General Conference was Amazing!

How was your week?

Really good, it´s been all heck here with the rainy thunderstorms and huge winds. I swear there must have been a tornado somewhere close by yesterday.

Have you got some good families that take care of you like in your last area?

Yeah just the district President and his family, they´re awesome.

Have you been playing any soccer or just basketball?

Nothing,  too tired on p-days now. I just slept all day today. But we´re starting to go running for 30 minutes in the mornings now.

Did you get to watch conference?

Yes all of the sessions. It was amazing. 

What was your favorite talk?

Elder Holland´s talk Sunday morning. 

What do you think about them changing the mission age to 18?

I´ll explain below

Are you using all of your clothes or trading any with other missionaries?

Yeah, gave a pair of shorts to Elder Sa cuz he didn´t have any. but I also inherited some soccer shorts. Pay it forward is the golden rule here.

Is the post office there on strike? 

Nope. I think that they are only in like major cities. So just send me stuff here cuz I think that I´ll be here for a while. 

Hey Family!
     So I´m going to write a lot about conference today, first of all: being 18 and being able to leave now changes the whole dynamics of preparation. Taylor this email is going to be written towards you. The fact that you can leave earlier makes seminary THAT much more important. You are losing a year of preparation after high school, meaning that in high school you need to start the preparing.

     Conference yesterday was directed towards families, what destroys families and how families can conquer the worldly threats, and missionary work. Elder Nelson´s talk on Saturday was fantastic; simply saying, “Ask the missionaries for everything”. It´s weird how opened my mind is now. Before I´d tune off during conference, but now I´m like fully locked and loaded. The divine call of a mission is one that is directly from God, without a doubt. Sister Dibb´s talk Saturday morning also was very interesting. She hit all of the points of our church right on the head. ``I´m a Mormon. I know it, I live it, I love it”.  We all need to have that approach on our religion. Only a handful of God´s children have had the privilege that we have. We all need to think of ourselves as missionaries.

Elder Ballard talked about not just being members on Sundays, but showing the Lord that we are part of His church EVERYDAY - is the most important thing that we can do. Elder Bowen´s talk on Saturday was also so amazing. He talked about the concept of ``Why me?`` because there are so many members that will leave the church because of that. We know that God has a plan for all of us, and the prophets have said that God will never give us a trial so hard that we cannot bear it. This life is really simple, as much as we like to look at the difficult things. Church attendance, prayer and repentance, and living the commandments are all we need to do in this life. As much as the world has changed the gospel will never change. The youth learned a lot in conference. All of priesthood session was directed towards them.

PREPARATION STARTS NOW. Have President Morris read this email. Being 18 and being able to serve does not mean you all have to leave now at 18. If you haven´t put in somewhat of the preparation beforehand, and you aren´t accustomed to working hard DON´T LEAVE YET. You can prepare still. And you will be that much more effective out in the field. 

     It´s almost Halloween already!! Holy cow time has flown by. I can remember leaving you all in the airport more clearly than most of the things here; Baptisms as an exception haha. Hailey sounds like she´s starting to prepare to drive. haha Remember, backing up is the opposite way with the wheel Hailey! Just have dad back up for you haha. I hope school is going well. Tell dad I love all of the sports updates though the Viewmont football scores look terrible.   I got all of your emails from last week but I read them today. Sorry if I missed any questions!  

Remember Tay, preparation starts now.

I love all of you!

Love,

Elder Shepherd