Dear Friends, Family, and dearest loved ones.
I am still here in Harlem, at least for another week because transfer call are next tuesday so I will let you all know next wednesday whats happening. Its a good chance that I will be changing areas because I have been in Harlem for 6 months, then again their is also a chance that I could stay here one more cycle until my companion goes home. I really don't know whats going to happen, and it drives me nuts thinking that I have to wait another week till I find out. I guess one of the purposes of a mission is to build up patience and the week before transfers is definitley one of those things. Fortunately if I do stay here in Harlem I will be able to be a part of 1 or more baptisms in my area Woohooo!!!!! This wonderful lady named Sonya has been working with the missionaries for about 7 months and is just barely deciding to get baptized on March 26th. It turns out that the major concern that she had about baptizm was she is afraid of water, but she has been praying for comfort and for the Lord to guide her in what to do and she decided she just needs to do it. She needs to start coming to church though, she used to come a lot but since the time of service has change to 1 o' clock she doesn't like that and has stopped coming for the past couple weeks. We are also going to be working with this guy named duke who has been coming to church regularly since I have got here and I totally thought he was a member, but it turns out he just needed to take his time in finding out if this church was for him. When he first started coming he had a lot of pressure from a lot of people to get baptized and that made him not want to do it, but know I guess he feels that its the right time. So thats where we come in, hahaha I don't know how excited he is to be taught by 2 kids who are barely adults but I'm sure if we just have the spirit with us everything will go fine.
Elder Irvine and i have been working really hard this last week and doing our best to help the people of Harlem hear about the restored gospel. Most of them won't give us a chance but hey atleast we help them to feel the spirit, even if its just for the 2 minutes that we are talking to them on the street. One of the members that was baptized about 8 years ago said that no one forgets the first time that they meet mormon missionaries. That means its really important to make the best first impression possible and help them to understand your purpose in wanting to help them come unto Christ. If they remember that the first time they met Mormon missionaries they felt something they had never felt before, they might want to find out why and what that feeling was.
Even though we don't have a whole lot of people to teach and we haven't been able to see many people get baptized or stay active in the church after they are baptized, doesn't mean that we don't see the Lords hand in our lives. Everyday I see something within my life that shows me that the Lord has a hand in my own individual life and the work in which I am a part of. I see plans fitting together so perfectly that everything falls into place, even if some of our plans fall through the Lord has something else for us to do. I am so convinced that if we just put our lives into His hands he will be able to guide us and take us where we need to be so that others can become happier and so that we can become better disciples of the Lord. I just barely thought of the saying that "We may fall short of perfection, but atleast we can fall right into the Lords hands." It may sound cheesy, but its so very true. All the Elders in Harlem call me Elder cheese because I have a lot of cheesey quotes and lines that I say. hahaha. I love all of you and I really hope that all of your lives are leading you towards Christ and His perfect hands. Stay safe and may the spirit be with you...
Love
Elder Keldon Shepherd
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Another Day in Harlem
Hey Everybody
How are you all doing? I hope everybody is working hard and loving life. Here in Harlem things are pretty normal except a few strange events have happened the past couple of weeks, some spirtual and some just weird. One of which was a couple of weeks ago Elder Irvine and I were walking down the road about 8:30 at night past this huge project and we past this guy and said hi to him. All of a sudden the guy was like "Hey guys do you want some free milk? It doesn't expire till the 25th and I'm just going to throw it away, so do you want it?" I looked at him for a minute and then Elder Irvine said of course we want it. So the guy gave us 4 crates of little kid milk cartons. Apparantly he works a community center and one of their rules is that they don't keep anything past a day because they get new shipments everyday. So here we are walking down the middle of Harlem with 3 huge bags of milk cartons and also a box of frozen broccoli. We packed our fridge with the milk and for the next week or so we were living large with a huge supply of milk. Unfortunately its all gone now....but hey maybe one day he will give us more. Then another weird thing that happened, only in NY of course, was this truck filled with pies crashed into another car and pies went everywhere!!!! Elder Lawrence and Elder Garvin were walking past it right after it happened and a bunch of people were just taking the pies with the permission of the truck driver. So Elder Garvin went and grabbed like 6 or 7 pies from the truck and walked away, he didn't think anything of the newspaper photographer that was snapping shots of him with pies stacked in his arms. The next day Elder Lawrence was looking through the newspaper for a new apartment because our apartment is so old we got permission to start looking for a new one. He stumbled across the cover of the Daily News and their was the pie truck crashed on the road with a familiar looking person. He turned the page and their was Elder Garvins picture of him taking pies, hahaha we all laughed so hard and news has spread like wildfire since then. He didn't do anything wrong by taking the pies but it was just funny that they got a picture of him. Anyway so other then pies and milk thats pretty much all the crazy stuff that has happened other then a few strange appointments that I won't speak about.
