Transfered to Shelton, WA

Elder Skoubye is still doing great! He's been busy mowing lawns for service, riding his bike, getting bit by a dog, and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We feel so blessed to have Nate out on a mission and are grateful for his experiences as they will help to shape him in every way. Thanks for all your love, prayers and support. If you are interested in sending him a letter or an email, let me know and I will get you his contact information. 

Zone Conference - this is when the missionaries in the area gather together for instruction, lunch and some fun. Finding Nate is like finding "Waldo"! 

Elder Alhert is Nate's companion. He is to Nate's right.

Nate eating lunch with several missionaries. His mission president, President Bladder is the first person on the left.

4/27/15

…with translating talks luckily I only had to translate two, yesterday! I had to translate from Spanish to English which is a lot easier than English to Spanish. Presidente Aldo Del Bosque asked both Elder Ahlert and I to give talks, luckily he told us last Monday, the scary part was that he wanted them to each be 15 minutes long(in Spanish). Good thing was with Gods help and a lot of prayer I was able to do it! We were both asked to talk about the qualities of Jesus. I talked about Humility and Charity and used the story of Jesus in Luke when he went to the Mount of Olives after the last supper and after he instituted the sacrament with his apostles. I used verse 42 to demonstrate humility. He was always willing to do the will of his Father, which is incredible considering all the suffering that he went through. To highlight his suffering I used D&C 19:18-19 because it leads well into Charity. Even after he sweat drops of blood he still healed one of his oppressors ear, It Just shows how much love he had for all of those around him, even those that desired to take him captive. As well I used Moroni 7:43-48 to talk about humility and Charity and how it is necessary. It was good, I talked about how Jesus Christ is our example and that we need to strive to become like him and develop his attributes and how that this is something that we can only do with prayer. And mom, I know that if we have the desire to become like Christ we can if we sincerely ask God to help us do that.

4/20/15

The language is coming a lot better, I had to translate yesterday, one of the members was translating but he was having a hard time with the names of the people, so when Elder Ahlert and I went into the translating room he stood up and gave us the equipment and walked out, it was that fast, and so I sat down and did my best to translate, it was super hard. It was from English to Spanish. I did two talks and Elder Ahlert did one. It was at stake Conference and there was only one Hispanic listening but luckily there were some other Spanish Missionaries there and they came in cause we sent them a text. This gave me a good new way to study the language, not just to be able to study the words first in Spanish and give the English definition but to look at the English word and give the corresponding Spanish word. As well as that I have taken on the Challenge from Sister Blatter to read the whole Book of Mormon in the time that it was translated. That is 88 days, from the 7th of April to the 30th of June in the year of 1829. That is about 7.3 pages a day. I am doing it in Spanish and I have gotten a lot better at reading, I read out loud so that it will help me with my pronunciation. It is helping me a lot just to get more familiar with the Spanish words and to be able to listen and understand better.

A cool Scripture that I read the other day is 2 Nephi 1:23. Put on the Armor of Righteousness! I like that scripture a lot, I even remember doing an activity about that when I was little. The way that we can do that is just to start with the fundamentals, scripture study and prayer. As I have been studying on my mission, my testimony has grown a lot; I can say with a surety that I know that the Book of Mormon is the Word of God and that God has called a Prophet in these latter days!

Also we met a guy called Carlos when we did our Elma Day on Saturday. Elma is about 25 miles away so we drive to the church and then bike everywhere after that. (It is a lot of fun to bike and the bike does really good, I can get it up to 22 mph pretty easily on flat ground, I haven't tried to see how fast I can go on the flat ground, maybe one day.) Carlos is cool and he speaks only Spanish, he is from Mexico. It is good that he speaks Spanish because a lot of the hispanics are from Guatamala or Oaxaca and their Spanish is mas or menos because they speak Triche or mum or Concubun. They understand you a little bit but not very much and they language definitely sounds interesting, they change pitch a lot. But sometimes they do speak good Spanish, I learned how to say hola and como esta and bye. I could type it but the pronunciation is difficult. Hopefully Carlos will progress, time will tell.

