My Last General Conference In Brazil

Did you see all of conference and priesthood session?

Yes we watched all of the sessions. 

Are you eating good?

Trying to :)

Are you being fed at people's houses very much?

Yes always! The Brazilians love us!

How many miles do you walk in a day?

Honestly it depends. We are planning smartly and using the members, which avoids walking a lot and gives more productivity. 

How close are the other missionaries to you?

What? My companion is sitting next to me and the other two I don´t know. We all work in the same area and it´s smaller, so we see them in the streets sometimes. 

Which conference talk was your favorite?

I really loved elder Dyches´ talk. LOVED IT. Yesterday morning was my favorite session.

Hi Family!

So this week was really busy, but not a lot of real missionary work in our area. We only had Thursday and Friday to do some tracting. Monday was our P day so we just went to the chapel and my companion made lunch for everyone in the district. Then we played basketball and volleyball with everyone. Tuesday we were in Santa Maria for leadership training and didn´t come home til Wednesday. Then conference Saturday and Sunday. Leadership training was really interesting. I gave the training to all of the mission leaders about member missionary work. It´s amazing how we were already doing that, and now the church is completely focused on it. That´s why President called me to do the training. The missionaries really liked it and all of the ideas, and my zone is already having significant success with the idea. I really enjoyed conference the past two days. Did I already say that? Because it was amazing. They are really focusing on missionary work more and more, and involving ALL of the members. Elder Andersen talked about my mission president´s family in the afternoon session yesterday. Did you pick up on that? There were pics of my president and his brothers that appeared on the television. We called President Parrela right after to tell him how cool it was. Dad asked if I am having enough time to teach and to baptize.... for now we aren´t having like anytime at all, but this week will be better. We will finally be in the streets every day this week. The members have really like the family night idea that we´ve put into place here. Several are already helping, and we´re finding it to be a way to create an easy relationship with the less-active members. There is a talk that I want Taylor to study. It´s in the October Liahona, called ``Preach My Gospel Missionary.`` It´s a great little talk, and will help him really focus on being a great missionary. 

I´m sorry, I have way less time on the computer than I had before because I have to spend time sending zone updates.  We´ve been opening the chapel and the sports court every single day in the afternoon and inviting all of the young men that we find in the streets to come and participate in a HUGE soccer tournament that we´re organizing. The purpose is for them to go to seminary, so the ones that play in the games will have had to participate in seminary the day before. It´s working so far and there are a lot more young men going to seminary. With more young men, the young women are coming! haha. we´re trying to think of activities that we could do with the young women while the young men play soccer. It´s still an up-in-the-air situation. It´s worked so far. With all of the youth coming, we´re able to get their addresses to go to their homes and teach their families. President really liked the idea, so he´s behind us. We´ll see what happens. We have a member here that works for the radio here and we´re going to start going live every Saturday afternoon for an hour. We´re going to announce the soccer activity, then just respond to simple questions about the church. We´ve already spoken to several newspapers about putting an article in as well and getting a column about us. Hopefully we can get that going this week. We bring the guitar everywhere with us and sing hymns in the streets. Preach my Gospel tells us to use our talents to teach, so we are trying EVERYTHING here! Just older people that have already ´´made´´ decisions in their lives. The young people grow up, then leave to go study in bigger cities. We´ll get it going though, I know it. We´ve got til the end of the year to do this Stake! I believe that is the Lord´s decision. As I have learned to completely consecrate myself, I have felt such great blessings. The Lord has truly blessed me with a firm testimony of the truth and let me be an instrument in his hands in this marvelous work. I know that we will have success here according to His desires. Thank you for all of the prayers you give to me and my companion. We truly do feel it. I love it here though, and it may be hard for you to get me to come home. I love you all very much. Have a great week! Be safe!

Love,

Elder Shepherd

We've Got Our Work Cut Out

How was your week?

Really.... different haha. Lots of hard work. 

How is your new area?

It´s going to be a workout.  

What is your new apartment like?

It´s a NICE apartment. Like really nice. The best one that I´ve passed through. 

What is your new companion like?

He´s awesome. We´re going to get along really well. I hope he ends up being my last comp cuz I´ve only got 4 transfers left. His name is Elder Bruno Dias de Araujo Souza. He´s from Joao Pessoa, Paraíba. He is SO COOL! We´re going to do some WORK here. The members are already getting excited. They´re ´´catching the wave.´´

 

New Companion in Sao Gabriel

Did you take a bus ride to your new area?  Do you ride alone on the bus to your new area or did you get your companion in Santa Maria and ride together?

I waited at the bus station for my comp to get there from his last city, then we came here together. There is another companionship that lives with us, Elder Christensen, from Orem, and Elder Santana, from the northwest in Brazil. 

Hello Family!

