Temple Week

We have had a week full of blessings

We had the opportunity to go to the Kansas City, Missouri Temple on Wednesday with a bunch of missionaries and it was a pretty great experience. I got to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a long time.  I Learned a lot while at the temple. Also this week we had a ton of unplanned success teaching. we had several investigators out of town and we just had more people show up that we haven't met before.   It was pretty amazing to see how the Lord rewards effort.

I thought I would include a few thoughts from my letter to President Loveland that I had while at the Temple

I have had a pretty amazing week and i learned a lot.
 During interviews Sister Loveland mentioned light and it is also something that my Patriarchal blessing talks about, so i spent a few days studying that. What is light? Where does it come from? What does it do? I gained a lot of insights and had some cool experiences. And the question that i took to the temple was How can i gain more/increase my light? What i learned from the temple, several talks that i read on the bus ride and talking with some other missionaries was this. I need to be a more Consecrated missionary, and let go of things that tie me down.
1 Be more exact in my language. Speak simply and powerfully as i testify of truth
2 Obey willingly all commandments and standards in the Missionary handbook
3 Give up my Fears. Quite often i will avoid speaking to people out of fear that i will mess up or won't know what to say. Also fears of not being adequate or not living up to expectations of a missionary.
4 Knowing "Which way do I face" Elder Robbins spoke about not mixing up the first 2 commandments, and making sure that the Lord is our first priority and not those around us. Too often i see myself going with the status quo in an attempt to avoid contention or make sure people like me. When i should instead set an example, which is where we feel the Loneliness of Leadership.
Throughout my mission i have felt the spirit many times, but always in short spurts. After i left the temple that feeling didn't leave me for 3 days. Until after a baptism several missionaries went to get ice cream(nothing wrong with that) But our focus was more that of a social club than that of full time missionaries. That was a witness to me that that was something i needed to work on and help others with as well. Along with that i had the thought to use all "social" times as a time to minister to the specific needs of those around me. I have felt a difference with this change as it is much more fulfilling. 

Rugby Day

Hello Everyone,

today we are going to play Rugby with our mission President. Looking forward to that.

This week has been pretty solid though. We had a lot of good appointments and are starting to meet with some new people. We also got to meet with President and Sister Loveland for interviews this week. They bring such an abundance of the spirit wherever they go. 

We had another booth set up on campus this week and had most of the zone come out to help us with that. We talked to a lot of people and have had a lot of great teaching opportunities come from that exposure on campus. We hand out a lot of materials every week which is pretty awesome. We had pizza after and played ping pong and pool during our lunch hour. It was a lot of fun.

We are doing well with all of our investigators. 

 Tim has been struggling lately but he came to church this week and is doing a lot better and is looking forward to getting baptized.

 Brianne decided to talk to her parents about getting baptized and has been coming to church on her own for a while. She knows what she needs to do but is just waiting for the right time.

 Gabriela has been meeting with us for a few weeks and has been reading the Book of Mormon. She came to church and is starting to come to activities with one of her good friends. Her main hangup is that her dad doesn't like the church for some reason.

 Brock has been fun to meet with. Our first meeting with him was when he came to an institute class and started bashing with the teacher so we pulled him out. Since then we have met a few times and answered his questions and bore testimony. He his training to be an apologist, and there have been several times when he is at a loss for words.

 Lauren has been meeting with Sister Loveland and another set of missionaries. During interviews i spoke to sister loveland about her for quite a while and how  she has been struggling. Then she came to church and had a great time and got to know a lot of the members Really excited for her as well.

This week is pretty exciting also because we get to go to the temple on Wednesday.  I love being in the temple and am looking forward to that time.

Thats all for me now

Love you all 

WPS

Instagram Famous

This week was pretty solid.  The weather has cooled down quite a bit now that it is suit coat season and the leaves are all turning colors. Really is a great time to be here in Fayetteville. Elder Doman and I have been doing a lot of good work and finding success. This week we did a lot of finding. We met so many people that have really just been waiting for an opportunity to hear the gospel. It is really cool to see how the lord will bless you when you work hard. 

We had the booth on campus again(we've started doing that every week) and we had an awesome time.  We handed out about 50 BoM's this week and taught a lot of lessons with the help of the rest of the zone.  On Thursday a member from Grove OK came to Fayetteville and took me and another Elder,who had served in Grove, out to lunch. It was really nice of them and they ended up spending over 100$ because they got a parking ticket. Really put a damper on the experience :/  but it was still good to see them.

Saturdays are still probably the hardest day here.  Nothing happens except the Razorback game, especially for home games. People start heading to the game and tailgating at least 6 hours before the game starts.   Just need to get someone to take us to a game ;)

I think that will do it for me.

Hope you all have a great day.

With love

Elder Shepherd

Fayetteville

Hello Everybody, It has been a wild week here in Fayetteville.

This week was pretty solid. We met with quite a few people and had a lot of success. Hopefully coming up on a few baptisms this month.

Friday and Saturday were a little different. All week the entire city has been prepping for the game on Saturday so that is in the background of all of this. Friday was mine and a few other elders year mark so we went out to eat at a really nice Sushi restaurant in Fayetteville. It also happened to be on the street that has all the bars and clubs so late on a Friday night that got pretty hectic. Afterwards we all went to the city park and took turns burning a white shirt. We had a blast and made a lot of good memories.

Saturday was crazy, we helped some members set up for a game party (because no one would meet with us). and then we went to a baptism for some of the other elders. Then the members hosting the party got really sick and our whole evening got thrown up in flames and we were kind of just stranded with nothing to do. And we broke our phone.  And then Arkansas lost to Alabama.

It just wasn't the best of days. Sunday was better though. We had a couple of appointments and then had a good missionary meeting with the family ward and had a lot of good results.  We are gonna start doing some good work on campus and I'm pretty excited for it.

Love you all 

1 Year!

Hey Everyone, 
Hasn't been too long since i last wrote so this will fairly short. 

We had transfers on Thursday. So I said goodbye to Elder Sokol and met Elder Doman. He has been out for 3 months and is from Pleasant Grove UT. We have had a good past couple of days and taught a lot of lessons. Most of our time has been General Conference though, which was great. Hope you all got as much out of it as I did. It is such a blessing to be led by modern prophets and apostles. 

Dinner and watching Conference with members

Love you all and hope you have a good week