Aug 17 - Hasta Luego Olivos, 11 months and Mexico City Temple

Wow, so this was an action packed week!!

We pretty much spent the whole week figuring out how we were going to the temple because we knew it would be such a great experience for all of the people that we are teaching. And literally every obstacle got put in the way, and last week I asked my family to pray that we would have the chance to go and I am sure that you guys did it because everything just worked out.

First of all, we had absolutely no support from the ward, like nothing. It was really disappointing to see that, they didn’t want to have anything to do with it and they said they didn’t understand why we all wanted to go together and they think it would have been better for just individuals to go together, even after we received a letter from the area presidency of Mexico saying otherwise. So, we did literally everything for this trip, it sucked up a lot of time from our week, calling everyone, arranging everything, but somehow we managed to get it done, until we got to Thursday night before going and realized that we were going to have to pay for our bus, we literally went pale the 4 of us when we realized because we don’t get much money monthly. But then one of the people that we invited (he is awesome, super active, and super spiritual but I wont say his name) called us up and asked us how much the trip was going to cost, we said 1500 pesos which to give a rough estimate, is only 100 dollars, but it goes a lot farther in Mexico, that’s more than we receive to live every month, and he was just like, don’t worry about it, I will pay it. We tried to say no no no but he wouldn’t take no for an answer and that was a super cool blessing to see.

 

We ended up going with a group of 30 people with a ton of investigators and even some people that hadn’t started to talk to us yet, and during our tour of the temple there was just an incredible spirit that penetrated every single one of us, it was a testimony building experience to be able to go back to the temple after 10 months.

The coolest was the reactions of the children who came. We had two teen aged boys, probably like 8th grade and Sophomore age, that we could tell right from the beginning that they only came because their mom wanted them to, they weren’t excited at all. But, after the actual tour inside of the temple, something changed and when we left, they started to take pictures of the temple and post them to Facebook and Instagram and one of them even said to his mom I think that I am going to be Mormon.

Also, Jenifer one of our investigators brought her two daughters, Kitzia who’s 10 and got baptized back when I just got here and Victoria who is 1. It was so cool to see the peace that they both felt and how the spirit worked within them. Victoria started to cry when we left the temple, and Kitzia asked me what she has to do to be able to go back to the temple, I am so happy that the Lord has given us this opportunity to bring blessings into the lives of these people.

The other big news from this week was that last night we received the call that I will not be spending more time in Olivos, that tomorrow I will go to another area. I am really happy with all that I have learned here and all of the blessings that the Lord has poured out on me here, I will be very sad to leave all of the people behind that I have come to know and love but I am excited to embrace the challenge that the Lord has planned for me in my mission.

That’s all for this week,

Elder Stout

Aug 3 - August!

Howdy all!

Well I can’t believe that its August, how weird is that??

Well, we had a pretty incredible week! But for some reason it’s getting harder and harder every week to remember what happens! I feel like Mom who always writes me and says well Thursday happens but that’s all I remember haha.

But the coolest thing that I got to do this week was go on intercambios with Elder Alamilla our zone leader! He’s about to go home and he is a little bit trunky but he is a really good missionary and a super hard worker! I don’t want this to sound bad, but I loved being able to teach with an experienced teacher! Because my comp is new I still sometimes feel like I am teaching the majority of the lesson and I am doing all the direction, but with Elder Alamilla we could really feel the spirit moving through us and we taught some pretty crazy awesome lessons together! He is also a basketball fanatic so we got up super early in the morning to go run to the church and shoot some hoops for a little while, it was absolutely awesome! I cannot express enough how much I love being a missionary!

Also, this week we had a cool experience with Leonardo the guy who came to church last week when we didn’t expect he would! Well last week he got kind of mad because the teacher was trying to make an interesting class and he was all like, the word of God isn’t a joke and stormed out, I left that part out last week haha but then this week he just walks in, alone! We didn’t think he would want to come again so we didn’t even ask anyone to pass by for him and he just shows up. Then we met up with him after church and we put a baptismal date and everything, there are still some things that he doesn’t like, but we talk the scripture that Moroni wrote about how the mistakes are of men and not of God and he loved it!

