I figured I would one up Jordan and say BAPTISM!!!!! etc as well. I couldn't do anything else to it really so I just put more exclamation points. So as I'm sure you can tell I had a baptism as well. I sent a picture of it. I also sent some others. I'll explain them later on in the letter. His name is Alan LaVere. He is a 10 year old boy. He is the son of Angela LaVere who was just baptized July 3rd. It was a great day. It happened in the Dover chapel because church in the Harrington building was cancelled because they're doing work on the gym floor and apparently it stunk too bad so we had church in Dover. It was great. His dad, who is an atheist, even came to the baptism. That was pretty cool.
Jordan- It's pretty cool that we both had a baptism on the same week. Don't you just love how there will always be some sort of opposition before a baptism? It always happens. It happens afterwards as well so make sure you keep up with him and don't let him fall off the map. If Satan can keep them from going to church it's pretty much the same as if they were never baptized in the first place. Don't let him fall off the map. It sounds like your branch needs priesthood holders badly (every unit in the church needs more worthy priesthood holders). You baptized a male. That's a treasure. Don't let it go to waste. It's pretty cool that you're doing really well with your spanish. 9 month quality at 3 months? That's pretty good. I was better though. I was already fluent when I got into the field. The MTC taught me really well. Also I'm just really gifted at speaking the language. :) Yes I enjoyed taking numbers Sunday night and then conference calls last night. It was fun. I like knowing what's happening in the zone and in the district. Also you'll probably be getting a letter from my ward mission leader in spanish. He found out you were in Paraguay on your mission and he served in Argentina on his mission and he wanted to write you a letter so I'm giving him your email. He's a super funny guy. I like him a lot and he loves missionary work. You'll have to tell me what it says.
This week was a pretty good one. We had a baptism, which I've already mentioned, and we had a really good zone training. (That's where the zone, or missionaries in the stake, get together and have a district meeting with the whole zone and it's taught by the zone leaders.) The zone training was really good. It talked about how we can really improve in our missionary work and how we need to have a finding mindset, or in other words we need to expect to find new investigators and think about what we can do to find more people who want to learn. Our Zone also did really well. The zone leaders implemented a thing called finding friday. Which is when we try to make friday completely focused on finding. No that doesn't mean we go and tract all day. The guidelines are we ask every person we talk to for referrals, we don't stay in a lesson longer than 45 minutes and we have a mindset where we expect to find new investigators and we pray for them throughout the day. It's a really good idea. It really helped the zone improve. The things we do on finding Friday are things that we need to be doing anyway but we don't always do them as well as we could so the zone leaders set apart a day where we really focus on doing it EXACTLY right on one day because we can't just be perfect all the time, we have to start small and this finding friday thing will spill over into the rest of the week. I really liked the idea and the zone leaders said last night in conference calls that the zone did an excellent job at finding this last week. It gave us glimpse of the celestial state our mission could be at if we really just work for it.
Tim Robinson- He will probably be getting baptized on Sunday, the 11th. The only reason he wouldn't be is because he is moving to Oklahoma sometime after the 15 of September, it might be after the 18 when could get confirmed or it might be before. The reason he wouldn't is because we don't know what the rules are on getting baptized in one area and then moving and getting confirmed. So we're going to be asking our mission president. We'll see.
Rosalie and Clarence- We just taught them the law of Chastity this last week and it went really well. They know they need to live it and that it's a commandment but Rosalie doesn't really want to get married, oh by the way they aren't married, because her last marriage left her not wanting to get married again. So she is praying about it and I hope she makes the right choice.
