Jordan: 7/9/2012

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Jordan Schouten

Date: Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 8:51 AM
Subject: my letter 7/9/12


Well, this was an interesting week. It was bad, but it wasn´t stellar either. We didn´t have the baptisms that we wanted, but we´re going to get them. This guy, bernardino, that´s ready to get baptized, is super hard to find at home. We´ve only talked with him 1 time a week for the last 3 weeks so it´s really hard to help him progress because it´s so hard to find him, but we´re going to do it, I know that he´s going to get baptized. We´ve just got to work hard and have faith and i know that everything will turn out alright. Me and my comp have been talking a lot about this guy and we´re pretty sure his doubt for getting baptized is the Word of Wisdom. He has a smoking problem and we´re pretty sure that the reason that he doesn´t want to get baptized is because he´s afraid of smoking again after getting baptized. So we´re going to talk to him about the gift of the Holy Ghost and how the Holy Ghost will help him overcome his temptations after getting baptized.

We have another invest. named Sergio. He´s great. He´s got a baptism date for the 28th of July. We taught him last night and he said, "when i think of getting baptized, i think of a life of gold" I don´t really know what he meant by that, but i like to hear that. He´s had some opposition from other churchs this week, but we talked really well with him saturday night, and he realized that he feels better when he talks with us and that he wants to follow this church. He didn´t come to church yesterday, but it was because he had some family problems. But he committed last night to come next sunday and he´s progressing pretty well.

 

Other than that we don´t have many other invest. to talk much about. we have a bunch of people with a ton of potential, but we haven´t taught them enough yet to see when they´re going to go. One challange we had this week was the weather. It was FREEZING thrusday through today. I´m writing this letter right now with frozen fingers, because it´s so cold out. And when it´s cold in paraguay, everyone goes to bed at 7 or 8pm, so at night, we just end up walking around, without doing anything. But hopefully, it should get warm in the next day or 2 so we can go back to normal.

 

Mom- i´m glad you finally got to relax. it sounds like you went to church a lot yesterday. I¨m glad you enjoyed Pres. callan´s talk. He´s amazing. It´s cool that you went to Hayden Heath´s farewell. I can´t belive he´s at the age to go on a mission... Where is he going? also, i think you told me that Brigham Kmetzch left on his misison, but where did he go? also, Is scotty hintze going on a mission and if so, where?

 

Dad- I don´t have headphones, they´re against the rules... so i probably won´t ever be able to listen to Pres. Callan´s talk, but oh well.

 

Tasha- your letter was weird. You talked like an old person. (and you spelled a lot of words wrong :))

 

Shaylee- how was the cabin?

 

Austin- was pres. callan a stiff? I doubt you think that if you went to his homecoming.

 

John- i hope everything is going well. Just work your tail off everyday. You´ve only got a couple left. Make them the best days of your mission. Go around and talk with literally EVERYONE you see and invite them all to be baptized. It will be the best 2 weeks of your mission.

 

Well, gotta run (my letter is short because i can´t really type fast because it´s so cold.) I know that this is the true church. I know God loves his missionaries. He protects us and watches over us every second of everyday. In Alma 19, it talks about how ammon couldn´t be killed because the Lord promised Mosiah that he´d protect his sons while they were missionaries. I know that God protects every missionary in  the world. He loves us and I know that this is His work. I know that the BoM is true. It changes my life everyday. I know Joseph Smith was a true prophet. Thomas S. Monson is a living prophet.

 

I love you all.
Love, Elder Jordan Schouten