Silent Night in Harlem...... haha yea right

Hey hey hey everybody
I love you all and I want to wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I hope everything is going well back home and everybody is in the Christmas spirit. I heard that it is snowing like crazy in Utah and I miss it so much!! It has snowed once here and it was only a little bit so it was all gone the next day, so its just cold here, no snow, just cold. We are all happy though because Its Christmas time!!!!! HORRAY!!!! Things have been going really well here in Harlem and I have learned a lot of new things. Postivitey is key to happiness, in fact I think being positive is a form of having hope and faith which we all know is very important. Alma 41: 14-15 talks about living a good life and following the example of Christ and good things will be restored unto you. I took as if you have faith in something, Heavenly Father will help you to accomplish that purpose, as long as it is a righteous purpose of course. So if we are positive in good things Heavenly Father will most likely help us to see fruits and be able to bless us with those things things we are working towards. Never give up the positive attitude or the faith, it makes things a lot harder when you lose that and re-finding the faith is a lot harder then just hanging on to it. This past week I have been trying to have a postive attitude in the work and in being able to find new investigators. Then a wonderful thing happened and we began to teach this lady named Sharon Grant. Sharon was recently told by her Grandmothers church folk that she needs to be baptized to be allowed into heaven. I think this was a week or two before she met with us and it set up the scene perfectly for the message we had to share. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and asked her to read it and pray about it. She read it and felt a warm feeling as she read. She didn't get a chance to pray about it before the last time we met but she believes it to be true and is willing to be baptized on jan. 22!!! Now here is the wonderful news!!! She lives in Pennsylvania on the weekends!!!! Which means that we won't be the ones that will baptize her, it will be the Elders in the ward that she lives in on the weekends so she can go to church on Sunday. We will be able to teach her because she lives here during the week cause she works in the city. Its a wonderful experience to be able to help another set of Elders have the experience of baptizing someone. :) Its their Christmas present hahahaha. Well I know that this is a short e-mail but I don't have a lot of time because I have a busy day set up, we are helping this lady from the ward do a childrens toy thing and we have to sing at it so yay. I get to sing. I hope everyone is doing well and I love you all, I am sorry if I have not replied to your letters yet but I will get caught up one day I hope. Just bear with me and if I don't reply I will in 2 years :) haha just kidding I will work on replying to everybody because I really appreciate the letters that everyone sends me. Thank you for being you.
I love you.
Love
Elder Shepherd

It's Christmas time in the city!!!!

Hey everybody its really cold here in New York, its about 25 degrees today plus the humidity it feels like 10 degrees. Despite the cold we have been able to keep up on our work and already this week we have 8 lessons WOOHOO!! We have also had the pleasure of recieving many referrels for other missionaries and even getting 2 New investigators for the 2 other companionships in our district. We haven't found any news for us yet but we have high hopes that the Lord will bless us for working hard and doing our best. I have felt a little under the weather today but we slept for a while today so hopefully that helped, I really don't want to be sick for Christmas so please pray for me. Nothing super exciting has happened this last week or this wee so far except for the things I have already talked about. Elder Exilus and I met this really smart guy and talked to him for like 20 minutes about the bible and the need for the Book of Mormon. He was saying to us how the bible explains everything we need and by abiding to its precepts we will enter into Gods presence. I explained to him about needing a prophet and the fullness of truth which is contained in the Book of Mormon. He argued the point by saying that God would not let man take the truths from the bible therefore we need no other book. The whole time the guy kept trying to convert us to his point even after I told him we were not there to argue, all we wanted to do was to help bring others unto Christ. He didn't like that because he said that the only way you can truly become close to Christ is by reading the bible and following its precepts, and we were decieved in thinking that anything else could do that. It was actually very nice in what he was trying to do, he was trying to help us have the truth that he had and thats definitley a good thing. Unfortunately he was blinded to the fact that we also had truth. When all was said and done I bore my testimony told him he was doing a good thing in his own ministry and that I hoped he had a good day, then I walked away. Its definitley not worth it to sit and argue with someone about who is right and who is wrong, the best thing we can do is love them and try our hardest to help them in anyway. Its up to them wether they choose to accept the help that we offer. This gospel brings a wonderful change into peoples hearts when they allow it too. I remember the story of Alma the younger and how he and the sons of mosiah and been persecuting the church. Heavenly Father saw this and did His best to help them recieve the life changing gospel into their hearts. As we know an angel of the Lord came to all of them and spoke to them "with a voice like thunder" and told them if they did not stop persecuting the church they would perish. They all had their agency in what they were to choose to do, they could have stopped persecuting the church and just lived a normal everyday life not believing but letting others believe. Fortunately for us they allowed the gospel to change them and bring them to repentance through Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that He would make in the near future. I hope during this time of giving and recieving, helping and loving, we will all allow the gospel to come into our hearts just a little bit more and help us to change and bring us more happiness. Many of my wonderful family and friends have already let this gospel into their lives, but I know from personal experience that we can always let it in a little more. I love all of you and wish you a happy holidays, I am starting to miss home just a little bit, but I know I am where I am supposed to be :) Stay warm everybody and send me letters, I am greedy for letters, Ill admit it. I love you all and miss you. MERRY CHRISTMAS.
Love
Elder Shepherd

