Jordan: 9/17/2012

From: Jordan Schouten
Date: September 17, 2012, 9:03:25 AM MDT
To: Mike Schouten <mikesphotomm@gmail.com>, "schouten.julie" <schouten.julie@gmail.com>, stringbeanjohn@gmail.com
Subject: my letter 9/17/2012

Well, this week was kinda weird. My companion got sick. He got diarreha WAY bad. So, wednesday and thursday, we didn´t even go out to work. We tried, but we´d walk 2 blocks, and then, he´d have to go to the bathroom again. There was nothing we could do, so, we had to stay in. It was the most boring day or so of my entire mission. Staying inside is SOOO boring. You can´t do anything, other than read the scriptures. So, i´m glad he´s doing better now.

As far as the investigators go, we´ve got a lot of work to do. Our problem that we´re having right now is that we find people and teach them lesson 1 and they´re GOLDEN and we´re super excited for them, and then, we never teach them again. We just don´t find them, they don´t answer their phones or they hide from us. Those 2 families that i talked about last week that seemed really golden, 1 hides from us now, and we haven´t found the other family since. So, it´s been a struggle, but we´re gonna get over it. We´ve just got to find people that the Lord has prepared to recieve the Gospel. We´re trying to work more with the members to find people to teach. The members in my area are amazing, but we do all the finding and they just help us teach. And our problem right now is that we find people that are willing to listen to us once and then, they feel no commitment, so they´re never in the lessons when we go back. So, we´re trying to find with members so we have invest that actually show up to the lessons. So, we´ll see what happens.

.
Yesterday, church was AMAZING!!!!! We had District Conference (the same thing as stake conference, but i´m not in a stake). And it was a satilite transmission from Salt Lake. And guess who spoke? Pres. Monson, Elder Andersen, Elder Gonzalez (70s presidency) and Sis. Reeves (Relief Society Presidency). I didn´t even know that it was going to be a satilite conference, so i was expecting to listen to the district pres. and his counselors. And, i got to listen to the Prophet, an Apostle, and the other General Authorities. So, it was awesome. I really liked Elder Gonzalez´s talk. He talked about recieving spiritual answers, and holding on to them. Some that he said that i really liked was this "Real Growth means increasing our own personal conversion." I loved that. In our mission, we talk about real growth all the time, because paraguay has the problem of people getting baptized, and 2 weeks later, they´re inactive, because retention here isn´t very good. So as missionaries, we always talk about how to have better converts and work better with the members to retain the converts. But i liked elder Gonzalez´s definition, because that´s the true defintion of real growth. If i don´t have my own personal testimony, i can´t help anyone come unto Christ, or endure to the end. Real growth starts with every individual member of the church, and their testimony. Then, Elder Andersen talked about the importance of serving a mission, so i was glad that i was listening to that as a missionary, and then, Pres. Monson talked about saving less actives. Because that´s the biggest challange in all of Paraguay and Uraguay (the conf was broadcasted to all of Paraguay and Uraguay). So, he said some good things. It was an awesome conference. I felt really blessed to be in the conferece. It was what I needed.

To bad BYU lost. Next year. When I'm home they´ll win.

Also, Matt Bates gets home this week (i can´t belive he´s done. time goes by so fast.) So, if you see him, tell his congratulations from me. He was a great missionary. From all the letters he wrote me and the emails home of his that i read, i can tell he was a great missionary, that really understood his purpose.

The church is true. Don´t doubt it. If you do doubt it, read the BoM and pray about it. It´s the only way to know the truth. I love the BoM. it´s changed my life. I love reading it everyday. It truly is the only way to know if the gospel has been restored. I know that Jospeh Smith translated the golden plates by the power of God. I know he was a Prophet. I know Thomas S. Monson is a Prophet. I didn´t understand his talk 100% yesterday, because his translator had a weird accent and talked really fast, but i could feel the Spirit. I know that he is called of God. I know that he leads the church today, through revelation from Christ and Heavenly Father. I know that if we listen to him, we´ll never go astray. He will always lead us unto the Lord. I know Christ is our Savior. I know he lives and loves every one of us. I know that through the Atonement, we can be cleansed from sin and live with God again. I know that this is the only true church in the world. I love serving the Lord. This is His church and His work. I love it.

Love,
Elder Jordan Schouten