Saturday we had an Elders Quorum activity and wow.....it was...the only word I can think to use is apostasy! Our President starting talking about how he want to pass a hat around the Elders Quorum to collect money for people who need it and we were like the church already has a way to do that, and he just got like super mad...so we have a pretty interesting Elders Quorum!

Well I am running out of time! Until next week,

Elder Stout

 

July 27 - Boringer Week

Hey all!

Well by my lack of pictures from this week, I guess that it was kind of boring! Huh! It’s kind of the same old here in Olivos! But to explain the pics really fast, I made myself an awesome Fettucine Alfredo lunch last Monday! And then on Wednesday my comp got something stuck to his shoe and he couldn’t get it off all day haha we got a really good laugh out of it. I love my comp, he is like one of the funniest people I have ever met, and we are always laughing!

So I don’t have a ton of time this week because we went to go suit shopping today! But the highlight of this week was our training this Friday. President came, and wow, I don’t know how he can be so powerful with very little command of the language. He just taught us very powerfully the reason that members are so important in the work, and how everything that we do has a purpose to strengthen the wards where we are serving and if we don’t do that then we are failing! Wow, it was a super big help to make us focus on the things that are truly the most important!

Then that night I was kind of uptight and stressed because we had a lot of bad luck finding new investigators this week, all of our appointments fell through or something happened and it was just awful, so I really prayed to our father in heaven and discussed with him what I could do to be better, discussed why I wanted to have this and even presented situations that we could find new investigators. Literally the next day, I saw one of these come true. While we were teaching the Dominguez family, one of their friends just showed up, wanted to listen to us, and now has a baptismal date, how cool!! Then the next day, we went to go visit an hermana and she couldn’t receive us because there was no guy home, so we decided to contact in her street all the guys to see if one of them would sit in with us. We met a man named Leonardo and he loved the message, and even came to church this week! What a bunch of cool blessings for the prayer of faith!

Well, I know it wasn’t a lot, I am sorry! But have a great week,

Elder Stout

July 20 - 10 months and President Meacham

Hey all!

So there was three really cool highlights this week! The first of which was that for the first time in my time here in Olivos, Elder Hilario and I reached the 40 lessons. That’s really big because when I got here it was absolutely dead, President told me it’s one of the harder areas in the mission and that I was going to have my work cut out for me. We started out with about 15 every week, but I never once lowered my goal from the 40. We have received a promise from the Lord, that if we do all we can to reach this goal and help as many of his children as is possible that he will open doors and pave roads for us in the work that we have never imagined possible. I am super excited for this, because even though I think I will be leaving the area this change when my comp finishes his training in 3 weeks, I am so happy to be leaving this area with blessings of the Lord so that this ward can continue growing. Working hard has truly helped me develop love for a very very hard area.

The coolest part of this was Saturday. We started Saturday with 31 lessons, and after many fervent prayers by my comp and me, we saw how much the Lord wanted us to reach this goal as well. Everyone was home, like literally everyone, we were running around all day to try and teach 9 lessons and the Lord just paved the way! We even contacted a guy in the park and were like so when can we pass by, and he was like how about we talk right now on this bench, and we were like, since when does that happen??? But it was so incredible, and just an awesome experience to feel the spirit really strongly as we accounted to the Lord that we had reached his goal, nothing better than that!

Second, I had the opportunity to lead an initiative in our ward. After talking with the bishop, I got to give a talk yesterday to explain fasting and announce that starting August 2nd for 40 days we are going to do a 40 day fast for missionary work here in the ward like we did back at home! This was my idea on how to get the ward excited for what we as the missionaries are doing because too much we have the missionaries, the investigators, and the recent converts on one side and the rest of the church on the other side, I really want to help us become more unified!

