Our Zone Re-Activated 26 Members

How was your week?

Good, and really busy. Again. I think that´s all I´m going to be writing til the end of my mission haha. 

How much did you have to travel this week?

I just went to Santa Maria for two days to train the mission leaders. 

Has the president told you anymore about if they will be able to get you extended?

I WILL NOT be extended. The visa issue won´t workout

Is the weather getting hot?

It´s not extremely hot yet, but you could say that it´s warming up.

Hello Family!

This week was an effective week. I taught a huge training about member missionary work for the zone leaders, the other assistants, and President and Sister Parrela on Wednesday basically all day. It was awesome! The missionaries in the entire mission are focusing more and more on working with the members each day. Our creative ideas are working here! Our zone re-activated 26 people in the month of October, with only 12 missionaries. With this focus, I feel that we will be able to create this Stake by the 31st of December (cuz that´s our goal!).

We´re going on the radio again tonight... it´ll be at 4:00 your time! www.radiobatovi.com.br.... On the page there is a little icon on the right that says OUÇA AGORA. Click on that and you can listen to us. Today´s email is going to be really weak again because I have been more of an administrator than a minister lately. It´ll probably be like this until the end of my mission, but if I can influence the rest of the missionaries to baptize weekly, mission complete!  

 We have been running the activities in the chapel all day every day still, so I´m feeling more like an evangelical preacher than a missionary since we´re always in the chapel, but it´s been a success til now.  

We finally found an incredible family from the soccer idea. We went to one of the young men´s homes yesterday night and were able to teach his mom and his aunt with him. It was a great lesson, and it turns out that she has a brother who was baptized years ago! Her mom used to rent out a house to the missionaries about 20 years ago so she had a lot of knowledge about the church. Her name is Claudia, the young man´s name is Felipe. He´s a little stud. He loves coming to soccer and Claudia loved it even more when he told her that we pray every day before they begin playing. We´ll be passing them to the other dupla to teach soon and we´ll continue to find new people. This method of working is a lot more effective. We are having success and I feel like the Stake will happen on the 31st!  

I´m sorry for the weak emails lately! This week I think I´ll be traveling tomorrow, I´ll let you know next week about the new traveling experiences. I love you all very much! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Shepherd

So It Was An ICE Cold Baptism

How was your week?

eh, just another busy week.... not much more to say than that haha I´ve been preparing trainings every day in the mornings. I think I´m on the phone more than I´m actually doing my own work cuz I´m always talking to other missionaries in the whole mission. 

How many cities have you traveled to this week?

Just one other, and this week just one. Next week we´ll really start to travel. Generally it´ll be one city per week. 

Is there just 4 missionaries there in San Gabriel?

No, there are 2 branches with 4 missionaries in each branch. The other branch has 4 sisters. 

Hey Family!

So, another busy week, with zero exciting stories. Well, actually, I went to Rosario and baptized a woman that I´d taught last year there. She is the girlfriend, now wife, of the member who hooked me up with my guitar. He´s a returned missionary and they finally decided to get married and she decided to get baptized. They saw me at a conference and she told the missionaries there that she wanted me to baptize her. My companion had to do her baptismal interview, then we had the baptism right after. The Elders there forgot to fill up the baptismal font, so it was an ice-cold baptism. The water was only up to just above my knees, so she sat on the bottom and I kneeled and she just laid down to be baptized. It was FREEZING. Other than that there wasn´t really anything interesting this week.

Just lots of preparing for the next two weeks of traveling. Our teaching group gets smaller and smaller each week because we are just passing our investigators to the other companionship to teach because they have a lot more time than we do. We are generally just coordinating the activities with the ward members and always with the young men at the church. While they´re playing, the other companionship is teaching their families in their homes.

This is the 4th year in a row that the [Viewmomnt] girls´ team has played in the state championship and they lost again. 1 for 4!!! That´s too bad.

Cristian, a young man that we re-activated in Rosario, came here this week to open his mission call! Guess where he´s going?? Sao Paulo Norte! I was so happy! That was a BIG fruit from my work here on the mission. He is really excited, leaving January 14th. Marco Aurelio was baptized in Santa Maria on Saturday. That was an incredible day.

