Jordan: 8/10/2012

From: Jordan Schouten
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 9:15 AM
To: Mike Schouten; schouten.julie; stringbeanjohn@gmail.com
Subject: my letter 8/10/2012

 

Well, it was an interesting week. It wasn´t bad, just interesting. We taught a lot of people and found a lot of people that really have shown a lot of potencial, but it just seemed weird all last week. I think it´s because we dont really have any progressing invest. We have a lot of people that we´re teaching, but we don´t have anyone that´s progressing yet. We only had 1 invest at church yesterday, and it was an 8 yr. old kid that we´ve taught once who´s staying with his uncle that´s a member while his mom is working in Argentina. If we can get permission from the mom, we can baptize him, but i don´t know if we´ll be able to talk with the mom.

We found a couple of families yesterday and saturday that seem to have a lot of potencial. We´ve only taught them once, but they seemed to understand much better than most paraguayans and they seemed really really interested and accepted the baptism invitation really easy.

I don´t really know what else to talk about. Me and my comp are both sick. It´s not terrible, but we both have really runny noses and we sneeze about every 2 minutes. Last night we went to bed at 10:05, which was AMAZING. Sleeping is great. I love it.

On Friday we had a rough day, we walked for 6 or 7 hours straight. All of our appointments fell through. But then, we had great days saturday and sunday. I really belive that the Lord blessed us because we didn´t give up friday. After 5 or 6 hours of nothing, we were exhausted and wanted to stop working, but we kept working until 9 pm like we´re supposed to do, and then, Saturday and sunday, we were blessed to find some really good families that showed a lot of interest. So, diligence works. We could´ve given up and gone to a member´s house or something just to kill time and to sit down, but we kept working and we were blessed the next day.

My comp is doing well. He spoke in church yesterday and it was really good. He was pretty nervous. He talked for 14 minutes. He thought his talk would last 5 or 6 min. So, he was pretty happy. He still doesn´t teach very well, but we´re improving. He´s asking better questions. He used to just ask a million yes or no questions which really doesn´t help at all. But, he´s getting rid of that and it´s getting better.

I´m glad BYU looked good against Weber St. I hope the do well this year. But honestly, i don´t care too much. I´m on the other end of the world. But next year, they better be good.

Mom- sounds like you had a crazy week. Hopefully, things will calm down now that the 1st week of school has ended. the 1st week is always the craziest. I hope everything goes well with your class. I don´t know how your class is, but one thing i learned in college is that reading assignments are alway completely ridiculos. You´ll have to read 20 pages and need to know 1 or 2 little things about the main idea of whatever you´re reading. So, for me, reading assignments became skim reading. I just tried to read by paragraph and get the main idea of the article. It helped me save a lot of time and i still pretty well understood everything I needed to understand.

Dad- thanks for sending me the article about Grace that Terry talked about. I hope everything is going well with work and whatever else you do.

John- have fun at college. Are your roommates RM´s or freshman? for your sake i hope they´re RM´s. Freshman are the worst. I was a freshman. They´re so immature and just waste time. But have a good time, and get good grades, and GET MARRIED :)

Austin- how´s good old senior year? enjoy it. Have fun. Waste as much time as possible. Because in 8 months, you´ll have to be responsible for the rest of you life. Don´t be an idiot. But don´t stress. Enjoy this year. It´s a good one.

Tasha- how´s good old junior high? i hope you like it. 8th grade is the easiest year of your life as far as homework goes. so, work hard and get good grades.

Shaylee- who is your teacher? i´ve asked you 5 times now?

I know that we have living Prophets and Apostles. I´ve been studying the General Conf. Ensign a lot this week and i´ve read some articles that really helped me out a lot. I know that they are inspired of the Lord and that what they say will ALWAYS lead us to the Lord and help us be happy and recieve more blessings. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a Living Prophet and what he says is the word of the Lord. I know that this is the only true church on the earth. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It´s changed my life. I know that if we study it daily, we´ll get closer to God than by reading any other book in the world. If you feel far away from Christ, read the BoM and the gap will narrow. I have no doubt that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord. He saw Jesus Christ and God the Father. They restored the true church through him. I love this gospel. As we live it, our lives are changed and we really find true and lasting happiness.

Love you all,
Elder Jordan Schouten