Weather

Hey All,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas because I know I did. Wednesday and Thursday were pretty packed with appointments and it was great to go around sharing Christmas messages and we also were able to bring around plates of cookies that the Relief Society made up for us. Then Christmas day was great. We had Christmas morning as a whole zone and opened up presents and made breakfast at the church. Then we had an awesome devotional and sang Hymns.  I played a couple on the trumpet and they really enjoyed that. Then we got to go Skype our families. It was great to talk to them and see them. It was sunny and great weather all day. Elder King got a couple of remote control helicopters so we played with those for a while and then had dinner with the family where we went to make our Christmas phone calls to our family. It was a pretty great day. Then Saturday (Mom's Birthday) the weather changed up a bit. We had a few appointments not show up. One even left after we walked in the house. So we went tracting. And at this time we were right in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. Like lightning right above us and dumping rain. The streets had a solid couple inches of just running water. We were very wet and cold when we got in for dinner. Sunday we didn't have the car so we got a few members to drive us around to contact referrals. it was still pretty wet. And last night it snowed so now there is about an inch or two of slush on the ground. Perfect biking weather and it is supposed to freeze tonight and ice everything over, so we could lose power for a few weeks. That's about all the excitement going on here. I hope we get members to drive us around this week so I don't freeze and die while biking. Ill let you know how it goes next Monday!

Love and miss you all, 

and a happy new year

Xmas!

Wow so we've had a pretty full week here.

We had a ton of return appointment from all the tracting that we did the previous weeks, and it was all on bike. We biked over 100 miles this week and i am really feeling it. So we had a bunch of good follow up lessons and some no shows which gets pretty frustrating. I mean if you set up an appointment you should be there or just say you don't want to set up an appointment. But the rest of our lessons were solid. We set 2 baptism dates and should have another 2 this coming week. It is really exciting to see hard work and obedience bring blessings. This truly is the Lords work and i am so glad to be a part of it. We visited with a few less active families and it was cool to see them want to come back to church. One of them, the Chasengnous took us out to a really nice (and expensive) Korean place, Sobahn. It was really good. Elder King wasn't a huge fan. He is kinda wimpy with new foods haha. What was really cool though was that the Chasengnous decided that they wanted to set a goal to go to the temple. It is always super exciting to see people have a desire to come unto Christ. 

We also ended up doing a bunch of service this week. We helped a member with nonmember relatives move stuff into a storage unit. We ended up scoring a king sized bed out of it. Now we just need one more so I can have a bigger bed too.

We had a Mission Christmas conference yesterday. It was a ton of fun and really uplifting. The instructions by President and Sister Loveland were really good. We played some games and got to hang out with a ton of missionaries. Then we had a cool Christmas program. There were a lot of missionaries with musical talent.

This coming week should be really good. We are doing service as a whole zone on Christmas eve and then on Christmas morning we are all going to open and exchange presents and make breakfast so I'm excited for that. It is going to be a great week to share the gospel with families in need and giving service.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and remembers the reason for the season.

Love you all!

(PS - We can't wait to talk to our missionary tomorrow!)

at Christmas Conference

Tracting

This week has been pretty exciting. We have been working really had and focusing on being exactly obedient. We tract for at least 5 hours a day. It is hard and tiring but we have been able to see the blessings from hard work. We have been able to find people that are totally prepared to receive the gospel. And we have also run in to some pretty crazy people. Its also funny to see how when we knock doors in the ghetto areas people are always nice and respectful (and odd sometimes) but then the nicer neighborhoods the people aren't very kind.  Just something I noticed and had been thinking about. We were able to have a General Authority come and speak to our mission this last week and then in our Stake conference as well. he talked about the importance of member missionary work and how we can get the members involved. another big issue was the importance of having councils for the stake ward quorums and most importantly families. He said that "Councils are the way that God exalts his children." I thought that was super cool. Wel,l I only have 4 min left on this library computer (time limits stink)  Hope you all are doing well and are getting ready to enjoy the Christmas season. Love and miss you all. Hope to hear from you soon.