We found a new investigator on Finding Friday. That was a pretty cool story but it's kind of long so I'll abbreviate a little bit. Her name is Sarah. We had an appointment with a Less active member named brother Ireland, I sent a picture of him last week, Friday morning. We called him at 9:30, an hour before the appointment to remind him. He didn't answer but called us back about 15 minutes later and said he thought the appointment was at 4 and that his son, recently baptized in January and less active, and his girlfriend were going to be there. The girlfriend of the son, John, wanted to know more and wanted to come to church. She had seen the example that John had had on her and she realized that if it weren't for him that she would probably be doing drugs just like all of her friends are. So she wanted to know more. The coolest part is that during the lesson John shared that he felt earlier in the week that he needed to get his life back together because he had been having a little bit of trouble with his emotions so he called up his dad and said "Dad I feel like Sarah and I need to be over at your place on Friday and that the elders should be there." His dad, brother Ireland, then said something to the effect of "funny you should say that. The elders are already coming over on Friday at 4. You could come over then." and so they did. It was a pretty cool story.
Oh ya I got bit by a dog this week. I love dogs but I do not like yappy dogs. This one was an incredibly yappy one. I've always wanted to reach down it's throat and rip out it's bark box. It drives me nuts. It's always barking unless you're petting it. We got up to go and as usual it started barking at us and then we started walking to the door and it started barking more and started jumping all over me and bit me on the back of my left thigh. It didn't hurt too bad but I still wanted to kick it. By the way that is what the picture of the spot and bruise on my leg is. My wound from a dog.
I also got a picture CD from Wal-mart with all my pictures from this memory card. I'll have to get one for my other memory card as well. I'll be sending them home soon. I don't know how soon, soon is. It could be a week or two. I don't know.
We're also going to a Zone Conference in Susquehanna. Yes Susquehanna, my first area. We're going to be taking a bus up there and having a Zone Conference the 27th of September. I don't know much more than that right now. There will be a Sickle Thruster, the weekly mission newsletter, sent out about it this week.
Being district leader has been fine. It's not too hard yet. (I hope I didn't just dig my own grave.) But I also haven't had to give a district meeting yet either. So we'll see how that goes.
Picture explanations: One is with Wes. He just moved up to New Castle, DE. The other one is Elder Arnett in the middle of our weekly planning. One is my dog bite. One is of Alan Lavere after his baptism, the other guy is a guy in the ward that baptized him. The last one is a pipe that a member had in his truck. No I haven't been smoking, neither has the member. The pipe was his uncles and I think he just passed away.
I'm glad to hear that BYU squeaked out a win. I hope they shape it up in the future. I'm glad that next year I'll be getting home and then BYU football will be starting quickly after that.
Mom- Good luck with all of your work you have to do. Yes you do have a lot I believe. Or at least you did when I left and I don't think it got much calmer from the sounds of it.
Dad- Have fun with everything you do.
Austin- Viewmont isn't hot come to Delaware. Wait... I'm wearing a jacket right now because it's raining outside and it's a little cold. But Delaware does get worse than Viewmont. You don't have humidity. Humidity makes hots hotter and colds colder. It's horrible. But winters out here aren't as bad as they are out in Utah and Idaho.
Natasha- That's a pretty cool story you sent me. How do you like Jr. High? Don't be afraid to talk to people. You'll come to find out that all teenagers are dumb and that they blow everything out of proportion. Just be yourself and talk to people. That is how you will have lots of fun.
Shaylee- Good luck with your mouth and in school.
I love you all. I know God loves us and that he lives. Don't take the knowledge about who God is for granted. There are SOOOOOOO many people in the world who really don't know who God is and that he loves us. They think that because bad things happen to innocent people that God isn't there and that he doesn't love His children. (Alma 14:11- 11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in aglory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the bjudgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the cblood of the dinnocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day. ALSO Mosiah 23:21-22 21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to achasten his people; yea, he trieth their bpatience and their faith.
22 Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his atrust in him the same shall be blifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.
AND FINALLY 2 Nephi 2:11
11 For it must needs be, that there is an aopposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.) God does love His children. He wants us to be happy. We face trials so that we can grow. If you were lifting weights and you only lifted te bar it would be easy but you wouldn't gain any muscle. When you put weights on he bar that's when muscle comes. It's the same thing with our spirits. If it was easy all the time then we wouldn't grow. There was also a talk by Paul V. Johnson in last conference talking about how trials help us. He said "Trials are not just to test us. They are vitally important to the process of putting on the divine nature." It's true. We may not like the trials and they will be hard but they will help us reach the divine potential we have. That is why bad things happen. They are to help us grow. The church is true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it was translated by Joseph Smith through the power of God. President Monson is the prophet of God today. The words he speaks are from God.
