Jordan- If it makes you feel any better I didn't get to see any fireworks either. I'm glad you liked my guilt tripping of Austin. That just kind of came to my head as I was writing. We'll see if he actually writes us. If he doesn't soon we should ask Mom and Dad to not let him read any of the letters and we'll boycott him and his knowing about us because we don't know about him. But he's not to that point yet but if it gets bad enough we'll have to intervene. Or maybe we'll just wait until he's on his mission and we'll write him as often as he writes us and see how he enjoys it. When do you leave for Paraguay? Don't you stay in the MTC for a total of 6 weeks? Hasn't it been at least 5 by now? I'm glad to hear you and your companion are doing well. A mission is a lot more enjoyable when you and your companion get along. Trust me I've just spent two transfers (for those of you who don't speak missionary, about 3 months) with kind of an up and down companionship, but now that we've gotten all the dirt out from under the rug it's a lot more enjoyable. Keep up the good work. Be obedient and you'll be happy and busy all the days of your mission life. Times will be tough but always keep the eternal perspective. Just because we teach people how to get on the ladder toward salvation doesn't mean that we can forget the end. We're here to strengthen people's faith in Jesus Christ and to make sure they are SOLID converts. Times aren't going to get easier and if their testimonies aren't strong they will falter. When we help them come closer to Christ they will want to get on the ladder toward salvation or as it says in 2 Nephi 31, entering the gate. When we help their strength in Christ they will want to take those steps to get them closer. Don't get too caught up in the here and now and what's happening this minute but keep in mind that we're all shooting for the Celestial Kingdom.
Well this week has been a really good one. Elder Baker and I had a pretty cool experience. The story is long so I'm going to abbreviate somewhat. We had some stupid debate about the hymn we were going to sing to begin companionship study and that kind of started things off bad and we didn't have the spirit with us. So in case you don't know missionaries without the spirit does NOT = good things. Missionaries without spirit= dumb angry 19-21 year old guys. But we ended up having a really good talk. He gets wound up really easily and he got a little wound up and then he got frustrated and we ended up talking about things we needed to improve that would make things better. Last time we talked about having Charity for each other and that started off all fine and dandy but it kind've just slipped away after a few days but this talk really helped us. Elder Baker realized that he felt like he treated me horribly since we'd been together. He says he was just not patient with me at all and said he thought about himself all the time and he really felt bad. He came to a point before that where he either had to choose to be humble and just swallow his pride pill or continue being angry. Thankfully he swallowed the pride. He apologized and said he was sorry and said that he felt horrible and that he would improve. Ever since that point on there have been a lot less bumps. He's been noticing a lot more good things about me instead of the bad things. It also made it so that he was a easier to love because I wasn't mad at him for nagging on me. It was a really cool experience and I think I just butchered it with my keyboard and made it sound like it was all his fault to begin with. It wasn't. I didn't mean it to sound like that if it came across that way. But he sort of had an eye opening experience. Another really cool thing about this whole thing is that we had an appointment at 10am for that morning but the night before he asked if he could push it back to 11. We said yes and it just so happened that we finished our talk at about 5 min to 11, which gave us just enough time to get to our appointment. Coincidence? I think not! I think God knew that was coming and that we'd need that time to talk. God is great. He loves us. He does everything for us and knows what we're going through. Well while I'm thinking about it, Mom this is our last week of the transfer. The 17th is the last day of the transfer. Oh note for everyone. I doubt I'll get transferred but I could so if you send my anything please send it to the mission home address. (If you don't have it ask my momma)
I'm glad to hear you all had a great time at the cabin. The cabin is a blast. I miss it, but I'm doing better things. The cabin will probably be there when I get back. The mission isn't something you can "go back to" it comes and then it's gone.
We had interviews with the mission president, President Schaefermeyer, on Thursday. I really enjoyed them. We didn't talk for a super long time or anything but it was nice to talk to him. He is a very loving man and very obviously loves his missionaries. It's a joy to serve under him.