Love,

Elder Shepherd

New Companion

So we had transfers this week so it was a little slow. Elder Linam Wanted to just say good-bye to people and then had a little going away party so we didnt get too much done. It was bitter sweet to see him leave. Just last week he had started Smile training with me. He made me bite on a pencil for 5 min. I wasnt sure if that was legit or just his last chance at hazing. 

So my new companion is Elder Ladd King from Kaysville Utah. he was the High School National Champion Cowboy this last year so that is pretty legit. He's really cool though. We are getting a lot more done and not wasting any time. We rode our bike at least 40 miles in the last 2 days and I am feeling that a lot now. Not too much more to mention I suppose.

Love and miss you all

Elder Shepherd

And here's a little info on his companion - definitely legit: (PBS)

Top cowboy says mission preparation key to win

Thanksgiving

Well I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving week! I know I did. This was the first week in close to a year that my area hit the standard of excellence! It was super awesome to see all the progress we've made. We have our Recent Convert from a few weeks ago as well as 3 investigators and several less actives, all of whom are doing super. Love this area.

 We got to do a bunch of painting this week so we had a lot of fun with that. I actually unknowingly had frosted tips all day. oops.  Thanksgiving was pretty great though. We had the car this week so we were able to drive to several Dinners. We were actually only able to make it to 4 dinners but had more options than that. I gained about 10 pounds. And we got sent home with a bunch of turkey and a few pies. And the family asked if we had any home favorites so they made fresh cranberry sauce which was super good. We also got food from a guy that runs a food bank thing so we have soooo much food in our apartment its not even funny.

We had a couple lessons with our Hmong Investigator so at one of those she helped us with our Hmong. We can do introductions now and pray pretty well. Working on bearing my testimony next. Weve had a couple more good Hmong dinners and i really enjoy learning more about their culture.

We got transfer calls on Saturday. That was sad.  Bunch of our zone is leaving and we had all gotten pretty close. My trainer Elder Linam is also leaving so i am going to be split trained (have two trainers in his first area). Hopefully that goes well.

Well I guess thats 1 transfer down 16 to go! wow

With love

Elder Shepherd

Frozen Dog, Old Lady, and Cussing

So Pretty Alright week.

We did some pawn shopping last monday which was pretty cool. Then this week we worked a lot on some visual aids. First was a little wood set of the plan of salvation, and then an arch with with the gospel showing the Key stone and all that god stuff. 

We had some good food this week. We went to a Hmong family for dinner and that was a good foreign meal.  They were watching The Arrow so it was really hard to not watch haha. Then on friday we had an adult ward social. We were out with no bikes so we had to walk about 3 miles in about 30 degree weather. a few days previous we had biked past a little lost dog and when we walked by friday the dog had froze to death so that was sad. then later on we ran into an old homeless couple. the wife had fallen down so the husband asked us to help her up or she would freeze and die that night. So  i can check saving a life off my bucket list!  The food at the social was super good and we got sent home with a full pumpkin pie and about 5 pounds of BBQ. Our ward loves us.  

Then yesterday we went out with a member and his 4 year old son. We tried to contact some people but got nothing so he said we should visit one of his friendly neighbors. We got there and he told us to go visit the empty house next door. Then our exchange asked if the man remembered him and replied "yea youre the guy i didnt want to F-ing talk to" so we left. I felt bad for our exchange cuz his son was there and this was a guy that he thought had liked him.

Im excited for this coming week. We have like 6 families fighting for us to come over for Thanksgiving. well try to see as many as possible and not eat ourselves to death. Hopefully we will hit the standard. It would be a first in like 6 months. Fun stat our zone is the fastest improving zone in the mission. went from a zone total of 40 some lessons a week to about 160 in the last few weeks. Its good to see progress.

Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving week and remembers all the many blessings we have to be thankful for.

