Jordan: 2/27/2012

Well, so my new companion. his name is Elder Reid, not Reis. My zone leader told me his name wrong. He`s from utah, and he was actually in my last district so i already know him. He`s a good elder, but he`s OCD clean. It`s been a little stressful dealing with his cleansliness but it`s alright. Actually, he`s OCD with everything, so that`s kind of been rough, but its good. He`s a good missionary. The only problem is that he NEVER seems to get excited, and one thing i`ve learned in the mission.... the mission is too long if you can never be excited. So i`m trying to teach him how to have a good time and still work hard at the same time. But it`s good. He really works super hard. I`ve enjoyed my 3 or 4 days with him so far. I think we`ll be able to do good things.

We`ll interesting piece of news.... thursday, during our weekly planning, the assistants called us. We`re doing divisions with the assistants tonight and tomorrow. I have no idea why we`re doing divisions with them, but that will be interesting. I`m staying here in my area with the new assistant that we just got last week, and my comp is going to the assistant`s area. So that will be a fun experience. But it`s been bugging me ever since they called us as to why we`re doing divisions with them. I`ve never heard of the assistants doing divisions with anybody other than zone leaders. Maybe they were looking at the numbers of our area and thought they were terrible so they decided to come here, I don`t know, but my numbers here aren`t any worse than my numbers in my last area, so we`ll see what happens.

As for finding new investigators, we haven`t found many this last week. We found a few, but none of them seemed to be really prepared. They listened to us, mostly because we more or less forced our way into their house. But we taught some good lessons, so we`ll see how everything goes here this next week.

As for Freddy Portillo (the guy that`s read the whole book of Mormon) we taught him twice last week. He`s reading the BoM like crazy, but he doesn`t really want to accept that our church can be the ONLY true church in the world. He thinks that there are parts of our church that can`t be true, but if he keeps on reading the BoM, praying, and coming to church, things should work out just fine and he`ll end up getting baptized.

We really don`t have many other investigators that are progressing at all, other than him, so not much more about people i`m teaching.
Mom- the package. I got a note from the office last week that it`s here, and i should be getting it tomorrow. i`ll let you know for sure though when i have it. one thing.. could you check my bank account online and tell me how much is in there, please. Thanks.   I`m sure Sis. Bangeter`s talk had the entire family balling. That would`ve been an awesome talk to have heard (and i won`t lie... it would`ve been funny to see all of you crying again). I`m glad New Beginnings turned out well, and i`m sure that you`re glad that it`s over.

Dad- it was cool that you talked with your best friend again. Hopefully he`s still active in the church. have fun finishing the set. also, thanks for the email from my MTC teacher. that was cool to hear.

Austin- how is the play going to be? do you have a part at all? nobody ever told me.

tasha- i`ll beat you in basketball. i promise. (actually you probably could beat me. i haven`t touched a ball for months, and i probably won`t touch one again until i`m home.)

Shaylee- how was the cabin.

John- sounds like your new comp is pretty cool and you`re doing good things together. Work hard. Baptize.

I know that this church is true. I know that trials really are for our benefit. Elder Christofferson said 2 or 3 conference talks ago that if we have a life that just seems full of trials, we should count ourselves lucky, because we have those trials to make us better, and it`s because God knows that we can overcome the trial. I`ve been learning a lot about trials in this area. In my last area, everyone was rather poor, but rather nice and humble. Here, in Centro, there are people with 10 times as much money as our family, and a lot of the time, when we talk to them, the just say a lot of rather mean stuff right to our faces. And that has kind of been a slap in the face to me. But i`ve learned so much about patience and developing Christlike Attributes here in Centro. Even if i didn`t ever baptize another person here in Centro, i`d feel like i was successful here, just because i`ve changed so much as a person and become so much more like Christ. I have a LONG way to go still, but i`ve changed so much here. It really has been an amazing experience to be here in Centro. I know that God really is watching out for us to help us. I know he loves us. I know His Son died for our sins, and that we can live with them again, if we obey the commandments. I love this gospel. I know it`s true.

Love, Elder Jordan Schouten
P.S. Kyle Shegrud got here last week, and he was the only american in his group. hopefully i`ll see him sometime soon.