God is our loving Heavenly Father

We had a great week full of miracles and amazing lessons with our investigators! It feels like we just barely had preparation day! And here it is again. Time is just moving way too fast for me to keep up.

We were able to find this amazing new investigator who is now on date for Nov 7th! She seems super great and very humble. Her name is Patricia, and we meet her at the beginning of last week when we were out tracting. Just before we met her we said, "okay, let's knock one more door." And then we found this amazing investigator! We came back last Friday with a member and now she's on date! So we're really exciting for her and all of the other new people that we have found this week.

Emma, our most solid investigator right now, told us that she has to go to Mexico for a little bit. I guess she has to get her visa renewed or something. She could be gone for a whole month--maybe two! So that wasn't too fun to hear. She's still doing really great though. She's reading in the Book of Mormon and she really enjoys meeting with us.

Like I mentioned last week we had a zone conference with Elder Daniel L. Johnson of the Seventy. Such an amazing experience hearing from him again. He literally spent the entire time talking about the very first principle of the very first lesson: God Is Our Loving Heavenly Father. Usually when we teach that to people it only takes a minute or two. But after that training from Elder Johnson, I realized that that's one of the most important principles that we teach. People are so confused about who God really is and that he really is our loving Father. It was such a refreshing point of view, and has already made a huge difference in our lessons.

I forgot to mention it last week, but I'm talking up Devin G. Durrant's invitation to "ponderize" a scripture every week! So each week I'll be telling all of you my scripture for this week.

Last week was Moroni 7:33:

"And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me."

And now this weeks is Alma 41:10:

"Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness."

I can already see the differences in my life from taking more time to ponder and memorize scriptures, even only after two weeks! It helps me to see that how big of a blessing it is to have the word of God with us, to help us, and lead us to where we need to go. I'm so grateful for the scriptures and the Book of Mormon! So I invite all of you to do the same each week!

Love you all!

Elder Scott

Simplify

Well wasn't General Conference just the greatest? It's always the greatest! Being able to hear from modern prophets and hear exactly what we need to hear in our time--what a blessing!

And on top of that, it was a really amazing week! We were able to see a lot of our investigators and have really amazing lessons with them.

One of them being with Emma. We were able to see here multiple times this last week and she is doing really well, could be better, but doing very well. She committed to watch General Conference last weekend but she had unexpected visitors come over and she didn't get the chance to. We had another lesson with her last night and she still has the biggest desire to be baptized. But she still doesn't feel she is ready... It's a pretty tough situation that we're in and we've been praying a lot to know what we can do to help her. What's such a pleasure to see is how strong her faith is. And how strong of a testimony of the gospel she has. It's as if she's already a member! She's super great.

Elder Johnson of the Seventy is coming to the mission this week. Should be a real treat! He was the one who came to our Stake Conference a couple months ago and he was absolutely amazing. So I'm really looking forward to hearing from him.

Back to General Conference. Some of my favorite talks was President Uchtdorf's talk on simplicity. And how we all need to analyze for ourselves and ask, "Is the gospel working for us?" And I really enjoyed Elder Haynie's talk on repentance and the Atonement. Incredible talk about how REAL the Atonement is and how we need to be applying it every single day of our lives. And then how could you not love Elder Bednar's concluding message! It was as if each man he quoted from was able to live on a little bit longer during General Conference. That truly made me so grateful to have modern prophets and apostles on the earth today. These men are so inspired in everything they say. I know that they are called of God and that they are truly under the direction of Jesus Christ.

I love you all so much and I'm so grateful for everything that you do for me!

Have a great day!

Elder Scott

General Conference!

Hey Family!

Another great week that has just flown by! I can't believe that September is almost over! That's so insane!

We had a really good week though that was jam packed with super good lessons and amazing investigators.

One investigator that we were able to teach last night was Emma. She is the mom of another one of our investigators, Alex. Boy, she is quite the woman. It's been practically impossible to see her at all because she works in the onion fields down in Oregon. Get this, she leaves at 6am and then doesn't usually get home until after 11pm. And her only day off is on Sundays. She is such a hard worker and she cares so much for her family. And she does not take any crap from anyone! Especially her sons! Anyway, we had a really amazing lesson with her last night. She shared with us a dream that she had about 15 years ago. And it was pretty amazing. She basically received a HUGE spiritual confirmation that the church is true. And she described the experience as if it had happened the night before. She has such strong testimony of this church. So we pretty much asked her strait up if she'll be baptized in October and she said she's "not ready." What?! So we tried helping her to see that she can be ready and the Lord will help her. But she still wouldn't budge. We invited her to sincerely pray about what she should do. So we're really praying for her very hard.   