I love you all thank you for your support and prayers. Have a good week.
Love,
Elder Schouten
Jordan- It's pretty cool that we both had a baptism on the same week. Don't you just love how there will always be some sort of opposition before a baptism? It always happens. It happens afterwards as well so make sure you keep up with him and don't let him fall off the map. If Satan can keep them from going to church it's pretty much the same as if they were never baptized in the first place. Don't let him fall off the map. It sounds like your branch needs priesthood holders badly (every unit in the church needs more worthy priesthood holders). You baptized a male. That's a treasure. Don't let it go to waste. It's pretty cool that you're doing really well with your spanish. 9 month quality at 3 months? That's pretty good. I was better though. I was already fluent when I got into the field. The MTC taught me really well. Also I'm just really gifted at speaking the language. :) Yes I enjoyed taking numbers Sunday night and then conference calls last night. It was fun. I like knowing what's happening in the zone and in the district. Also you'll probably be getting a letter from my ward mission leader in spanish. He found out you were in Paraguay on your mission and he served in Argentina on his mission and he wanted to write you a letter so I'm giving him your email. He's a super funny guy. I like him a lot and he loves missionary work. You'll have to tell me what it says.
This week was a pretty good one. We had a baptism, which I've already mentioned, and we had a really good zone training. (That's where the zone, or missionaries in the stake, get together and have a district meeting with the whole zone and it's taught by the zone leaders.) The zone training was really good. It talked about how we can really improve in our missionary work and how we need to have a finding mindset, or in other words we need to expect to find new investigators and think about what we can do to find more people who want to learn. Our Zone also did really well. The zone leaders implemented a thing called finding friday. Which is when we try to make friday completely focused on finding. No that doesn't mean we go and tract all day. The guidelines are we ask every person we talk to for referrals, we don't stay in a lesson longer than 45 minutes and we have a mindset where we expect to find new investigators and we pray for them throughout the day. It's a really good idea. It really helped the zone improve. The things we do on finding Friday are things that we need to be doing anyway but we don't always do them as well as we could so the zone leaders set apart a day where we really focus on doing it EXACTLY right on one day because we can't just be perfect all the time, we have to start small and this finding friday thing will spill over into the rest of the week. I really liked the idea and the zone leaders said last night in conference calls that the zone did an excellent job at finding this last week. It gave us glimpse of the celestial state our mission could be at if we really just work for it.
Tim Robinson- He will probably be getting baptized on Sunday, the 11th. The only reason he wouldn't be is because he is moving to Oklahoma sometime after the 15 of September, it might be after the 18 when could get confirmed or it might be before. The reason he wouldn't is because we don't know what the rules are on getting baptized in one area and then moving and getting confirmed. So we're going to be asking our mission president. We'll see.
Rosalie and Clarence- We just taught them the law of Chastity this last week and it went really well. They know they need to live it and that it's a commandment but Rosalie doesn't really want to get married, oh by the way they aren't married, because her last marriage left her not wanting to get married again. So she is praying about it and I hope she makes the right choice.
We found a new investigator on Finding Friday. That was a pretty cool story but it's kind of long so I'll abbreviate a little bit. Her name is Sarah. We had an appointment with a Less active member named brother Ireland, I sent a picture of him last week, Friday morning. We called him at 9:30, an hour before the appointment to remind him. He didn't answer but called us back about 15 minutes later and said he thought the appointment was at 4 and that his son, recently baptized in January and less active, and his girlfriend were going to be there. The girlfriend of the son, John, wanted to know more and wanted to come to church. She had seen the example that John had had on her and she realized that if it weren't for him that she would probably be doing drugs just like all of her friends are. So she wanted to know more. The coolest part is that during the lesson John shared that he felt earlier in the week that he needed to get his life back together because he had been having a little bit of trouble with his emotions so he called up his dad and said "Dad I feel like Sarah and I need to be over at your place on Friday and that the elders should be there." His dad, brother Ireland, then said something to the effect of "funny you should say that. The elders are already coming over on Friday at 4. You could come over then." and so they did. It was a pretty cool story.
