Greetings from Grove!

The Big Map in Tulsa

It has been a pretty packed week with not a lot of teaching. Feels like it has been forever ago though.  Tuesday we spent a couple hours putting the entire ward directory along with our investigators on the map (which i got to leave behind as soon as it was finished). Then we went to lunch with Padi and Mosiah. Went to Pho Da Cao. it was really good but sad to say goodbye to them. It was raining that day and we had to bike a couple miles to get there.  I got splashed a couple times by some big trucks. I was soaked. Then we biked to an appointment and dinner and had a good rest of the night. 

Wednesday I spent about 2 hours packing after we went to a good bye lunch with our WML Bro Henson   had a good Fajita. Had some more appointments. We saw the Rubens and Nana and the Chasengnous that night and got to say goodbye.

Thursday was transfers which involved a lot of waiting for the van and then riding in the van.  It was about 12 hours before i got to my area.  Even though it was maybe an hour and a half drive. Had to say goodbye to a lot of friends.

Friday we did some planning and got myself all set up here in Grove. Elder Thomas had to burn his 6th Month tie so I got to meet Brother Burton who is crazy but the nicest guy you will ever meet.

Nana's Baptism

Then saturday we were able to go to Tulsa for Nana Rubens baptism. We had an old retired guy drive us down which was super nice of him. Bro. Heath is pretty rich so he has a really nice car and he had a lot of fun driving very fast on some back roads. I wasn't feeling to well by the time we got to the baptism.  The baptism went well and then Bro Heath had to take a pit stop at Trader Joe's which had opened the day before. Then he took us to dinner at Braum's. He is pretty cool. Has an Organ Performance Major and a lot of cool stories. 

Sunday I got to meet most of the ward. It is pretty small but some really nice people. 

Im excited to keep moving on here in Grove.

Hope you all are doing well

Grove, OK

A text from Nephi! - (PBS)

Got this message from a young man in Tulsa last night. So happy people are getting to know and love our son. Makes the sacrifice worth it. Good thing I was at Zumba when the message came - tears just mingled with the sweat . . .  — feeling grateful.

"This is Nephi from oklahoma, I was told to send this picture to this number, Elder Shepherd is a amazing missionary!

It's really sad he's being transferred tomaro! Are ward loves him! Thank you for such a amazing son! I hope you have a great night!" 

Car wreck and Transfers

Whats up Everyone,

Its been a pretty crazy week. Don't even know where to start. Started off with the usual amount of people dropping us and not wanting to meet. Always love that. We did pretty solid teaching this week we hit the standard again which was good. Wednesday we had a short zone meeting in preparation for Elder Christopherson coming to the mission. Afterwards we had nothing to do and while we were sitting at a stop light someone rear ended us. So we pulled over and started talking to him. There was basically 0 damage and the guy had no information. Like no licence, no insurance, wasn't his own car. So the vehicle coordinators told us that sucks and to not really worry about it. But it was pretty cool because his grandpa had just died and he was going through a rough patch and had just started praying for the first time in his life so it felt like the Lord just put us in his path and did a good job running in to us. ;)  The Myers family has been on fire lately as well (old bishop and father of Sister Myers)  they had us over for dinner to teach a friend the PoS. Also this week was the first time we did splits so it was a good experience for me to teach on my own. We had a special evening Bishops store house that we made it to the very end of. Bro Amrstrong ordered about 30 pizzas and I ate at least a whole one myself. The next night Danny/ Elder Tello took us to HuHot Mongolian grill. it was so good and all you can eat.  I think the Mongolian grill back home was just as good, though. Then Saturday was Apostle day!  I was the first one in the building at 6:30 (I have the keys) so we waited until 10 for it to start. I was in the front row but ended up getting kicked to the back because the sisters didn't have enough seats saved in the front.  It was still a pretty amazing conference. Learned so much and it was crazy how much revelation just flowed. Then we went to lunch at On the Border with some of the senior missionaries  and that was way good to. And I bought girl scout cookies. It was worth it as always.

