Jordan: 6/18/2012

From: Jordan Schouten
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2012 9:09 AM
To: John Schouten; Mike Schouten; schouten.julie
Subject: my letter 6/18/2012

 

Well, this week was interesting. We had some really rough things happen but all in all, it turned out really well. The rough part of the week is that the 2 kids that we´re teaching didn´t get baptized. Their dad was alright with us teaching them, but then, we he realized we wanted to baptize them, he didn´t say no, but he didn´t really want it. He filled their minds with a lot of doubts and other stuff, and he also filled his wife´s head with doubts, so she stopped supporting the baptism as well. So, they didn´t end up getting baptized. Saturday was a pretty rough day, because we found out on saturday that they weren´t going to get baptized. On friday they were ready, but on saturday, it all fell through, and they didn´t end up getting baptized. But it´s alright. We decided that we´re going to have to teach the dad and bring him along as well, and help him realized that this is the true church that has the power to create eternal families, so we´ll be working with him.

The part of this week that made this week alright was that yesterday at church, we had 6 investigators come to church. That was incredible, and all six have baptism dates. we have one guy, Fabio Florentin, for this saturday. And he´s not going to fall through. He´s got a super strong testimony of the BoM and of Joseph Smith. He told us on Thursday that he wants to get baptized in the church that has prophets and apostles and the authority to baptize. So, he told us that he wants to get baptized in our church. Yesterday at church, we had a lesson in Elder´s quorum about sharing the gospel with others and he made a comment about how he wants to share the gospel with other people and that we should be excited about sharing the gopel because it´s true. So, that was pretty awesome. He really is an amazing man.

Another cool part was that on thursay, we fasted, along with the zone leaders that are in our same branch. They had a baptism this last week too, and they´re was a lot of problems as well with him, so we fasted together, so all 3 people would get baptized. And even though all 3 didn´t get baptized, 5 minutes after finishing the prayer, we were walking towards a house of an invest. and this lady stopped us in the road and said "are you the mormons?" I said "yeah" and she said "i have a son, and i want him to talk with you. I know a lot about your church and i want him to talk with you so you can help him" So we said ok. We went to their house and their son, Angel, is 12 yrs. old and kind of rebelious, but not really. Basically, the dad is kind of mean and his son´s not perfect and he doesn´t like that, but he has a nephew that was the same way that talked with the missionaries in Argentina and his nephew completely changed, so he wants his son to talk with us so he´ll change. We taught him once on thursday, and yesterday he came to church! and then we went by last night and he had read the BoM and he got his answer and he says it´s true. He´s a really awesome kid.

Also, we have transfers this week. I´m 99.99999999999999999% sure that i´ll be staying in my area. I´ve only been here 1 transfer, and this transfer has been a short one, because of the change of mission presidents, so it´s only been 5 weeks instead of 6, so i´m almost positive i´ll be sticking around.
also, random question... How did jimmer do in the NBA this year? was he good, alright, or just a flop? Also, how were the Jazz?

Mom- i really liked that quote by pres. Faust. I think i´m going to share it in district meeting tomorrow. I¨m glad you finally had a calm week, and that you could get all of the stuff cleaned out of the basement. I hope everything turns out well for girls camp. Also, your comment about forgiveness. That´s an interesting subject. I went to do the baptism interview of my zone leaders baptism canidate this week and long story short, somebody stole his cell phone and his money and he was kind of crazy and he didn´t want to forgive them at all, so we talked about forgiveness a lot, before doing the interview. forgiveness is something that´s super hard, but in true to the faith, it talks about how we should ask for help to forgive people for the things they´ve done to us. Christ can help us forgive others, as well as be forgiven.

 

Dad- have fun getting people to vote for Dan. I hope everything goes well.

 

Austin- have fun. Just have fun. That would be my advice for you. Have fun. It´s summer. Don´t worry about anything.

 

Natasha- keep playing basketball. It´s the best. I hope that art project thing you´re doing goes alright.

 

Shaylee- sounds like you had a super awesome week. enjoy your summer and be a good girl.

 

Well, I gotta run, but i know that this church is true. I have no doubt of that. I know that Christ knows exactly how we feel, at all moments. On saturday night, i was super bummed out because our baptism fell through, and sunday morning, i was still bummed out. That doesn´t usually happen to me. I usually wake up and don´t remember the bad things from the day before, but sunday morning, i was bummed out still. So, i prayed really hard. REALLY HARD. and i felt that Christ knew exactly how i felt and he knew how to help me. He helped me through it. I know he is our Savior and he loves us. This is His church, and he wants to help us and live with us again. I love the Gospel. It gives us so much peace and joy. I love missionary work. It´s so hard, but it is so worth it.

Love you all,
Love Elder Jordan Schouten