Now spiritually, yesterday we had an amazing experience while tracting. We were just going along knocking the doors of this apartment building and not many people were home, but we just keep going since thats what we do. All of a sudden we knock on this one door and this older lady opens up and prettymuch lets us in as soon as we said Jesus Christ. We sat down and talked with her and she told us of some amazing experiences she has had seeing the love of the Lord in her life. She has truly seen miracles in her life and has a strong testimony of the Lord. So we taught her the first lesson and asked her to read the book of Mormon and pray about it. She accepted that and said she knows that Joseph Smith was guided by God. We then asked her if she would be baptized, she said she has already been baptized into her church but would read and pray and would find out why we would ask her to be baptized again. Her name is Ethel and she is a really great lady who will hopefully find truth through her reading and praying. Another cool experience was with a lady named Sonya who has been working with different missionaries for a couple months now. She has been reading and praying and coming to church every Sunday with a member of the ward named Marie. For some reason though she wouldn't accept to be baptized and no one could figure out why. Elder Irvine went overthere on Monday and talked with her about baptism. She has a very very strong and accurrate knowledge about the covenant and promise of baptism and really loves this church. At first she said she just wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of the Book of Mormon and see if it truly is for her, but as we continued to talk and ask questions she opened up more. We finally found out what has been stopping her from getting baptized.....She is afraid of Water!!!!! So we finally were able to address the real concerned and on Friday we should be setting up a baptismal date with her. So miracles have been happening in many wonderful ways. Well I have to go now but I love all of you and am trying to reply to all the letters I have recieved, please don't disown me if I don't reply quickly. Keep up the faith and remember that the Lord is their to comfort us whenever we need Him, all we have to do is extend our hand.
Love
Elder Shepherd
How are you all doing? I hope everybody is working hard and loving life. Here in Harlem things are pretty normal except a few strange events have happened the past couple of weeks, some spirtual and some just weird. One of which was a couple of weeks ago Elder Irvine and I were walking down the road about 8:30 at night past this huge project and we past this guy and said hi to him. All of a sudden the guy was like "Hey guys do you want some free milk? It doesn't expire till the 25th and I'm just going to throw it away, so do you want it?" I looked at him for a minute and then Elder Irvine said of course we want it. So the guy gave us 4 crates of little kid milk cartons. Apparantly he works a community center and one of their rules is that they don't keep anything past a day because they get new shipments everyday. So here we are walking down the middle of Harlem with 3 huge bags of milk cartons and also a box of frozen broccoli. We packed our fridge with the milk and for the next week or so we were living large with a huge supply of milk. Unfortunately its all gone now....but hey maybe one day he will give us more. Then another weird thing that happened, only in NY of course, was this truck filled with pies crashed into another car and pies went everywhere!!!! Elder Lawrence and Elder Garvin were walking past it right after it happened and a bunch of people were just taking the pies with the permission of the truck driver. So Elder Garvin went and grabbed like 6 or 7 pies from the truck and walked away, he didn't think anything of the newspaper photographer that was snapping shots of him with pies stacked in his arms. The next day Elder Lawrence was looking through the newspaper for a new apartment because our apartment is so old we got permission to start looking for a new one. He stumbled across the cover of the Daily News and their was the pie truck crashed on the road with a familiar looking person. He turned the page and their was Elder Garvins picture of him taking pies, hahaha we all laughed so hard and news has spread like wildfire since then. He didn't do anything wrong by taking the pies but it was just funny that they got a picture of him. Anyway so other then pies and milk thats pretty much all the crazy stuff that has happened other then a few strange appointments that I won't speak about.