Oh ya I got bit by a dog this week. I love dogs but I do not like yappy dogs. This one was an incredibly yappy one. I've always wanted to reach down it's throat and rip out it's bark box. It drives me nuts. It's always barking unless you're petting it. We got up to go and as usual it started barking at us and then we started walking to the door and it started barking more and started jumping all over me and bit me on the back of my left thigh. It didn't hurt too bad but I still wanted to kick it. By the way that is what the picture of the spot and bruise on my leg is. My wound from a dog.
I also got a picture CD from Wal-mart with all my pictures from this memory card. I'll have to get one for my other memory card as well. I'll be sending them home soon. I don't know how soon, soon is. It could be a week or two. I don't know.
We're also going to a Zone Conference in Susquehanna. Yes Susquehanna, my first area. We're going to be taking a bus up there and having a Zone Conference the 27th of September. I don't know much more than that right now. There will be a Sickle Thruster, the weekly mission newsletter, sent out about it this week.
Being district leader has been fine. It's not too hard yet. (I hope I didn't just dig my own grave.) But I also haven't had to give a district meeting yet either. So we'll see how that goes.
Picture explanations: One is with Wes. He just moved up to New Castle, DE. The other one is Elder Arnett in the middle of our weekly planning. One is my dog bite. One is of Alan Lavere after his baptism, the other guy is a guy in the ward that baptized him. The last one is a pipe that a member had in his truck. No I haven't been smoking, neither has the member. The pipe was his uncles and I think he just passed away.
I'm glad to hear that BYU squeaked out a win. I hope they shape it up in the future. I'm glad that next year I'll be getting home and then BYU football will be starting quickly after that.
Mom- Good luck with all of your work you have to do. Yes you do have a lot I believe. Or at least you did when I left and I don't think it got much calmer from the sounds of it.
Dad- Have fun with everything you do.
Austin- Viewmont isn't hot come to Delaware. Wait... I'm wearing a jacket right now because it's raining outside and it's a little cold. But Delaware does get worse than Viewmont. You don't have humidity. Humidity makes hots hotter and colds colder. It's horrible. But winters out here aren't as bad as they are out in Utah and Idaho.
Natasha- That's a pretty cool story you sent me. How do you like Jr. High? Don't be afraid to talk to people. You'll come to find out that all teenagers are dumb and that they blow everything out of proportion. Just be yourself and talk to people. That is how you will have lots of fun.
Shaylee- Good luck with your mouth and in school.
I love you all. I know God loves us and that he lives. Don't take the knowledge about who God is for granted. There are SOOOOOOO many people in the world who really don't know who God is and that he loves us. They think that because bad things happen to innocent people that God isn't there and that he doesn't love His children. (Alma 14:11- 11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in aglory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the bjudgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the cblood of the dinnocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day. ALSO Mosiah 23:21-22 21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to achasten his people; yea, he trieth their bpatience and their faith.
22 Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his atrust in him the same shall be blifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.
AND FINALLY 2 Nephi 2:11
11 For it must needs be, that there is an aopposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.) God does love His children. He wants us to be happy. We face trials so that we can grow. If you were lifting weights and you only lifted te bar it would be easy but you wouldn't gain any muscle. When you put weights on he bar that's when muscle comes. It's the same thing with our spirits. If it was easy all the time then we wouldn't grow. There was also a talk by Paul V. Johnson in last conference talking about how trials help us. He said "Trials are not just to test us. They are vitally important to the process of putting on the divine nature." It's true. We may not like the trials and they will be hard but they will help us reach the divine potential we have. That is why bad things happen. They are to help us grow. The church is true. The Book of Mormon is the word of God and it was translated by Joseph Smith through the power of God. President Monson is the prophet of God today. The words he speaks are from God.
I love you all thank you for your support and prayers. Have a good week.
Love,
Elder Schouten
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