4/13/15

I don't like dogs… (Nate got bit by a dog prior to this letter) I am a lot more cautious now about knocking houses with dogs out...They are relentless barkers and it is super annoying!! I don't think I will ever get a dog, it would have to be pre-trained and only bark when it absolutely needed to. (I don't think I told you this but these dogs back in Lacey were barking at us for 30 minutes to an hour while we were knocking, it was super obnoxious)

Things are going well, we don't have any solid Investigators right now, they all listen and act a little interested and when we come back they don't seem very interested. Its hard because sometimes they are living with a lot of other people and they don't want to bother the people they are living with by letting us in so they just talk with us at the door. Also there is a lot of Guatemalans here and they speak a little Spanish but not very good, it is frustrating because they act like they understand, and then you ask them a question... We were at the door of this guys house while knocking and asked him if we could do anything to help them out and he said yes then I asked him what he needed, and ya, they didn't really want any help. But that's okay.

Also I have been biking a lot more here and it is a lot of fun! The bike is really nice, oh and down the hill without pedaling we got 31.2 mph. my eyes were crying because of the wind, the speed limit is 30 right there so that is kind of cool! 

A new investigator is Jose, he is kind of interested and was going to come to church yesterday for like the first hour but didn't. Maybe I understood him wrong over the phone but it sounded like he was going to come to the first hour because he had work later. My Spanish is getting a lot better, I can talk a lot better and I can understand a lot better now as well. It is just really hard to understand on the phone. Also Ana is another investigator and she was going to come to Church but didn't. That's okay maybe they will come next Sunday. One problem that I have noticed is that when you make an appointment with someone they just aren't home when you come by. Also it is very hard to make an appointment because they say that whenever they are home you can come by but they aren't home a lot or they will tell you that they are busy when you come by. It was a bummer the other day because we brought a member with us and all three of our appointments fell through, and the other two people we tried weren't home. He understands though, he went on his mission to Chile. Hopefully we can find some cool people who will be legit about making appointments. 

Mom, I love you to! I am glad you would love me know matter who I am. But I would rather not be stinky or smelly or into drugs. The people’s teeth here are gross looking who do drugs. Also Weed is legal here which is weird there is a lot of shops that sell marijuana (I think the privilege is highly abused). Anyways they just need the gospel, to bad a lot of them wont accept it. 

4/6/15

I am doing good, I am kinda sick and have a Sinus infection...I have been taking muscinex and it might be helping. If it doesn't get better I will go to the doctor. My companion and I keep the Duplex nice and warm, it gets up around 80 and is nice, I almost don't need blankets while sleeping:)

The new area is good and different. It is an area that has taken a lot of abuse. Some parts are really nice. There seems to be a lot of people who do drugs around here (even some harder drugs). But there are also some really nice people around to. There is a cool creek that runs through the city and if you take a little jog from our apartment there is a nice view of a canal thing that has a lot of cut pine trees, you might be able to see it on Google earth. Yes, Shelton has a ton of hills, a lot of them make your ears pop when you go up and down them. The first day here we ran out of miles and had to bike and it was good, the hill on the way back to the house was tough but not as tough as the big one Brother Ware has taken me up. It was longer though. The bike is really nice and I enjoyed getting to use it again, I left my Speedometer in Lacey but we were flying down one of the hills, one of them might get me close to dads record although I don't know if that would be a good idea...I would be going faster than the cars on the road...

It seems to rain here more than Lacey but hasn't been bad at all. It is pretty nice. Oh, I also got bit by a dog...It surprised me a lot, normally they just come up and smell you but this one had something else in mind. It didn't draw blood or anything, I was stunned more than anything, it didn't even hurt that bad, we decided not to knock that door. The bad part would be that there is a lot of Guatemalans that only speak a little Spanish, there native language is Mum or Concubon. They will listen to you but it doesn't seem like they understand at all. So it doesn't make for a good investigator that will make and keep commitments that will help to bring them closer to Jesus Christ.