So, like I said above, we´ve got our work cut out. It´s going to be fun seeing how we can get the people here animated. The city is a lot like Rosario. The Elders in Rosario are part of our zone, so we talk to them frequently. I´m going to go there on a division this week to see if we can help them out, cuz basically none of them have a teaching group. Sao Gabriel has a population of about 65,000 people. It´s an older city, so all of the members are older. Our branch president, Rodrigo, is a young guy though. He´s really excited. Our branch hasn´t baptized in 8 months. The last baptismal record is from January of this year. We have 2 people that will be baptized on October 12th already. We can´t baptize in the next 2 weeks because next week is District Conference for Distrito Sao Gabriel/Rosario, and then the following week is General Conference. I´m really pumped for that! The last General Conference of my mission.... lots of mixed feelings about that :( I don´t really know what to say today.

This last week was just lots and lots of meetings. We met with President one day, we met with the District President another, and we spent the rest of the week with a map in our hands with just a list of names and addresses. We found this awesome woman to teach. Her name is Nilza. We were walking in the road and we knocked the wrong door. We got a good laugh and then she came out and invited us to come in. She had been praying to God for him to send someone to talk to her about the Plan of Happiness that he has for all of us. We visited with her and let her know that God loves her. That he really cares about her. She came to church yesterday and will for sure be baptized on the 12th. God is already establishing his kingdom here.    

I will send a camera card today and a letter to mom and Hailey for their birthdays, so I spent my time today naming the pictures on the card. You´ll love the pictures though. We had a zone meeting on Friday and established all of our goals until the end of the year. We´re looking at things on more of a weekly basis now and not a monthly basis. Then our missionaries can focus more on baptizing weekly and not just monthly. 

I love all of you very much!

Love,

Elder Shepherd

58 Attended My First Meeting Here in April. This Sunday there were 175!

 

Milena's Baptism Friday September 13, 2013

District Missionaries

How was your week?

Really really good. The best week of the mission for sure. 

Did the marriage papers come through that you sent off?

Not yet, it´ll be a few more weeks til it´s all ready to go. 

Are you surviving the heat?

Barely

Are you allergies getting better?

Not really. I still have a cough and i sneeze all day and itch my eyes. 

Have you gotten your transfer and new companion?

YES! I will be opening a new zone as a zone leader in Sao Gabriel. My companion is Elder Dias, I don´t know any more than that about him. 

Hello Family!

We just had an amazing week. WE HAD 175 PEOPLE AT CHURCH! It was Ward Conference, so the stake presidency was there, and president Parrela came. The leaders in front couldn´t even resist tears when they saw so many people there. (We had 11 investigators there.) We made some little invitations for the conference and worked hard to invite anyone and everyone this week. It was officially announced that we´re going to get a new chapel here and that it will be the stake center for when the stake divides next year. We didn´t just help the ward, we divided the stake!!! It was so cool. 

It was hard to let everyone know that I was going to be leaving. I found out last week on Wednesday exactly where and when. President called me at 8AM in the morning and told me that I needed to be in his office at 11 for an interview. We talked for quite a while about the work in this ward because my first Sunday, 6 months ago, there were only 58 people at church. The growth here has been incredible, and it´s all because of the work with the members. He told me that I was being called to be a zone leader in a city that President wants to transform into a stake. It´s really close to Rosario, and is in the same district. The mission will now be opening 3 cities close by to try and form a stake with 5 cities. (Caçapava, Cachoela do Sul, and Sao Sepe... along with Rosario and Sao Gabriel). My companionship and the other companionship in our ward have baptized almost 30 in these 6 months, let alone all of the people that have been re-activated. He feels like Preach My Gospel will be changed next year to be more focused on working with the members. We had our baptism for Milena on Friday. There were quite a few people there. Sorry the picture is bad. It´s from a different camera cuz my battery died and I forgot to charge it.

 Cristiano came to church again. He´s stopping drinking and really taken on the challenge of the church. I feel like he´ll be baptized this Saturday, but I´m going to officially challenge him tonight when I say bye to their family. If he accepts I´m going to try and challenge him to be baptized tomorrow morning so that I can baptize him. Now the mission is just passing by quicker and quicker and I´m hating the thought of finishing. Right when this ward gets awarded a new chapel, I get transferred.

My companion and I will be more of traveling zone leaders instead of having just a fixed teaching group. We´re going to have to find housing, and existing members in those 3 new cities so that the missionaries that President puts there are ready to work without being lost.

Saying goodbye to people yesterday was really hard. I have for sure fallen in love with the people here. I´ll finish saying goodbye today and then just gotta pack my bags and move on. Marco was really sad that I won´t get to be here for his baptism. I told him that he needed to get his papers all ready to go a lot earlier than he did! He just got a good laugh about that though. He´s now read the Book of Mormon twice and he´s reading it again with the Institute BoM guide.

I haven´t got your package yet, so maybe it was a gonner... hopefully it gets here soon! I get my braces off in 2 months!!! Finally.

I love you all very much and I´m glad everyone is safe and doing well! Have a great week! 

Elder Shepherd