Now spiritually, yesterday we had an amazing experience while tracting. We were just going along knocking the doors of this apartment building and not many people were home, but we just keep going since thats what we do. All of a sudden we knock on this one door and this older lady opens up and prettymuch lets us in as soon as we said Jesus Christ. We sat down and talked with her and she told us of some amazing experiences she has had seeing the love of the Lord in her life. She has truly seen miracles in her life and has a strong testimony of the Lord. So we taught her the first lesson and asked her to read the book of Mormon and pray about it. She accepted that and said she knows that Joseph Smith was guided by God. We then asked her if she would be baptized, she said she has already been baptized into her church but would read and pray and would find out why we would ask her to be baptized again. Her name is Ethel and she is a really great lady who will hopefully find truth through her reading and praying. Another cool experience was with a lady named Sonya who has been working with different missionaries for a couple months now. She has been reading and praying and coming to church every Sunday with a member of the ward named Marie. For some reason though she wouldn't accept to be baptized and no one could figure out why. Elder Irvine went overthere on Monday and talked with her about baptism. She has a very very strong and accurrate knowledge about the covenant and promise of baptism and really loves this church. At first she said she just wanted to gain a deeper knowledge of the Book of Mormon and see if it truly is for her, but as we continued to talk and ask questions she opened up more. We finally found out what has been stopping her from getting baptized.....She is afraid of Water!!!!! So we finally were able to address the real concerned and on Friday we should be setting up a baptismal date with her. So miracles have been happening in many wonderful ways. Well I have to go now but I love all of you and am trying to reply to all the letters I have recieved, please don't disown me if I don't reply quickly. Keep up the faith and remember that the Lord is their to comfort us whenever we need Him, all we have to do is extend our hand.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Tractin in a winter wonderland
Hey hey hey my friends and family,
How are things back home? Is everybody safe, happy, and healthy? Anything new and exciting going on in the Utah or wherever else anybody has been? I'm loving being in Harlem, as always, and things are going really well in every aspect of the mission. Last week we found 3 new investigators, and taught 19 lessons!!! It was a really, really hard working week but as we can see if we show the Lord we are willing to work, He will indubitably bless us. None of our investigators have decided to be baptized yet but we are hoping a couple of them will be soon. A lot of times people don't meet with us once or twice and want to be baptized, except for a few people, most of the time it takes time to search, ponder, and pray about baptism and accepting all that it entails. A lot of the people I talk to who have been converted to the gospel took months or even years to find out for sure that they wanted to be baptized. This gospel is a learning and progressing gospel, we are all on different levels of knowledge, experience, and even commitment but that does not make any of us better or worse then anybody else. It is the purpose of life to continually utilize the Atonement to progress and become better, ultimately becoming like Heavenly Father. We also are supposed to help our heavenly brother and sisters to progress, without one anothers help and experiences it would take us a long time to progress. We have been given the oppurtunity by our Heavenly Father to interact one with another, as we interact we teach the things that we have learned, and also we learn from what others have learned. Its amazing to think of Heavenly Fathers plan for us and how it is so 100% perfect that ALL of us have the chance to recieve exaltation.
So anyway we have been fighting the northeastern cold for a couple weeks now and I am finally getting used to it. Yesterday the weather was pretty nice and it was only about 35 degrees and we were just walking around with our coats open and no hat or scarf or anything. I never thought I would get used to freezing cold weather but I guess when your serving the Lord a lot of things happen that you don't expect. Including having dinner with the guy who signed the backstreet boys. Haha thats right last night I had dinner with Ryan Wright who is a member of the church and he also works for sony. A couple of years ago he was in Korea and came across this boy band that everyone was starting to like, he immediately signed them and now they are world famous. If you want you can all go to www.mormon.org and look up his video. He is really cool and also a very spiritual guy, his friend Jean-Baptise lives in our ward and he was over at his house when we had dinner with Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste is also a very cool guy who is from france and has a great conversion story, that has to do with Ryan introducing Jean to the gospel and slowly but surely helping him to learn more. So as we can see member refferrals do work to bring people to the gospel, I hope you will all think of friends or even family that you could talk to and invite them to have the missionaries teach them. Well I love all of you and hope everything is going great.
Love
Elder Shepherd
How are things back home? Is everybody safe, happy, and healthy? Anything new and exciting going on in the Utah or wherever else anybody has been? I'm loving being in Harlem, as always, and things are going really well in every aspect of the mission. Last week we found 3 new investigators, and taught 19 lessons!!! It was a really, really hard working week but as we can see if we show the Lord we are willing to work, He will indubitably bless us. None of our investigators have decided to be baptized yet but we are hoping a couple of them will be soon. A lot of times people don't meet with us once or twice and want to be baptized, except for a few people, most of the time it takes time to search, ponder, and pray about baptism and accepting all that it entails. A lot of the people I talk to who have been converted to the gospel took months or even years to find out for sure that they wanted to be baptized. This gospel is a learning and progressing gospel, we are all on different levels of knowledge, experience, and even commitment but that does not make any of us better or worse then anybody else. It is the purpose of life to continually utilize the Atonement to progress and become better, ultimately becoming like Heavenly Father. We also are supposed to help our heavenly brother and sisters to progress, without one anothers help and experiences it would take us a long time to progress. We have been given the oppurtunity by our Heavenly Father to interact one with another, as we interact we teach the things that we have learned, and also we learn from what others have learned. Its amazing to think of Heavenly Fathers plan for us and how it is so 100% perfect that ALL of us have the chance to recieve exaltation.