The good is the members here. Two of them aren't in the branch but they have already come out with us. They speak Spanish, they learned it on their missions as well. Last night Brother Floyd came out with us and we got to talk with his neighbor Pedro who is from some place in Mexico that I have no idea how to spell...He seemed a little interested but not really. Also the Branch is pretty much made up of the Del Bosque family, Elder Ahlert says that on average 30 or 40 members come to the Branch on Sunday which is cool. I have yet to meet all of the ward because this past Sunday was General Conference. Also Chewy Ojeda came out with us to, he is a member of the branch and is from Mexico, he is really cool and seems to be friends with the less actives that we went and visited.

 The Hispanics in this area seem to be all over the place, we have done a lot of split knocking with the English Elders which helps us to cover more area so that we can find more Hispanics. Some are not interested at all and others seem a little interested. Hopefully Pedro will read the Book of Mormon. We don't have any solid investigators right now but hopefully we will be able to find some.

Also I have been staying skinny. I really like Salsa Verde, especially on quesadillas. Got to watch half of General Conference in Spanish and meet another member of the branch. He is really cool, he cuts the missionary's hair for free and owns a little Hispanic Shop called Bella Vista.

Also a part in General Conference that I really liked was about moving forward, if we spend all of our time looking backwards we will never get anything done or be able to improve, so keep looking forward and use the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I know Jesus Christ lives and loves all of us, and that it is only through him that we can be forgiven of our sins.

Yo se que con Jesucristo podemos vencer cualquier obstaculo y que podemos tener felicidad para siempre.

Oh if you havn't already check out the video the Church made called Because He Lives. It is really cool.

3/30/15

Entonces, la nueva informacion es que voy a ir a Shelton. I am getting transferred. I am super excited, it is my first transfer. I am going to be companions with Elder Ahlert. We were both in the MTC at the same time and we flew here to WA at the same time somos los mas verdecitos juntos en la mision, creo. It will be good.

For new investigators we have Hector. We went and taught him this morning, he is really cool and the spirit was really strong in the lesson and it was cool. He said we could come back on Friday. We taught him in English. He said that his Spanish is rusty. For Heriberto, we saw him on Monday and we havn't been able to have a lesson with him since, and he didn't come to church, but that is okay. Hopefully this Sunday, but by then I will be in Shelton. I go there this Tuesday, it is really close to the area I am in now. Also there is Carlos y Nerida. they are super cool, we taught them a little bit about the restauracion and answered the other questions that they had, We also brought Hermano Diaz with us and that was really good. Hermano Diaz was Catholic before he got baptized so that was really good to have him there because they were baptized catholic and had questions about that. Nerida really wants to come to church but Carlos is a little bit more unsure, but they have a lot of potential it is just going to take them a while.

3/23/15

Heriberto came to church yesterday and that was awesome, he is being fellowshipped really well too!

Also, I will keep studying the language and I will be patient, however I am anxious to learn all I can, I like being able to talk more and express myself without stumbling through my sentences. I got a USB so I can download Spanish talks and stuff like that to listen to while we drive places, so I think that will help me with my ability to listen and understand:)

Madre, te amo mucho! no creo que es un buen idea para llegar flip flops cuando esta 37 afuera! (pero yo se que esta esparando para una clima mas calientito) ((Can anyone translate this for me!!))

For personal study I read my scriptures in English. For companionship study we read in Spanish. I really like it, it helps a lot with my pronunciation, and I can read pretty well. I like Spanish because all the vowels are pronounced the same and that makes it a ton easier to say things. I am not perfect but Hermana Payo says that I don't sound like a gringo, or an American :) So that is pretty cool, I try to mimic how Hispanics say things and it works pretty well. As for talking in Spanish all the time, I would have to say I am not quite there yet... one day. I try to talk to my companion a good amount in Spanish, He speaks to me in English, but he is kind of like a walking dictionary for me, I always ask him how to pronounce things and what things mean. I write down my new words in a little tiny composition book that I got from Walmart. It fits in my pocket. It helps a lot.

About the ankle, I sprained it pretty badly my first week here playing basketball. I jumped up in the air and came down, not in any way that should have done anything, it was slightly to the side and it popped... didn't play ball for a couple of weeks and took a lot of advil but it is mostly better now. I have just noticed that when we are playing sports that they seem a lot weaker than they used to be...I guess it is from the lack of exercise.