love,
Elder Schouten
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