So anyway we have been fighting the northeastern cold for a couple weeks now and I am finally getting used to it. Yesterday the weather was pretty nice and it was only about 35 degrees and we were just walking around with our coats open and no hat or scarf or anything. I never thought I would get used to freezing cold weather but I guess when your serving the Lord a lot of things happen that you don't expect. Including having dinner with the guy who signed the backstreet boys. Haha thats right last night I had dinner with Ryan Wright who is a member of the church and he also works for sony. A couple of years ago he was in Korea and came across this boy band that everyone was starting to like, he immediately signed them and now they are world famous. If you want you can all go to www.mormon.org and look up his video. He is really cool and also a very spiritual guy, his friend Jean-Baptise lives in our ward and he was over at his house when we had dinner with Jean-Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste is also a very cool guy who is from france and has a great conversion story, that has to do with Ryan introducing Jean to the gospel and slowly but surely helping him to learn more. So as we can see member refferrals do work to bring people to the gospel, I hope you will all think of friends or even family that you could talk to and invite them to have the missionaries teach them. Well I love all of you and hope everything is going great.
Love
Elder Shepherd
And blessings shall be poured upon thier heads.
Aloha Everybody!!!
I am sitting next to a sister from Hawaii so I was insprired to start my letter a little bit tropical, even though their is nothing tropical about the weather here in Harlem. The days are gray and rainy, and the ground is covered in slushy snow and puddles are literally everywhere. The only good thing about this kind of weather is that last Preperation day our zone went to central park and had a huge snowball fight. It was insanely fun and I even got buried in the snow. We left central park wet and cold but very happy, then we got to warm up by preaching the gospel that night. Marvelous things have been happening this week, for example we found 1 new investigator and have 3 or 4 appointments set up with potential investigators. So basically I am really happy with the way things are going here in Harlem. Elder Irvine and I have been working hard and putting our best foot foward, haha last night we even got into an apartment while tracting, which has never happened!!!! The lady who let us in is named Betty and she was so happy that the Lord had blessed her with a new church to go to, because of her knee she can't go to the baptist church that she used to go to. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her more and I'm sure we will see her at church. We have been meeting a lot of great people as we have been walking the streets of Harlem, they are super cool!!! The other day some random guy was walking past us and said Jesus loves you, so I backtracted and talked to him. He talked about how we are all children of God and we need to love each other, if we don't truly love each other then people won't be able to see us as servants of Jesus Christ. We must let Christs image become part of our countenance. Through these past couple weeks I have been working on having more charity, which ultimately is the pure love of Christ. It was kind of cool to have a random guy teach us for a change and I truly felt the spirit as he spoke to us and encouraged us to be more like Christ. He wasn't interested in hearing our message but I was pretty happy with the message that he shared with us. Throughout these weeks of doing my best to become more Christ like I have seen a huge difference in how the work goes and every other aspect of my life. We have been able to find a lot more people and the lessons that we have are much more spiritual. Last night I was teaching a lesson on the Book of Mormon to a member and her daughter-in-law and grand-daugther, and I felt the spirit testify to me that the words in Moroni 10:3-5 were truly inspired by God. I felt the sincereity that Moroni had when he wrote those words and how truly amazing they were. I know that if we try our hardest to become more Christ like then we will see blessing in our lives and miracles will happen. This probably isn't the first or last e-mail that I have or will write about becoming Christ like but sometimes we need to learn things a lot more times then just once.
Sharon Grant probably won't be getting baptized this weekend because we lost contact with her, she won't answer her phone calls and won't return our calls. The Pennsylvania Elders said that she wants to be baptized into the Harlem ward but has not expressed that to us at all so we don't know whats going on. Please keep her in your prayers because she progressed so much that we would hate to lose her. Please forgive me if some of you write me letters and i don't respond for sometime it is really hard to respond to all the letters that I get but I am trying. When your living in New York City often times you get really side tracked and unorganized so please understand if you don't recieve a letter from me super soon.
I love all of you and hope you are all doing wonderfully, I love to hear how your all doing and whats new in your lives. Please if any of you are going on a vacation to somewhere tropical please take pictures and send them to me, I need to see the sun soon or I might go crazy, in fact I may have already gone crazy..... who knows muhahahhahahah.
Seriously though please keep me updated on whats going on.
Love
Elder Shepherd
P.s.
Here is a list of things that I have learned in Harlem
1. Jesus loves everybody
2. We are very blessed to have all the things we have, some people don't have anything.
3. If you are not black DO NOT go into a store called african paradise, especially if your a mormon missionary.
4. If you choose to randomly talk to random people on the street about God and Jesus, be prepared for anything... literally anything.
5. After a long time Ambulance sirens, car alarms, and gangster rap music become soothing sounds that help you fall asleep.