Christmas Packages

If anyone would like to send Keldon a Christmas Package it needs to be there by Dec 10th... Sorry I didn't post this sooner. Anyway, please send it to the Scarsdale address and write CHRISTMAS on the box :) Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Thanksgiving soul style!!!!

Hola!!!
I hope everyone enjoyed their thanksgivings and had lots of Turkey and other food that makes you want to fall into a small coma. Here in Harlem for Thanksgiving we got invited to lunch at a members house named Bro. Keitt. He is a really good man and feeds us lunch every thursday so for last thursday he had is home attendant (Estelle) make us a Thanksgiving feast. It was all so good I went back for seconds but that mistake cost me dearly throughout the day. Later that night we got invited to a feast at another members house (The Silvera's) and the food was so so so so good that once again I ate way too much. Then we went to Sister Watson's house who is a really good cook and she fed us once again. This time though instead of the normal Turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, thanksgiving food items she cooked Soul Food!!! Now I don't know how many of you have had soul food but if you have you know what I'm talking about, Its so weird!!! We had fish and curried goat, shrimp, collard greens, oxtail, macaroni and cheese, fried turkey, and a few other things I can't remember. All the food was delicious and cooked to perfection it was just weird to have different stuff on Thanksgiving, it was definitley an adventure to eat at her house though. Then after Sister Watson's house we went to the Gilmore's house and had pie which was unique and delicious, I have never had cranberry pie before but now its one of my favorites. After that I was done, I couldn't eat anymore and just wanted to sleep for 3 days. Unfortunately I could only sleep 8 hours and then back to hitting the pavement.
I love serving a mission and would never take back the choice to serve, it has been a huge blessing in my life to help me to come closer to Christ and understand the plan of Salvation just a little bit more. Every morning I get a couple hours to study the scriptures and make sure I am ready to help the people resolve concerns in their life and bring them closer to Christ. Yesterday I was reading in Alma 26 where it talks about how mission work is only accomplished through the power of God. Missionaries may be persecuted, spit on, yelled at, cursed at, and many other unpleasant things. They may even be put into unpleasant situations that they must learn from. As long as they have God behind them though they will always be ok and nothing can stop the work.
I love all of you and truly desire that all my friends and family continue striving towards Christ. This is the only way that we can receive eternal happiness and its the only way we can be with our families for time and all eternity. I know this church is true I know Christ is our Savior and I know Heavenly Father loves all of His children.
My new missionary ( Elder Excilus) who I will be training still is not here yet so please pray that he will get better so we can accomplish miracles here in Harlem.
Love you all and best wishes to everybody.
Love
Elder Shepherd