Elder Shepherd

Baptism

Its been a good week. The weather here feels pretty much just like at
home, maybe a little less rain. I am still pretty lost without the
mountains.  Can't tell which direction I'm driving haha. I still haven't
done any tracting. My comp really doesn't like it. Earlier this
week he went on an exchange with a ZL and they contacted a bunch of
people and got some Potential Investigators. I went with the Spanish
elders so i was on vacation, as everyone refers to it (and they have
queen beds so that was nice). We had a baptism on Saturday which was
really cool - really awesome family. I forgot my camera so I'll send
pics next time. It's good to hear that people still remember me. . .

1 MONTH!!

Alright so things are really starting to pick up here. We have 4 Progressing Investigators right now so thats awesome and all of them are pretty much ready for baptism. One is a 9 year old girl in foster care so thats not even fair but it counts as a convert baptism. This past week we decided to really start working with Richard who past missionaries dubbed an Etern-igator.(Eternal investigator)   We didn't like that. One day during comp study "the conversion of a catholic" started playing. it was cool but kind of random. the next day we visited Richard and it PERFECTLY fit his concerns. He teared up at the end and it was amazing. He's pretty much there. He knows everything, he's just worried about his families reaction. Super excited for him. We have a baptism this week! Kaitlin Nazar from a part member family so we get to go to the temple with them so were super excited about that!!
Then we have our Hmong investigator who is doing really well. She's really just waiting to set her baptismal date for when her boyfriend can come home from school. She also helped us with our Hmong study. We can carry out simple conversations and we got some music so that's pretty cool.
Last night we went out with a member (we get exchanges pretty much every day) and tried to contact some less actives knocked 10 houses in less then an hour. Most people don't even answer but my favorite excuse is a family that every time we go the mom is in the shower.  She must be a very clean person! My comp says that's why tracting doesn't really work. People don't even open the door so that's frustrating. Well I'm excited for our successes and plan to keep improving.
Love you all,
Elder Shepherd

Halloween and Apartment Pics

We were riding our bikes home from the
trunk or treat on Wednesday and a member actually picked us up because
it was to dangerous to ride home at like 8:30   like 3 miles.  so that's
fun.   haven't had any really crazy experiences.  we bought Bonsai trees.
haven't done any door to door  tried to do less active contacts but no
one lets us in or opens the door. companion is alright - actually
reminds me of dean goofy and enjoys arguing but we both like to cook
so we've had some good homemade meals.  don't have any new investigators
 and yup (Hmong) is its own language.  i can say hello and how are you and
introduce myself and that's about it.

Gettin' to Tulsa.

so after the Minneapolis airport we flew to fayettville in Arkansas and drove to the mission home. they fed us real food so that  was nice. they did a bunch of orientation and then we met with mission pres and got our assignments. then the morning we got up early and headed out with the trailers and vans to our areas. had to say goodbye to Elder Webb. we drove for several hours and I slept most of the way because the previous two nights id had like 5 total hours of sleep.  and I guess I ended up in Tulsa.  I am in the Brookhollow ward. my Comp is Elder Linam who is a nice and pretty goofy guy. Brookhollow is basically pretty ghetto. the people are all super nice. we also cover the Hmong community so I am actually learning a language. we are in a car share so got to ride my bike in the rain on the first day so that was fun. and our apartment is super dumpy even compared to the other elders in the area.   our apartment actually is overlooked by Garmin HQ and were right next to Route 66.

we've had a few lessons with PI and having a baptism on the 14 so that's awesome. another PI is almost to baptism so that's super exciting. I also got to meet RIchard and Joanne here In Tulsa.  neither are members but like mission dad and mission grandma. trying to get Richard to baptism. he got a bird recently so we are now pro bird trainers. he also feeds us all the time and does our laundry  we help him work on his house.  we got to go to the Hmong (*mung) new year on Saturday so that was awesome  we have a 6ft stick of sugar cane in our apartment and some dragon fruit and leaches. and we got some traditional necklaces and some crazy drinks with jellies in them having a blast 

With President and Sister  Loveland

Fun at the MTC

Wednesday, October 14 - At the Provo Temple

left to right - Elder Ybanez, my companion Elder Webb, Elder Mafi, Sister Molton,            
 Sister Costly, Elder Walgstaff, Elder Walker   front - Sister Hokanson, Sister Alderedge