Thirdly, I got to have an interview with President Meacham this week, it was our trimesterly? interview, no idea if that’s a thing in English. But it was just so powerful! He just spoke right to me, right to my soul even though we have only talked like 5 times before! One thing that hit me was he was talking about his calling to serve in the stake presidency that he received while he was serving as bishop and that he just cried all night and said I know that this means I have finished my service with them, but I still need them, I don’t want to leave them behind, even if I don’t have anything to offer them, I still need what they’ve given me. I want to have this attitude from now on in my mission. I don’t care if it’s the hardest area, the hardest ward, the hardest comp in the mission, I want to be truly and genuinely sad to leave them behind. This is a new goal that I have from now on! 

I love being a missionary, I am so excited to work with President Meacham, and will someone please tell whoever is controlling the time on this whole mission thing, to slow down!! There’s no way that I have 10 months already, I think the watch broke or something!

Haha Love you all, and miss you!

Elder Stout

July 13 - Hey y'all!!!

Hey!

So this was an awesome week!

 

First of all the big news, Rafa passed his interview and got baptized this Saturday! He asked me to do it which was really cool! I don’t know if you guys have noticed but this is my first male convert! I don’t know why it has worked out that way, but it’s just how it has! So I finally broke the running joke of our zone leaders that every time that I saw them they would always say (of course like the only phrase in English they know) Flirt to Convert. Hahaha I guess that they didn’t realize that all my converts have been like 40 but, finally I won’t have that nickname in the mission! Haha but it was a cool baptismal service! Apart from the fact that there were like 10 people there and that everyone showed up an hour late, it was super cool!

So one of the pictures that I sent was a super cool fruit that I ate this week! It’s called a Nanche, and it is like a huge grape inside of this spiky shell! But super yummy!

I also had intercambios this week with Elder Walker! Haha he is a redneck from Idaho who loves country music, and football just like me! We get along super well! I like intercambios with him a ton, except for after about 20 mins we somehow end up speaking English again....oops! But, he is finishing his mission super strong, and I am learning a ton from him!

A cool miracle that we saw this week! We occasionally visit an hermana named Eva, and she has a son who is inactive and has been for years and wants nothing to do with us or the church. But this week we found him in the street and we started to talk to him, and he was like hey why don’t you guys pass by so I can ask you some questions, so we set up an appointment with him and headed on over. When we got there he introduced us to his nonmember wife, and we taught a super powerful lesson about families. The spirit was so strong! He told us, I still don’t understand a lot, but I want what you just taught us, and his wife accepted baptism! It was super cool!

I forgot my planner today that’s why I didn’t give a day by day run down, but I think I outlined the highlights, hope you all had a great week!

Elder Stout

July 6 - Happy July

Hey all!

I hope you had a great week! I am really sad that I wasn’t able to spend 4th of July with you all, it was kind of a letdown, Elder Walker and I both forgot that it was that day! But I made my comp sing the star spangled banner with me in the night time haha it was awesome, but I am pretty sure that he doesn’t like Americans but I am going to help him to love us! Don’t worry! Haha but this was a pretty chill week, not much happened, so I will give some highlights!

First of all we got to meet our new president, President Meacham! He is awesome! He is from a small town in Utah and he made doughnuts for his job. He served in Costa Rica....a really long time ago... He came home from his mission and met his wife and they got married even thought she was only 17! Haha and she knows even less Spanish than he does but she seems so nice! She just kept saying Les Amo Les Amo again and again while crying! He tried to do the whole training in Spanish even though he doesn’t really know it, and even though it was hard to understand we all felt the spirit so strong! I left with a renewed desire to divulge my time studying the scriptures and in fervent prayer, it was such a cool spiritual experience!

 

Then later on in the week, I actually got to spend some one on one time with President! I did a baptismal interview for Elder Walker and Elder Vasquez and I wasn’t sure if the Hermana was ready so I called President and he came and did the Special interview for her, so I got to spend some time talking to him, Elder Fillmore and Elder Hamilton (the assistants) which was fun. I also got to talk with President that night about one of our investigators who needs a special interview for serious sins committed in the past, and it is just so cool to see how much he already cares about us and our investigators!

Other highlight, for my first time here in Olivos, and Hermana gave us money to go out and eat instead of giving us food in her house, so we went to a Chinese restaurant that looked super sketchy but it was super good and no one got sick! I felt like we were eating at Yokos again! I included some pictures!