6. Roaches are tough, but not as tough as a shoe. Atleast not anyones that I have met
7. Mice are smarter then you think
8. The Book of Mormon is true, no matter what anybody says.
9. The Harlem 1st ward is probably one of the most diverse wards in the world, not even joking.
10. Fire escapes should not be used as balconys
I am sitting next to a sister from Hawaii so I was insprired to start my letter a little bit tropical, even though their is nothing tropical about the weather here in Harlem. The days are gray and rainy, and the ground is covered in slushy snow and puddles are literally everywhere. The only good thing about this kind of weather is that last Preperation day our zone went to central park and had a huge snowball fight. It was insanely fun and I even got buried in the snow. We left central park wet and cold but very happy, then we got to warm up by preaching the gospel that night. Marvelous things have been happening this week, for example we found 1 new investigator and have 3 or 4 appointments set up with potential investigators. So basically I am really happy with the way things are going here in Harlem. Elder Irvine and I have been working hard and putting our best foot foward, haha last night we even got into an apartment while tracting, which has never happened!!!! The lady who let us in is named Betty and she was so happy that the Lord had blessed her with a new church to go to, because of her knee she can't go to the baptist church that she used to go to. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her more and I'm sure we will see her at church. We have been meeting a lot of great people as we have been walking the streets of Harlem, they are super cool!!! The other day some random guy was walking past us and said Jesus loves you, so I backtracted and talked to him. He talked about how we are all children of God and we need to love each other, if we don't truly love each other then people won't be able to see us as servants of Jesus Christ. We must let Christs image become part of our countenance. Through these past couple weeks I have been working on having more charity, which ultimately is the pure love of Christ. It was kind of cool to have a random guy teach us for a change and I truly felt the spirit as he spoke to us and encouraged us to be more like Christ. He wasn't interested in hearing our message but I was pretty happy with the message that he shared with us. Throughout these weeks of doing my best to become more Christ like I have seen a huge difference in how the work goes and every other aspect of my life. We have been able to find a lot more people and the lessons that we have are much more spiritual. Last night I was teaching a lesson on the Book of Mormon to a member and her daughter-in-law and grand-daugther, and I felt the spirit testify to me that the words in Moroni 10:3-5 were truly inspired by God. I felt the sincereity that Moroni had when he wrote those words and how truly amazing they were. I know that if we try our hardest to become more Christ like then we will see blessing in our lives and miracles will happen. This probably isn't the first or last e-mail that I have or will write about becoming Christ like but sometimes we need to learn things a lot more times then just once.
Sharon Grant probably won't be getting baptized this weekend because we lost contact with her, she won't answer her phone calls and won't return our calls. The Pennsylvania Elders said that she wants to be baptized into the Harlem ward but has not expressed that to us at all so we don't know whats going on. Please keep her in your prayers because she progressed so much that we would hate to lose her. Please forgive me if some of you write me letters and i don't respond for sometime it is really hard to respond to all the letters that I get but I am trying. When your living in New York City often times you get really side tracked and unorganized so please understand if you don't recieve a letter from me super soon.
I love all of you and hope you are all doing wonderfully, I love to hear how your all doing and whats new in your lives. Please if any of you are going on a vacation to somewhere tropical please take pictures and send them to me, I need to see the sun soon or I might go crazy, in fact I may have already gone crazy..... who knows muhahahhahahah.
Seriously though please keep me updated on whats going on.
Love
Elder Shepherd
P.s.
Here is a list of things that I have learned in Harlem
1. Jesus loves everybody
2. We are very blessed to have all the things we have, some people don't have anything.
3. If you are not black DO NOT go into a store called african paradise, especially if your a mormon missionary.
4. If you choose to randomly talk to random people on the street about God and Jesus, be prepared for anything... literally anything.
5. After a long time Ambulance sirens, car alarms, and gangster rap music become soothing sounds that help you fall asleep.
6. Roaches are tough, but not as tough as a shoe. Atleast not anyones that I have met
7. Mice are smarter then you think
8. The Book of Mormon is true, no matter what anybody says.
9. The Harlem 1st ward is probably one of the most diverse wards in the world, not even joking.
10. Fire escapes should not be used as balconys
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Harlem nights and Harlem days.
Hello family and friends!!!
I hope everyone is been doing fantastic lately. I have been getting some awesome letters from a lot of people and I would like to thank all of you who have been sending letters and stuff. When missionaries get letters it really motivates us and helps us to know that our loved ones know where we are and love and support us. So thank you everyone and yes I hope you are all having a super great week.