So, I will have to say that I am the master of making cakes out of scratch now. I made a way good dump-cake last week on pday for our district.  The man from the radio, Alcino, is really excited and helping us a lot. He´s our Ward Mission Leader and always calling us for updates or passing references. We may have not baptized this transfer, my first, but I´m really happy that we were able to re-activate him. It made the whole transfer worth it. Sorry, boring again today! I love you all very much! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Shepherd

The Brazilian People are My People

How was your week?

Really... interesting. Just busy work and lots of organizing activities to animate the members. 

Are your baptisms still on schedule for next week?

Maybe 1... We´re teaching her tomorrow to see if it´s all good to go. Her name is Leticia, 33 years old and extremely intelligent. She knows the bible stories really well. She came to church with us yesterday and had some brilliant questions during the classes. I hope she accepts to be baptized this Saturday.  We´re also teaching her aunt and her grandma.

How is the teaching going?

It´s going well. We are planting new ideas in our area so we´re doing more of the finding people, and they passing them to the other companionship in our area to teach them.

Did you get a lot of response to your radio program?

Yeah, I believe that we´re going to do it again this week. I´ll have a member send dad a message on FB to let you know the day and the time. We got 22 references and all of them are receiving the missionaries now. The sisters have marked dates for some of them already! It was for sure a success and will continue to be. 

Are you still eating with others quite a bit?

Well we eat lunch with them every day. We eat lunch on p day with all the missionaries in our zone in the chapel. My comp makes it, he´s a great cook. Then we play games and sports til it´s time to go home to shower and go back out to work.

What is your standard meal for breakfast?

Usually like a bologna and cheese sandwich. Something really simple, some crackers too. And usually just some juice. 

Hello Family!

So, my Mission President emailed you huh? Yes, this last week I was put in as a special assignment, to be the Traveling Assistant along with continuing as a Zone Leader. So I´ll basically be traveling every week and I´ll never be here anymore. When I´m in a different zone, the other zone leader will come here to work with my companion in my area to learn how we are working with the members. The members here are so excited about the missionary work. We have been getting so many references, and there are still lots of people calling to the radio every day. They LOVED our program. We sang lots of songs, and then also answered a lot of questions about the Church. We had 24 young men who came out to play soccer this week. Almost all of them are staying for seminary afterwards, and then accepting us, or the sisters, to go to their homes and teach their families.

Every single companionship in our zone had at least 1 investigator at church yesterday and all of us have dates marked to be baptized... except for us ahhh. We´re generally just passing our investigators to the other companionship in our branch though. With all of the activities that we´re doing we never have enough time to go to all of our appointments as well. We want to try to have a baptism with 30 young men and young women by the end of December. I think that´d be so cool because I love working with the youth. With all of the youth participating in everything, all of the older members are starting to get excited about the work. 

It´s interesting how I have changed since the start of the mission. It seems like the things that were really my focus before the mission aren´t anything in the vision anymore. Like I still love my family and my buddies and stuff, but my vision on what´s really important in life has changed so much. I love the mission more than anything. This has been the greatest experience that I´ve ever had. It´s been humbling to see how much we are blessed with living where we live, and how great of a difference the gospel does in our lives when we live it to our fullest. I love it here so much. The Brazilian people are MY people. I may have to come live here and work here or something one day when I´m still young  

Next week I dunno what time I´ll be online. My pday will start to be more and more busy... oh joy.   It´s really hectic and we spend a lot of time at the chapel meeting with members and doing trainings with the missionaries. We generally have a big family night each night in which we invite all of our teaching group and the other dupla and their teaching group and we all meet at a members´ home. It´s been a success in re-activating people. I just love making friends with all of them. We always bring the guitar with us as well to sing a little before the spiritual part. 

Well family, I love you very much. Thank you for all of your prayers and all that you´ve done for me. Have a great week! Be safe.

Love,

Elder Shepherd