Then to explain one of the other pictures...I was on intercambios with Elder Vasquez and they had a baptism so we went to go and clean the font, and we got there and well there was something that was on the inside and it was just super-duper gross! Haha I had to include the picture, and guess where it came from? From the faucet! Don’t worry I only drink store bought water down here!!

Oh, also I almost forgot that cambios are tomorrow, but I don’t have to worry about anything because all 4 of us in the district are staying, and our zone leaders are staying too which is super awesome because they are awesome, and I have really grown to like them!

 

Well that was our week here in the DF, hope next week will be more interesting!

Elder Stout

June 29 - Almost July

Howdy all,

Well I can’t believe that you are going to be celebrating the 4th of July this week, how crazy is that?? Well the big news this is week is that today is officially the last day of President Valadez and his wife, as I am typing this President Meacham is probably arriving, wow, this is going to be so weird, I learned so much from President Valadez but I am super excited to get to know President Meacham too! So, with the change of mission president, our mission office is changing too, so if you would like to send me anything, do itat the following address:

Elder Scott Alexandre Stout

Misión México Ciudad de México Sur
Cerro de Jesús # 115
Colonia Campestre Churubusco
Delegación Coyoacán, México, D.F.
C.P. 04200

efo

Well this week was a long week again! Haha we walked a ton, not as much as a couple weeks ago, but it wasn’t nearly as successful as last week was for us! So Tuesday was a lot of walking but the one bright spot was a lesson that we had with Arturo Politron, an investigator, he is the husband of a menos active and he hasn’t been really progressing recently so that has been a little bit of a bummer for us, but randomly for this lesson I felt the need to teach about why we get baptized that it’s actually a commandment from God as well and that for every commandment God promises us a blessing, and then he accepted to be baptized which was pretty cool!

Wednesday we started trying to look for a lot more people to teach but we were out of luck because literally no one was home, I think it was some sort of holiday because there was also a ton of like tents in the street and a ton of people were having parties and stuff, but who knows? Haha but a rougher day.

Then Thursday we had a nice surprise when we went to the Rodriguez Inciso family’s house, because they introduced us to their aunt and cousin who are both interested in learning more about the church so we got to teach them too! They are awesome and we are looking forward to teaching them again!

Friday I got to have intercambios with the zone leaders, Elder Tapia from Veracruz came to my area and he worked with me! We had an awesome lesson with our investigator Ivette and we helped her realize that she has been feeling the spirit this whole time, and that its been answering her prayers but she just hasn’t realized it! Then in the nighttime we had a super contentious lesson with a less active family who were asking us why they couldn’t get tattoos and then just repent afterwards, it was an awful lesson to teach, the Spirit wasn’t there with us at all, and I just wanted to leave as soon as possible.

But, I had a cool experience that night with Elder Tapia, he just sat me down and was pretty blunt and said you do this this and this well, but you really need to work on this and this, and it was kind of a confidence blow to hear that from the zone leader, but right afterwards, he was like so to fix that we are going to practice right now, so I had like an hour of 1 on 1 seeing examples from one of the greatest teachers in the mission to help me get better, which was a pretty cool experience! Also, to see how the hand of the Lord worked in my life, that I was struggling with how to help this ward, how to love these members, and realyl missing my first area, and Elder Tapia trained me on how to truly be an asset to the ward, and how to change our attitude, and he doesnt know it but that was exactly what I needed to hear! That was cool! Haha then Saturday we had an awesome lesson with Mario Aladino who has been investigating the church forever but just recently accepted our baptismal invitation, we talked about the importance and the blessing of eternal familias and invited them to get married so he could start living the law of chastity before being baptized and he accepted! It was awesome to see how ready he is, and how much he has been prepared for this as well!

Yesterday was so boring! After church we had to go to the area of the zone leaders to report on our week, and usually it’s a 40 minute bus ride both ways, but there was a ton of traffic so it turned into 2 hours both ways and that was literally the only thing that we did yesterday.

Well, have a fun 4th! Love and miss you all!

Elder Stout