Things are interesting here in Harlem, my new companion is named Elder Irvine and he goes home in about 3 months. Its awesome to be able to get a perspective on missionary work from someone who know so much, then again when your about to go home in 3 months sometimes its hard to stay motivated. We are working hard though and this week we have found a few people who may be interested in hearing the message. Also the lady who we have been working with has not been able to meet with us in a while and their may be a few complications with her and her daughters getting baptized. If everyone could please pray for them that would be super awesome, we need as much help as we can get. Not many spiritually uplifting experiences have happened this week, but hopefully this next week we will see a miracle and have an awesome burst of spiritual awesomeness!!! Something awesome and cool that we did see this week is a Hawk!!! One night we were walking through a project on our way to look up a fromer investigator and suddenly we saw a hawk sitting on a fence just staring at everyone who walked by. We walked right up to it (after a few minutes of standing there in shock) and we took a bunch of pictures. Then we went into the apartment and did the look up. After we got rejected and walked out of the project their was a bunch of guys standing around freaking out about the hawk. They all seemed really gangster and were all afraid of the hawk. We started walking toward the hawk and they all were like " Do you see that thing!? it will tear you apart!" So we told them it wouldn't bother them if they didn't bother it and so they followed us as we walked past. As we were walking past they were saying that they were going to punch it if it came after them, haha it was super hilarious and really showed us how truly gangster Harlem gangster are. They don't even dare go near a little bird with sharp claws, but the little missionaries from Utah and Cali dare to be wild and stand up close and personal with the dangerous bird of prey. Shows how much strength the Lord gives us haha. Anyway though this e-mail is going to be really short but I love all of you and hope to hear more from you guys. Love you.
-Elder Shepherd
I hope everyone is been doing fantastic lately. I have been getting some awesome letters from a lot of people and I would like to thank all of you who have been sending letters and stuff. When missionaries get letters it really motivates us and helps us to know that our loved ones know where we are and love and support us. So thank you everyone and yes I hope you are all having a super great week.
Things are interesting here in Harlem, my new companion is named Elder Irvine and he goes home in about 3 months. Its awesome to be able to get a perspective on missionary work from someone who know so much, then again when your about to go home in 3 months sometimes its hard to stay motivated. We are working hard though and this week we have found a few people who may be interested in hearing the message. Also the lady who we have been working with has not been able to meet with us in a while and their may be a few complications with her and her daughters getting baptized. If everyone could please pray for them that would be super awesome, we need as much help as we can get. Not many spiritually uplifting experiences have happened this week, but hopefully this next week we will see a miracle and have an awesome burst of spiritual awesomeness!!! Something awesome and cool that we did see this week is a Hawk!!! One night we were walking through a project on our way to look up a fromer investigator and suddenly we saw a hawk sitting on a fence just staring at everyone who walked by. We walked right up to it (after a few minutes of standing there in shock) and we took a bunch of pictures. Then we went into the apartment and did the look up. After we got rejected and walked out of the project their was a bunch of guys standing around freaking out about the hawk. They all seemed really gangster and were all afraid of the hawk. We started walking toward the hawk and they all were like " Do you see that thing!? it will tear you apart!" So we told them it wouldn't bother them if they didn't bother it and so they followed us as we walked past. As we were walking past they were saying that they were going to punch it if it came after them, haha it was super hilarious and really showed us how truly gangster Harlem gangster are. They don't even dare go near a little bird with sharp claws, but the little missionaries from Utah and Cali dare to be wild and stand up close and personal with the dangerous bird of prey. Shows how much strength the Lord gives us haha. Anyway though this e-mail is going to be really short but I love all of you and hope to hear more from you guys. Love you.
-Elder Shepherd
2011!!!
Hello Everybody!!!
I hope everyone is having a fantastic 2011 thus far into it. I know that mine has been some what exciting and will continue to be different. Last night we got transfer calls and I am staying in Harlem. My companion will be going up to pigskill which is near conneticut, the reason he is leaving after only one cycle is because before the mission he had hernia surgery and all the walking is not good for it. So my new companion is Elder Irvine who seems to have mixed feelings about me, lets just say whenever we have been near each other he hasn't enjoyed it. I am way excited and I have a feeling Elder Irvine will be one of my most favorite companions on my mission, hahaha even if he doesn't know it yet. Anyway Elder Lawrence who came into the mission with me, and who also trained after only 2 cycles, his companion also has a problem with all the walking that is done in Harlem and is also going upstate. His new companion is Elder Garvin who also came into the mission with us and is currently Elder Irvines companion. So basically they are splitting up their companionship and putting them with us. They have been serving in South Manhattan which is SO much different then Harlem that they will most likely have shell shock. Elder Lawrence has also been called to be the new district leader which is really awesome because their are going to be 2 older missionaries in the district. He is a great Elder and will do a fantastic job. Thats really all thats going on here, no new investigators this last week for us anyway. We did get a baptismal date for another companionship and plenty of other refferalls for other missionaries but very few for ourselves. Its ok though because this gospel is not a selfish thing and so its good to help others out in their work and give them people to teach. Sharon Grant is still on date for the 22nd and is still a golden investigator, the PA elders are really happy that a miracle just fell into their laps hahaha. Christ is probably not going to be baptized because he didn't come to church on Sunday and just doesn't seem to commited, but I have still have hope in my heart that he will one day take that step into the water.
