I Burned a Shirt on the 14th

Carson celebrating the one year mark and burning a shirt!

Another angle on the shirt burning

Part of the area the missionaries are working!

 

How was your week?
Great! it cooled down quite a bit so now it´s more bearable.

When are the next transfers?
We´ve got 3 weeks left. I will know when I email you on April 8th. We had our monthly interviews with President on Tuesday and he said he was gonna be moving me to an area that needs help. 


The baptism of your soccer junkies looked like it was good.  Is the other boy still taking discussions?
Yes he is. We´re trying to talk to his parents now because they´re the only reason he´s not baptized. 

How is it with those boys you baptized?  Do they do regular weekly young men activities?
It´s really good. The ward is helping them a lot. They´re making really good friends with the other young men at the weekly soccer nights as well.

Do you rest quite a bit on Pday? 
Yeah we go back home after we email and we sleep.

Do you have a washer and dryer still? 
No, dryers basically don´t exist here. All the apartments have a washer though.


Hi Family!

Well we just had a fantastic week this week. We had 6 people in sacrament meeting! The painter that dad wrote to, he came yesterday with his wife finally. We also had 2 young men and a young woman and her mom there. Those 4 are all new investigators. We focused this week on getting and contacting a lot of references and it for sure paid off. Adalberto, the painter, just needs to make a good friend or two in the ward. We are meeting with a young couple, early 20´s right now. They both have smoked for a few years, but are super open to the idea of stopping when they feel that the church is true. The spirit has been really strong the 3 times that we´ve met with them and they both comprehend the messages entirely. We´re meeting with them tomorrow [along] with a couple in our ward.  What´s good about this couple is that they already have the desire to get married. That helps the process quite a bit.

I also burnt a shirt on the 14th!  [Annual missionary ritual celebrating their one year mark] That was fun. We did it at a less-active family´s home. They loved it! I just found an old shirt in our house and burnt it. Those are the first 2 pics. The third is of a favella area that we work. Our area is like half rich, and half super poor. 

So yeah, sorry this week isn´t very long. We´re working really hard and seeing success. Hopefully I´ll be able to baptize again during these three weeks. I feel like we will!.Sorry today isn´t super exciting. I hope all of you have a great week!
Keep up the hard work in school and sports! and not dance!!! ;) I love you!

Love,
Elder Shepherd

We Baptized 2 Young Men, Soccer Players

Did you baptize those 3 soccer boys? More lessons to their families?

We ended up baptizing 2 of them. 

Awesome Young Soccer Players baptized!

What do you eat for Lunch and DInner these days?

Dinner I usually just eat a sandwich. I usually am not very hungry to eat dinner cuz the lunches here are really good. It´s still lots of rice and beans, but they always make a good chicken for us.

Do they have Chinese restaurants? 

I saw one at the mall here the other day. I think we´re gonna try and go eat there when we receive our money the next time. 

How was your week?

Really frustrating. The baptism was really good though.

Have you ever come across Elder Rawlings (Kevin & Bonnie's nephew)?

Yes I think I have. I forgot to ask him about them haha. I´ll ask next time I see him. 

Are you walking everywhere or do you ride the bus some?

We took the bus today to come to the center, but usually we just walk everywhere. We don´t have enough money to pick up the bus. 

How are your clothes and shoes holding up?

Everything is just great. I usually wear the Dunham shoes every day because they´re the most comfortable, so they´re getting worn out. I´m sure they´ll last to the end of the mission though. The Doc´s are good for the winter, so I´ll use those a lot in the winter. All of my clothes are just fine, only a few stitching repairs have been necessary on the pants. Good thing my mamma showed me how to sew!

Hi Family!

So this week we started a new teaching group and just basically started the area over again. I have been studying a lot of modern day talks this week and it´s helping me a lot with my knowledge of the gospel. I really don´t have a lot to say today cuz we just went back to the basics this week. We are trying to teach the parents of Douglas and James right now. they are the two that were baptized on Saturday. The ward gave them little scripture bags, ties, and triplices. So they´ve got a great group of friends already going here in the ward. Their families are really hard to get a hold of, so it will be a while. The only time that they can meet with us is on Saturdays, and that´s if we´re lucky. Both the mom and the dad work all week and don´t get home til we have to be in for the night.

It sounds like Hailey had a good tournament down in St. George! That´s so cool! Good job Hailey!

We found 2 families this past week that I feel can advance in this gospel. We found one of them through a reference from a member and the other one was on a list of less-active members. The dad of the second family was baptized about 20 years ago but stopped coming around the same time as well. He and his wife are taking the lessons really well, so hopefully we can get their marriage papers started soon. They´ve got 6 children, 3 with baptismal age. The first family was really fun to meet. We had a family night with some members that live in front of them and the members invited them. We´ve just taught them that time and we passed their house again this week and taught them the Restoration. Hopefully they´ll be at church this week. We didn´t have any investigators at church yesterday. We did have an attendance of 200 people more or less though. So that was good.

Well, I love you all so much. I hope you have a great week. The church is true. Say your prayers!

Love,
Elder Shepherd

Strong Spirit During First Vision Lesson

FINALLY a chance to eat at McDonalds.  On  4 Real  about $2.50 Dollars for a burger!

In front of a a store in Santa Maria

 How was your week?

Really, really good.

Did you read the book we sent you?

Yes I´m studying it. It´s really good for quick references to difficult questions. 

How are your investigators coming along?

We have 3 that will be baptized on Saturday.

Hi Family!

So we had a great week this week. We have a baptism marked next Saturday for 3 young men (the 3 soccer players!). They´re all 12 years old. Yesterday, in fast and testimony meeting, one of them got up and bore his testimony. All he said was that he is being baptized next Saturday because he knows this church is true. The ward loved it. Then last night we went over to his house to teach his family. We´ve taught all three of their families now. Their names are Douglas, James, and Antony.

We had a really powerful lesson with James´ mom last night.  We taught her the restoration, but something about the lesson just was so awesome. The spirit was so strong. I taught the first vision to her, and then asked her how she felt after. She told me she just had a super warm feeling in her heart and that she felt the message was true. We challenged her to be baptized and she accepted for the 30th because she needs to be legally married. That still might be one of the biggest challenges we face. I think that James´ little brother, Mateus, will be baptized with his mom on the same day.  It was amazing how strong the spirit was in there. I don´t recall a clearer feeling during my whole mission, and my companion said the same thing. It was so different teaching the first vision to her. I wrote about it, but it just felt like there was something different about it. It really was an awesome experience. 

On a sad note, Noemia and her daughter won´t be baptized this week. We were walking there to teach her on Saturday night when and ambulance flew passed us. I just knew it was heading for her house the second it went by. She´s got cancer, and she wasn´t feeling well at all this week. Everything was set in stone for the baptism, then just crushed. We haven´t heard anything since, but we´ve been trying to make contact with her neighbors and family to try and help out. We´ll keep her in our prayers and hope for the best. Hopefully we can get her all ready to go for next week. On Thursday we did a HUGE family night at one of the member´s homes (Deliane). We invited the whole lower part of our ward.There was tons of food and we did a really spiritual message. We´re for sure continuing to see growth in the ward. Next Sunday is Ward Conference.

We went to McDonald´s for lunch today. You´ll be able to tell by the photos. It was the greatest lunch of the whole mission I think. It´s super expensive here, so we for sure won´t be going very often. Just a simple hamburger is 4 reals.  

Well family, have an awesome week!

The church is true! I love you all.

Elder Shepherd