Then this Friday Elder Baker and I had another growing experience. (This too is a long story so I'll abbreviate.) So we started off the morning with a lesson and then we went and saw another guy and had a lesson with him and it was 12:30-1pmish. We were going to go see a few less active people but their addresses weren't in Elder Bakers GPS and we had a high contact goal of 21 people that day. He just got really stressed (he's a worrier). It wasn't anything I did or something like that. He just let himself get really worked up over a few small things and so we were driving to go see someone and I guess he had had enough. He yanked the car over to the side of the road (I was on the phone at the time) and I asked what are we doing? He said something to the effect of "We're stopping to tract." So I finished the phone call and we got out of the car and walked down to knock on a house. No one answered. Next house same thing. next house same thing. Keep in mind that the spirit was totally not with us. Elder Baker was just really frustrated and was walking super fast and was real upset and so I was about 10 feet behind him. Then there were two guys walking along the road and so we went to talk to them. Elder Baker started talking and conversation went no where. The guy even said "where are you going with this?" I wasn't much help either because the spirit wasn't there. When I don't have the spirit with me I just kind've revert back into a shell because I know what I say wont help and probably will hinder so we gave the guy a card and then as we walked away Elder Baker looked back at me and said "Thanks for the help back there." Then he frustratedly walked up to the next door. The lady answered. Thankfully she was on the phone and didn't want to talk anyway. So we left her a card and we started walking away after she had closed the door and I said "OK that's it we're going back to the car to talk about this. The spirit isn't with us." So we did and he it was just Elder Baker was just got really stressed because all of our plans fell through (he hates that by the way). So then he saw the 21 contacts we still needed for the day and that only added to the situation. So I had to, in his moms words, talk him off a cliff. I just had to help him see that we still had a wide open night to talk to a bunch of people. It was really cool. I was able to help him see why the 0 contacts so far the day wasn't a bad thing yet. We had been in lessons all day. So I helped him see that and see that he's a good missionary and that he's doing fine. It was really cool to see how that helped us grow together.
I hope that made sense.
Sunday was an awesome day. We finally had church in Harrington again and then after we had a member out with us who knows tons and tons of deep doctrine and things like that. Long story short we talked about a lot of really cool things like the second coming and the last days and a lot of different things. It definitely wasn't things we would teach investigators because it would go WAY over their heads. (You don't give a 12 oz. steak to a new born.) But talking with him really helped me see the eternal scheme of things. As a missionary if you aren't super careful it's easy to kind of lose sight of the final goal. We are so used to constantly teaching the basics of the basics, like faith, repentance, baptism, and things like that and we're so used to teaching people how to get in the gate that we forget the reason why we want them in the gate. But talking with him really helped me refocus on what matters most.
Yes Angela was confirmed this week and Alan is still on track. Awesome!
Well I don't want to bore you with the tedious day to day things so I'll wrap up now. I think I covered most of the big stuff.
Oh I lied. Earlier today we went fishing with a member in the ward. It was super fun. It was awesome. I caught a bunch of fish. It was almost too easy to catch the fish. We had a lot of fun. The member we went with is a super cool guy and we also went with the elders from Dover. It was a really cool experience. As I said it was a lot of fun.
Now I'm done.
Mom- I'm glad you had a good experience with your talk on Sunday. You think Ashley will the be the first one off? I do too. Have you gotten one of those missionary emails from all my friends lately?
Dad-Thanks for the line of authority thing. If you could print it off and send it to me that would be great. I don't know how well printing from these computers would be. That sound like they have a pretty cool set at Centerpoint, or however you spell it.
Austin-refer to last weeks portion
Natasha- That was an interesting "play" you sent me and your right I will have been our for a year pretty quick here. Time has gone by fast. I'm glad to hear you had fun at the cabin. Make sure you do everything mom asks you. She knows what she's talking about.
Shaylee-How did you like the cabin? Did you swim in the lake? If you didn't I'll have to throw you in. (Jordan I'll beat you home by a year. I'll get the opportunity to throw her in sooner.)
I love you all and I hope you have a great summer.
God is our father. He loves us. We need to make sure our faith is unshakable in Him and in Jesus Christ. Tough times will come but if we are built upon the rock of our redeemer we shall not fall. Jesus Christ is the Savior of us all. He loves us and because he loves us he died for us. He payed the price for our sins so that we can repent. Repentance isn't easy and isn't fun but in the long run it is the only way. It is the only way that happiness comes. Christ makes repentance possible and also makes happiness possible. The Book of Mormon is true. It is scripture for us in these last days. Joseph Smith translated it by the power of God. President Monson leads and guides the church today. He speaks for God. Anything he tells us is from God and we must follow it to be happy. God doesn't do things for no reason. He loves us. I know this is true.
I love you and I'll see you when I see you.
Love,
Elder Schouten
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