"if you won't even try eating your dinner you will go somewhere on your mission where you eat.......SNAILS"

Date: June 02, 2014
Area: Faro
Companion: Elder Simpson

Hey mom, i'm glad your week was good. i can't believe dad will be released, thats way crazy. its too bad he cant wait until after july 8 though, oh well. i hope dad becomes the nursery leader again, that sounds like a good calling for him.

Tell ty good job for graduating from seminary, thats way cool. And especially for getting the Priesthood. He'll be a great priesthood holder for sure.

This week was good, i spent the first few days in OlhÃ£o waiting for the new missionaries to come in, then went up to Lisbon on thursday to pick up my new comp. Like i said, his name is Elder Simpson, he's a way nice kid. He's pretty much fluente in portuguese already, i can't believe it. He's from Houston, but i think not very close to where Jordan served. I haven't told him yet that this is my last transfer ha, i'm trying to avoid it for as long as possible, i told him i have just over a year in the mission..it will be a fun surprise for him.

One thing we really focused on this week was working with the members and gaining their trust, and i think we did well. we got a lot of member help the past couple days. another cool thing is that Samira, our RC, brought a friend to church and gave him a book of mormon. She is doing really well. Also Danilson came to church and participated a ton.

We had a good lesson with Iran this week, to help him read and pray more we asked if we could call him every night this week to remind him, and he agreed. so hopefully that will make this difference. he came to church again, so he's going in the right direction.

Also Geraldo got baptized! so i sent pictures of that. I miss them a ton. Plus i asked Florbela to send me an email with her testimony and she did, so that was way cool to read. I asked her to do it because Iran has the same doubts that she did because of the 7th day adventist church, so i'll probably share it with him.

also this week in church for some reason we had like 5 people randomly show up that spoke english, so i spent the day translating for an Irish guy. it went well, but it was kind of hard to get something out of the lesson when i was thinking about the language and stuff.

oh also i ate snail this week. A member asked us what we wanted to eat, and i told them to make snail half jokingly because i had never tried it. and they made it. it was not that great, and i was a baby and only ate like 2. but it was a new experience. they give you a little stick so you can scoop out the body from the shell, and then you can see the eyes and everything and you just put the whole thing in your mouth. probably won't ask for those again...

Love you a ton,

Elder Soutas

Dear Benjamin/Elder Soutas

It's June!!! I can't believe it already. How did your week go? I am so happy that Danilson was baptized. I'm so glad you have good member support for him

How are things going for your new companion, Elder Simpson? Is he a brand new missionary?Where is he from?

This was an eventful week.

We had fun on Monday meeting Jordan's girlfriend -- I hope it's OK with Jordan that I tell you that they seem to

really like each other. She is very pretty and nice. It was fun to get to know her a little bit. So we will see how that goes.

We had the funeral that we told you about last week. Dad did a good job with his talk and I know he told you that President Hinkley's son was there and Dad was able to sit next to him on the stand since he is an emeritus General Authority.

The reason he was there is because he was next door neighbor to Sally (the mom) in our ward while she was growing up

It was cool... Elder Hinkley looks a lot like President Hinkley so It was kind of crazy to see Dad and him sitting together on the stand.

Of course the BIG news happened today, but we found out about it on Tuesday.

I was actually in Dad's bishop office and he was interviewing me for a temple recommend since mine expired at the end of May

Right in the middle of the interview, the Stake Clerk called asking both of us to meet with President Nielson on Sunday morning at 9:15. So of course that was emotional and made the rest of the temple recommend interview emotional for us.

We were both crying as he asked and i answered each question. But I admit it is something I will always remember because of the strong spirit that was there.

So then the rest of the week we kept wondering and wondering when he would be released. We had no idea if he would

be released Sunday Morning and then on Sunday during Sacrament meeting and that would be it...we really weren't sure

until we met with President Nielson this morning. As it turns out President Nielson asked Dad to continue serving until

the end of the month, but he came into our Fast and Testimony Meeting to tell the ward that a new bishop had been called but would not be announced for a few week.

He want's the members to pray to receive new leadership and he challenged everyone not to speculate, because he wants us to learn to keep confidences so that Heavenly Father can trust us. So no speculation here..

It is still quite overwhelming and a bunch of mixed emotions. But I feel peace and I felt the spirit tell me that we and he had accomplished what we had been asked to do. So it's all good now :)

Today was also Tyler's ordination and receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood. Dad gave him a wonderful blessing. A lot of it focusing on keeping covenants. Wish I could remember the words.

Both grandparents and Danny, spencer and Makayla came for dinner after the ordination and then we all went back to the church for seminary graduation