I think the thing that I have been learning most these past couple weeks is humility and faith. Humility because lately I have been being a tad bit prideful and been putting myself above others. The Lord has seen this and has given me humbling experiences that will last me a lifetime. Its so important to be humble and willing to learn from one another. We are all children of God, none of us are perfect, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, why not learn from each other and better ourselves through the things that other people can teach us. I know that if we will just open our hearts, eyes, and ears we will be able to recognize different things in our lives in which we can gain knowledge from. It could be the most simplest thing too, and you never would have expected to learn from it but the Lord has a deeper understanding and teaches us when and from things that we least expect. Also I have been learning faith in Jesus Christ, and to trust Him no matter what. This whole cycle has been a really tough one full of an empty teaching pool and a planner full of names and numbers for other missionaries. This has been one of the most humbling and faithbuilding experiences in my life. The reason it has given me a boost of strength is because I have had to put my trust in the Lord and just go to work. Without the Lord I would have given up and handed in the tag by now, but day after day I must go out on the streets of Harlem and raise my voice to the people, the only way I could do this is with strength from the Lord. Many people reject this glad message, and many people are afraid of or not ready to change their life. So many people tell us that they are willing to meet with us and then just disappear, but this is still the Lords work. The Lord is here with us and helping us day after day and I must have faith and truly trust that He is. As long as we are improving even in the slightest and continueing to obey and show Him our faith through our works, He will guide this work, He will help us in our needs, and He will bless us with the things that our best. I truly love all of you and desire for all of you to more fully put your faith in the Lord and just move foward with your hands in His hands. I hope you are all doing well and staying out of trouble. Love you and miss you all.
Love
Elder Shepherd
I hope everyone is having a fantastic 2011 thus far into it. I know that mine has been some what exciting and will continue to be different. Last night we got transfer calls and I am staying in Harlem. My companion will be going up to pigskill which is near conneticut, the reason he is leaving after only one cycle is because before the mission he had hernia surgery and all the walking is not good for it. So my new companion is Elder Irvine who seems to have mixed feelings about me, lets just say whenever we have been near each other he hasn't enjoyed it. I am way excited and I have a feeling Elder Irvine will be one of my most favorite companions on my mission, hahaha even if he doesn't know it yet. Anyway Elder Lawrence who came into the mission with me, and who also trained after only 2 cycles, his companion also has a problem with all the walking that is done in Harlem and is also going upstate. His new companion is Elder Garvin who also came into the mission with us and is currently Elder Irvines companion. So basically they are splitting up their companionship and putting them with us. They have been serving in South Manhattan which is SO much different then Harlem that they will most likely have shell shock. Elder Lawrence has also been called to be the new district leader which is really awesome because their are going to be 2 older missionaries in the district. He is a great Elder and will do a fantastic job. Thats really all thats going on here, no new investigators this last week for us anyway. We did get a baptismal date for another companionship and plenty of other refferalls for other missionaries but very few for ourselves. Its ok though because this gospel is not a selfish thing and so its good to help others out in their work and give them people to teach. Sharon Grant is still on date for the 22nd and is still a golden investigator, the PA elders are really happy that a miracle just fell into their laps hahaha. Christ is probably not going to be baptized because he didn't come to church on Sunday and just doesn't seem to commited, but I have still have hope in my heart that he will one day take that step into the water.
I think the thing that I have been learning most these past couple weeks is humility and faith. Humility because lately I have been being a tad bit prideful and been putting myself above others. The Lord has seen this and has given me humbling experiences that will last me a lifetime. Its so important to be humble and willing to learn from one another. We are all children of God, none of us are perfect, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, why not learn from each other and better ourselves through the things that other people can teach us. I know that if we will just open our hearts, eyes, and ears we will be able to recognize different things in our lives in which we can gain knowledge from. It could be the most simplest thing too, and you never would have expected to learn from it but the Lord has a deeper understanding and teaches us when and from things that we least expect. Also I have been learning faith in Jesus Christ, and to trust Him no matter what. This whole cycle has been a really tough one full of an empty teaching pool and a planner full of names and numbers for other missionaries. This has been one of the most humbling and faithbuilding experiences in my life. The reason it has given me a boost of strength is because I have had to put my trust in the Lord and just go to work. Without the Lord I would have given up and handed in the tag by now, but day after day I must go out on the streets of Harlem and raise my voice to the people, the only way I could do this is with strength from the Lord. Many people reject this glad message, and many people are afraid of or not ready to change their life. So many people tell us that they are willing to meet with us and then just disappear, but this is still the Lords work. The Lord is here with us and helping us day after day and I must have faith and truly trust that He is. As long as we are improving even in the slightest and continueing to obey and show Him our faith through our works, He will guide this work, He will help us in our needs, and He will bless us with the things that our best. I truly love all of you and desire for all of you to more fully put your faith in the Lord and just move foward with your hands in His hands. I hope you are all doing well and staying out of trouble. Love you and miss you all.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Happy New Year!!!
