Everybody at the Hospital wants a Blessing!

Hows your new companion Elder Sa?

He is awesome! He's from Sao Paulo and was a convert at 16. Way cool. more details next week on him.

What families are you teaching and where are they at in their baptismal preparation?

We have several new families right now! The biggest thing for them that is hard to grasp is the fact that God allows more than just the correct religion to exist on the earth. We are conquering this question usually without fail. some people go into a lot more detail than others. 

CARE PACKAGE REQUESTS:::  Okay, I want STICK deodorant. they don´t have it here and I´m on my last one. so send those please. and Oreos. that´s all (oh and the stuff from last week).

Any suggestions for leaders to help missionaries prepare before entering the field?  

I think that a really good idea would be to ask a lot harder questions with a lot more detail involved. I don´t think a lot of the missionaries are completely grasping the concepts in the questions. and without a work ethic, it is really hard out here in the mission field. I am so grateful I know how to work. There are days where all I wanna do is come home for the first 3-4 hours, then I lock n load and it all gets better for the day. I love it here. The people are so welcoming. It´s really hot right now. so hopefully their winter starts at some point soon. 

To answer mom´s question, yes, the first three months have gone by SO fast. I really feel like I left you guys yesterday. Girls camp sounds like it was fun, and exhausting! Love the stories. Hailey way to go in softball! Keep it up! Sounds like your team did really well!

Hey Family,

The power of the priesthood is real! Here is a funny story about it:

     So we were eating lunch in the house of Joel e Marlene. They are both members (60 years old or so) but she doesn´t normally attend [meetings]. anyways, we gave there 25 year old son a blessing cuz he was having body pains all over. the next day it turns out that he was completely fine! So Marlene decides to go to the Cruz Alta hospital and advertize the power of missionaries! haha She went around telling everyone in the hospital that there were these missionaries with healing powers in her neighborhood! So we received like 1,000,000 phone calls, and had to go to the hospital to explain that we couldn´t do this. And we had to tell her that we couldn´t perform blessings like this. It was pretty funny after the fact. 

     This week was really good. My new companion is from Sao Paulo. Elder Sa. He and his brothers are members, but his parents are not. They received the missionaries like 6 years ago (my comp is 22) and were converted. His full name is Ermilson Alves Oliveira de Sa. Way cool! He is the new Lider de Districto[District Leader] in my district. He has 7 months done of his mission. We teach way well together. Only problem is that he and I are both not good at knowing where certain scriptures are! So that is going to be our focus these next couple of weeks. I am understanding Portuguese fluently now, and almost there in speaking. Elder Sa knows like 5 phrases in English, so that is helping me a ton to do better cuz Elder Moroni loved to speak English. 

     Is Cole stoked for baptism? That´s way exciting! Tell him that I wish that I could be there! I miss those 2 little guys so much! I am terrible at writing letters, so I need to send them another one. 

     One thing I'm bad at is picking up names when we do street contacts! I don´t know if they´re saying their name or if they are just talking - haha. So i need to practice that. They have some really strange names here. We are teaching  a blind man right now, his name is Mister Harvey. it´s actually one of the most spiritual lessons we have - when we teach him. the spirit works extra hard with us and with him. Wanna know what´s even more crazy? His wife is deaf! I have no idea how they found one another, but the lord lead us right to them. My companion and I were seriously just lead to this home. I love teaching them. We say things and then he signs them to her. So great! Katie will love hearing that! 

     Just tell Austin to engage in the MTC. It´s going to be hard, but if he engages it will be much much easier. SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE. That is definitely the best advice I received and that I can give. Great advice. 

Well, I love you all! I´m so happy to hear all of the stories and that everyone (including Sammie) is alive and doing well!

Love,

Elder Shepherd