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