Sorry if this e-mail is a little late, President decided to move our Preperation Day from wednesday to saturday because everyone in NY would be recovering from partying last night. I hope everyone was able to have a wonderful time bringing in the New Year, and I hope everybody has awesome resolutions to help them have a better year this next year. I also hope everyone had a great Christmas and got to spend time with their families and loved ones. I know that this Christmas I really learned how important my family and loved ones are to me in my life, I guess the saying is true that absence makes the heart grow stronger. I had a great Christmas though and got to spend most of the day with all the missionaries from the NY NY North Mission and it was awesome. President Smith read us an awesome story called the Little Shepherd (yes the story was entirally about me :) jk) It was about this little boy that was crippled and the son of one of the shepherds who had witnessed the Saviors birth. The little boy wished desperately that he could witness such a miracle but in reality he was just a crippled young shepherd. Then a man showed up and the young shepherd invited him to share his food with him. Throughout the story the young boy learns more about the man and soon finds out that tonight is the mans birthday, strangely the man is not to excited about this and says that his journey must soon end. The boy then shares the cake his mother had baked for him and the man is deeply touched, as the man goes to leave he lays his hand on the boys shoulder and smiles then he walks away. After that moment the boy was no longer crippled. It was such an awesome story and really made me think of what it would be like to meet the Savior. I then realized that we will all get the chance to meet Him and its important on to know what we will be able to tell Him. Ether we will be able to tell Him that we did our best in this life to follow Him, or we might say that we didn't do enough. At this New Year I think it would be awesome if everybody in the whole wide world thought about what it will be like to see and talk to the Savior. I think a lot of New years resolutions would be focused around following Him more, not just in words but in actions also. We must learn and grow to be more like the Savior in all things. Alma 42 talks about this time being a time a probation and we should all be preparing to meet God. Lets all prepare ourselves YAY!!!!!!
Well some news about people we are teaching: Sharon Grant an awesome lady who lives in PA on the weekends is getting baptized on the 22nd in PA. We are teaching her during the week and the Elders in PA are teaching her on the weekends. She is a solid investigator and is super cool, everything we ask her to read she reads and is so so so solid. Her daughters might be getting baptized too so pray for them that they will gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon like their mother did and they will commit to being baptized. So yea Sharon is awesome but their is also another investigator is pretty awesome. His name is Christ....thats right his name is Christ. He is hopefully going to be baptized on the 29th and his girlfriend (hopefully soon to be wife) may also be baptized. Thats pretty much all that we are teaching but we are doing some fun things to find new people. Yesterday we made a 5-foot tall Book of Mormon and did some street contacting around it, Mom you would be proud of your son because it was my idea and I put my artistic side to use. Also a couple days ago we used to snow to write on the wall of this abandoned house "READ THE BOOK OF MORMON" hahah I hope people heed the advice of the wall and search us out and ask us for a free Book of Mormon. Oh and I also made dog out of snow that looked like it was peeing on the fire hydrant. hahaha that last one didn't really invite others to come unto Christ but it was pretty funny. Well I am running out of time and I have a lot to do today. So I love you all and I hope you are having a great day.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Well some news about people we are teaching: Sharon Grant an awesome lady who lives in PA on the weekends is getting baptized on the 22nd in PA. We are teaching her during the week and the Elders in PA are teaching her on the weekends. She is a solid investigator and is super cool, everything we ask her to read she reads and is so so so solid. Her daughters might be getting baptized too so pray for them that they will gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon like their mother did and they will commit to being baptized. So yea Sharon is awesome but their is also another investigator is pretty awesome. His name is Christ....thats right his name is Christ. He is hopefully going to be baptized on the 29th and his girlfriend (hopefully soon to be wife) may also be baptized. Thats pretty much all that we are teaching but we are doing some fun things to find new people. Yesterday we made a 5-foot tall Book of Mormon and did some street contacting around it, Mom you would be proud of your son because it was my idea and I put my artistic side to use. Also a couple days ago we used to snow to write on the wall of this abandoned house "READ THE BOOK OF MORMON" hahah I hope people heed the advice of the wall and search us out and ask us for a free Book of Mormon. Oh and I also made dog out of snow that looked like it was peeing on the fire hydrant. hahaha that last one didn't really invite others to come unto Christ but it was pretty funny. Well I am running out of time and I have a lot to do today. So I love you all and I hope you are having a great day.
Love
Elder Shepherd
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