Mosiah Vang came out with us one day and took us to the Asian market for lunch   It was so good.  Elder King didn't like it because he is lame.  I Love Asian stuff so much it is crazy.

Well I guess I should mention that I am getting transferred for the first time!  Going to Grove Oklahoma. I am pretty excited to have some change even though it sucks to leave Tulsa. The Chasengnous  a less active that we reactivated kept calling us asking for the news   it was awesome to see how much they actually love us. And I love them too, Jerry is a stud, and they will definitely be people I stay in touch with for a while. It will be sad saying goodbye to all the people that i have really built a relationship with and the area that I have worked so hard to build up.  I actually spent  several hours this week building a map that is about as big as I am. Its pretty sweet!   pics to come soon.  And special shout out the the Young women back home sending me a Valentines Day card. Thanks!

Love and miss you all

Apostle Week!

Hey All!

Hope everyone had a great week and had a good Valentines day.

This week seemed to go by pretty fast even though it was a bike week. I started off with a two day exchange with the YSA Elders it was pretty crazy. They are in a trio with a member on a mini mission. We had to go to a naturalization thing because he was finally becoming a citizen so that was pretty cool. Then we did a bunch of tracting and had a few good lessons. One night we went our to dinner with some members to a restaurant downtown that was pretty sweet. It was pretty hipster and it said you had to be 21 but we went anyway. They had a 4 dollar burger night. Just a burger, pick your cheese and add bacon. It was super good but everyone was smoking. We also did some service on a ranch which was a pretty new experience for me and Elder King was pretty jealous.

We started playing touch Rugby every morning for workouts so it has been a ton of fun.

We have a part member family that we are teaching the dad. The rest of the family is very active and are super cool so it is great to be able to help him be a part of the gospel.

I initiated a 40 day ward fast for missionary work and that started yesterday. hopefully it goes well but I think it will really get the members thinking about missionary work.

We had a ward conference yesterday that was really good. Our Stake President, President Stratton, is so cool and a great speaker. They really hit missionary work had with the Ward Council so I think the ward is getting on its way. I think my favorite lesson was on how to walk on water given by 2nd Counselor President Hunt. He laid out 8 steps

1 Get in the Boat

2 Ask what to do

3 Follow the Lords Will

4 Wait on the Lord

5 Obey and don't rationalize

6 Walk unto Christ with purpose

7 Know it is not permanent 

8 Trust in the Lord when we fail

We also just did a lot of stop bys from the ward roster this week trying to clean it up. It can get pretty devastating. Because no one live there anymore or they never were members and they just yell at us. But we have met a couple cool people. We met one guy that just got out of 10 years in prison for drug trafficking and had 2 tear drops. he wanted us to come back and teach the family about the gospel. He is going to get baptized.  

Transfers are coming up this next week and i really don't know what is going to happen. I feel like we are just about getting the area figured out and going so I don't want to leave but I am also getting tired of all of the same problems. It will be exciting to see what happens.

Love you all and Thank you for all the support!

Also FYI don't send mail near the end of the week just in case i do leave 

4 Months!!

Wow can't believe that I have been out for 4 months now. But it is also starting to get odd to think about ever not being a missionary. Last week was kinda rough but it is amazing how the Lord blesses us as we continue to work hard.

Although this week we didn't get very many lessons we had a lot more meaningful ones. We also had a meeting with the bishopric on Wednesday about missionary work and the on Sunday we had a meeting where they asked us to instruct on the Idaho Initiative. It went super well and it really motivated them because they see that we are serious about the work here.

We had a zone Training meeting on Wednesday also and had interviews with President and Sister Loveland. It was a really good day. Elder King and i instructed on Obedience and it went really well. For lunch they had "walking tacos" or something like that. Small Doritos bags loaded with meat and cheese  it was pretty good. 