Pablo didn't make it to church. What makes it worse is that the Hermanas saw him pull up in the parking lot of the church, but then he drove off and didn't come back! So we're really sure what's going on with him. But we'll try and figure it out. We're going to do some service for him this Wednesday so hopefully it will be revealed to us about how we can help him.

I did my very first baptismal interview yesterday! I was sooo nervous. The guy getting baptized is Tino, he was taught by the Hermanas. And the interview actually went really well. Haha I told him right off the bat that my Spanish is horrible and he'll have to forgive me if he can't understand me. So I was praying really hard right before that I would be able to speak and also Tino is one of the kindest men I've ever met and we had a really good experience with each other. And thinking back to it, I had never felt more comfortable and more fluent with the language than when I was in that interview, so that was a huge blessing--the gift of tongues is real! Tino is a really amazing man. He has received such a strong testimony of this gospel and he says he feels so joyful with the path that he is taking. His baptism is this Thursday! 

I can't even describe how excited I am for General Conference. It seems like on the mission that General Conference is almost better than Christmas! Just because it is such an incredible experience hearing from modern prophets. Listening to exactly what our Heavenly Father wants us to hear. It helps so much with the work. I know with all my heart that these men are called of God and I just can't wait to hear from them!

It was very sad hearing about Elder Richard G. Scott's death. Especially having that experience in the MTC hearing his live address. That experience alone is one of the main reasons that I'm still here! He is such an amazing man. Several days before his passing, I got a letter from mom and she started off the letter with this quote by Elder Scott:

"We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day."

And what we want to become is like Christ! So we need to always be actively and consistently being more like Christ in every opportunity that we are given.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Scott  

Me and Elder Freestone

Soy un Hijo de Dios

Hello everyone!

Another great week full of miracles! Lots of pretty interesting things happened, but also a lot of really amazing things happened as well.

We were finally able to contact some of our investigators this week. A lot of whom we haven't even met before since we got doubled in! There is this one house in our area where seven random people live. And they are all these middle-aged, Mexican men (we call them los tres emes). And out of those seven, four of them are investigators. We're going to try and teach all of them that live there! One of them is named Pablo. He's a really awesome guy. He has a lot of questions about the Book of Mormon. They are pretty honest and sincere, but it is pretty frustrating trying to help him understand and let the Spirit teach him. Because he's just so devoted to his Bible! He's a really great though. 

It seems like every Spanish area have its "Hot Spots". Where there are just TONS of Hispanics. One of those in our area is this trailer park that we got to a lot. The entire trailer park is predominantly Hispanic. So we're able to always keep pretty busy! One of our investigators, Alex, lives in there. And last night we were able to put him on date for baptism on October 17th! It's going to take a lot of work though. He's pretty much had a whole life of drugs and has had a pretty hard life. Most of the lessons that we've had with him are just all over the place because he can never stay focused. But last night we've never seen him so calm before. And so that really allowed him to feel the Spirit and be taught by it. 

Last Saturday we had another branch activity! We had a sports night and it was another huge success! Quite a few investigators showed up and also some less-actives! So that was really nice.

Yesterday all of the missionaries in the branch did a musical number during sacrament meeting. It was really great to be apart of. We sang "Soy un Hijo de Dios". I am a Child of God. Such a simple hymn but very powerful. I'm so grateful to be apart of this church and to be able to share this knowledge with everyone and help to receive the same joy that I have felt in my life. I honestly just can't imagine what my life would be like, or the person that I would be if I didn't have a knowledge of these simple truths.

I love you all so very much! Thank you for all that you do!

Elder Scott

The Only Constant in Life is Change

Hello Family!

This has been such an interesting week. Probably one of the most unique weeks I have had on my mission! It seems like we didn't really have a single normal day all week. That's life in the mission though!