We had a few good lessons with the Micronesian family. We finally got pamphlets in their language and they loved it. Most of them came to church on Sunday and we are working with them to stop drinking and smoking. They said they would throw me a party before I left. I love them so much it is not even real.

Also had a super good lesson with Padi. That morning Elder King and i role played the invitation to baptism and the spirit was so stinking strong both of us teared up. The lesson was almost that good. She wants to get baptized but is still nervous about leaving her family. So we basically just put a date to when her boyfriend needs to propose by.  But whatever it takes right. 

Fast and testimony meeting was pretty crazy yesterday. Like everyone bore there testimony on how we had blessed their life recently or how we had affected someone. and it was so awesome to see how the lord works. Sister Chasengnou is a less active that is now basically an active family and they love us. Jerry made us super strong mini flashlights which was sweet and he comes out on exchanges all the time. But she spoke about how she was inactive and struggling and started praying and reading the book of Mormon. And then one day that week we called to set up an appointment and now they have come so far. Another sister had called us to give a blessing to a coworker who was inactive and struggling. She is now meeting with the missionaries in the area south of us. And our member was also able to talk to other coworkers about the church after seeing a squad of Mormons come in. And her Non member husband is wanting to come to church now. One of the youth told about having shared some LDS music with a coworker and she was really interested in learning more. We went to Rib Crib for all you can eat ribs with Bro Chasengnou and left a pass along card with our number on it and that coworker was our server and was so excited to get it.  And the RIbs were super good.

We had a pastor for another church come on Sunday and really enjoyed it. He wants to get baptized but cant until he hands of the church to another pastor. What!

Also our Eternigator, Richard who we have cut off all contact with came to church. He had been relying on the missionaries for too long to feel the spirit so when we deprived him of that he finally figured out that he needed to be at church. 

The oddest part of the week was for sure during the Superbowl. President told us we couldn't tracct or do stop bys. I guess missionaries in the past had gone tracting and been invited in to watch the game and did. And all of the members were watching the game so it was some odd dead time. But we went and shared some videos with the Chasengnous which was fun.

Today our zone is playing rugby (just touch) so that should be super fun. Even though I sprained my ankle pretty solid last week playing basketball. 

And . . . I totally forgot. We got bashed hard core yesterday it was so funny.

These 3 people tracted our door right as we got in from church and asked if we wanted to go to bible study.  They were pretty nice so we said yes. Then they called their leader guy and he walked up. Dressed pretty much like a missionary and just starts throwing down scriptures. Like wouldn't even let us talk and was just being a jerk. Elder King asked him how he felt by trying to tear us down and basically rebuked him. I asked him if he wanted a Book of Mormon and then we left.

Thank you for all of the love and support 

Love,

Bike Week, Bike Week!!

It was bike week this week. Enough said.

Bike week is always so much slower but it was nice weather like in the 60's all week so it wasn't too bad.  It feels like everyone cancels appointments when we are on bikes. Our biggest struggle is the "awkward amount of time" where we don't have enough time do bike somewhere and be productive before our next appointment so we just walk around and try to talk to people. But we definitely struggled this week. We work hard all day but don't seem to see results: people avoid us and drop us for no reason. So it has been pretty tough but I know it is all for a reason and that there is something that I need to learn at this time. 

I guess a couple highlights from this week was our district meeting. It was pretty awesome. We have gone from the bottom of the mission to the top and it is pretty cool to see. In the agenda for other areas they were supposed to talk about the things that our zone is doing and how they can apply them so that is pretty sweet to be the model zone in the mission. We talked a lot about goal setting so we all set transfer goals and the things we would sacrifice and do in order to achieve them. Wrote them down and signed them as the Brookhollow covenant. Pretty cool stuff. We also went to community taco night at a Presbyterian church. The first 10 min were super awkward but then they decided to be overly nice. We got free tacos so I was satisfied. So that was at least some good this week.

We have interviews with president this week which should be pretty helpful.

I've also started eating a lot cleaner but the treadmill at the apartment gym just broke so I am still fat. 

With love,

Elder Shepherd