So my new companion is Elder Freestone! He's from Mesa, Arizona. We're the same age, but he worked for a year to save up money so he could come on his mission. And he is just the greatest. I've never really seen a missionary so excited to be out in the field as much as Elder Freestone is. He always has the most positive attitude about anything and everything that we do. Which has really helped me to do the same! He's already been helping me out so much.

Training is just awesome. I love it so much. I was pretty dang nervous beforehand about what it would be like. But the Lord really has been strengthening me and helping me through it. And Elder Freestone and I are just having an amazing time.

The area is really great though. It's super weird because it's like I got transferred to a new area, but I'm still in the same place! So that's pretty nice already being familiar with the area and everything. Although there are some pretty big changes here in the branch. We now have another set of Elders! Like I mentioned last week. So that's really exciting and the new Elders are really great. Elder Beal is training Elder Owen and they're super awesome! So the district is full of some amazing missionaries. Another huge change is that we don't have a car. Well, we kind of do, but we're sharing it with the Hermanas... So that's already been very interesting. The apartment we live in isn't even in our area! And it takes about 20 minutes just to walk to our area. So yeah, we've been really cruising around in our Cadaslacks and our Chevrolegs. It's all good fun though!   

This last week I was reminiscing a lot about earlier on in my mission. About how things were in my first area and the kind of person that I was. And then I compared it to now. I feel like everything has completely changed. It's as if I'm serving a different mission and I have a completely different life--in a good way! That's the thing about the mission. It never stays the same. It reminds me of something one of the members told me in the Omak Ward, "the only constant in life is change." That's really is true for the mission and throughout life. But I'm just so grateful to have things like the scriptures, personal prayer, and the words of modern prophets to help us and guide us through this life. Because even though life changes, we don't have to fear what lies ahead when just hold to the rod! 

I love you all so much and thanks for everything that you do!

Elder Scott

p.s. just keep sending stuff to this address

8202 W Quinault Ave. Suite D

Kennewick, WA 99663

Yup, I'm Training!

Hello Family!

This is has been a very interesting week! Lots of ups and downs and crazy stuff happening. But for now it's all good though--still kinda crazy but it's all good.

And that's mainly because we got our transfer calls this last Saturday. And I'm training! And I'm absolutely terrified! It was kind of expected though. There are 29 new missionaries coming into this mission this transfer. So pretty much every missionary is going to be training. And Elder Laffiteau is training too! He's getting transferred down to Hermiston in Oregon. And I'm actually getting transferred too! Well... sorta. I'm still going to be in the Spanish Branch here in Kennewick, but I'll be in a different area. So it's pretty much like being doubled in. AND, they are putting in another set of missionaries in the branch. So now there's going to be three companionships. Now I'll get to go on exchanges with people in the district! Because before it was just the Hermanas and us! So it's going to be a pretty interesting next few of months. I still feel like I don't know this language well enough to do this. But I have full trust in the Lord that everything is going to work out. And that in the strength of the Lord, I can do all things. Even if it means speaking a language I barely know and training a new missionary. That's one of the things that I've learned a lot since I've been serving. That the Lord qualifies those whom he calls. Like I said, I'm still pretty terrified. But at the same time, I'm very eager to take on this new challenge.

One thing that I'm really looking forward to though is still being in this branch. The members here are just so amazing. Some of the most amazing people I've ever met! I've grown to love these people so much and I'm really looking forward to being with them for a little bit longer.

It was super cold this week! Well, compared to last week it was! Last week it was still in the 90's. But a few days ago it was barely over 65! So winter is definitely on its way.

We had a pretty amazing experience finding a new investigator this week--well really, he found us. We were out walking but these apartments. And this younger guy pulls up next to us and asks who we are and what we're doing. Then he went on to tell us that he has been making a lot of really bad decisions in his life but he wants to turn away from it and change. We talked to him for a little and set up a return appointment. We were able to teach him a few days ago and he's really amazing. He loved reading in the Book of Mormon and said it brought him a lot of peace. And he's now he's on date for the 26th of September. It's amazing to see the miracles that take place every single day as a missionary. The Lord's hand is always there in our lives making things happen, putting people in our path. What a privilege it is to have a front row seat!

Thank you everyone for everything you do for me! I could definitely use your prayers this week.

Love you all!

Elder Scott