Keldon was transferred and now has a new address. I updated it on the side bar :) He is now in New Canaan Conneticut So send all packages and letters there! :)
11 Spring Hill Apt D
Norwalk, CT 06850
Friday, March 4, 2011
In the land of the Canaanites
Dear family and friends!!!!!
How are all of you doing this fine wednesday morning??? I would like to hear how all of you are doing and what cool things are going on in your life, just remember that if you write me a letter you may not get a reply for sometime because I am really bad at that.(thats something that I said I would never do before I left, woops.) Anyway things here in New Canaan are absolutely fantastic!! Some really amazing things have happened this last week that have cause a lot of chances to me personally and to the mission in general.
The first big thing that happened was Elder Bednar came to NY and talked to all of us missionaries together. It was absolutely amazing to be in the same room with a member of the quorum of the twelve. When he walked in my companion tapped on my shoulder and said "Can you feel it?" The answer was yes, I could feel the change in the room the minute he walked in, he carried with him the spirit so very strongly that I don't think anyone in that room didn't feel it. I always thought Elder Bednar was a very serious guy but hearing him talk to all of us young missionaries I come to find out that he is actually really funny. As funny as he is though that doesnt take away from the message he had come to share with us. The things I learned in that meeting are things that I will never forget, he taught us wonderful things that will stick in my brain forever, but the most valuable things I learned, I learned through the power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost touched my heart and brought truth into my heart that would help me to become a better disciple of Christ. It was such a powerful, and wonderful learning experience and one that will always stick with me. After Elder Bednar talked to us we had the oppurtunity to shake his hand and say hi, I cannot tell you how nervous I was and definitely can not describe the way I felt when I shook that mans hand. Meeting him and seeing the kind of person that he is makes me want to be much, much better. I have a lot I can impove on and I know we all do, sometimes its hard to make those improvements in our lives, but the Lord wants us all to do better and when He wants something done it can most definitely be done. I encourage all of you to reflect and pray about some areas in your life that you can do better in, wether it be scripture study, praying more, working more effectively, loving more, it really doesn't matter. You need to take it to the Lord and see what things you can do to better those areas and improve them, then after you come up with ways that will improve that aspect of you life, DO THEM. If we seek without the intent to do, our prayers stop at the ceiling because Heavenly Father knows you won't do the thing your asking for so He most likely won't give you the answer. Their is a great talk by Elder Bednar titled "Ask in Faith" it talks a lot about praying with the intent to act and then showing your faith in that prayer by doing your best to accomplish the thing you have prayed for. I promise all of you if you will read this talk, and then ponder and pray about certain things in your life that could be improved, and then follow the counsel of your Father in Heaven in how to improve, you will see a big change in your life for the better:)
Some other really cool things have happened this last week. I don't think I told any of you this but the missionaries that cover the New Canaan ward also cover a singles ward called Waveny Park. On sundays we get to church at about 7:15 and don't usually leave until about 5:30 because all of the meetings and what not. So we were in the singles ward on Sunday helping some of the people get ready for the linger longer that they have after church. We were helping them get the food ready and also eating some of the food because we are missionaries and pretty much eat everything. So as we were helping I saw these 2 girls walk in to the kitchen and I thought to myself, those two girls look so familiar but where do I know them from. A thought popped into my head that I knew them from high school but no way was that possible because I was 2000 miles away from my home town. Well then they both saw me and then I knew that I definitely knew them. I knew both of these girls (their names are Erika, and Carissa, I may have spelled them wrong) from school, they were in some of my classes and I knew them both pretty well. They both came up to NY to nanny for some of the families that live up here, apparantely a lot of girls from Utah or other mormon communities do that a lot. So now I am serving as a missionary in the same ward that 2 of my high school friends attend, I'm not going to lie that it was a little weird because I am a missionary. Its really cool though and it was nice to catch up with both of them and see that everything is going well and they are both active in the church. Then after we caught up on stuff I used my missionary skills to ask them to find some friends that aren't mormon and bring them to church so that they can recieve the happiness of the restored gospel into their lives. Hahaha I love being a missionary.
Now on to the really really cool miracle that happened on that same sunday that I ran into my friends. Another member of the singles ward brought a friend to church and her friend thought it was really cool and is willing to learn more. I asked her what she is looking for in religion and she said that she wants something that balances out her life and really focuses on the family. She wants something that helps her spiritually, mentally, physcally, and in a family way also. After I heard that I got really excited and told her that she has just come to the right place. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her a little bit about the church, answered her questions, and set up and appointment with her and her friend on Saturday. Her name is Suzanna and if all of you could remember her in your prayers that would be super cool and very helpful. The Lord will definitely bless us in the ways that would best help us, all we need to do is be as obedient as we can be and trust in Him. Heavenly Father loves all of you, I know that He loves me, and I absolutely know that this gospel is something that He has given to us that will help us all find happiness. I want to hear from all of you and I love and miss you all. Remember who you are and what you stand for.
Love Elder Shepherd
How are all of you doing this fine wednesday morning??? I would like to hear how all of you are doing and what cool things are going on in your life, just remember that if you write me a letter you may not get a reply for sometime because I am really bad at that.(thats something that I said I would never do before I left, woops.) Anyway things here in New Canaan are absolutely fantastic!! Some really amazing things have happened this last week that have cause a lot of chances to me personally and to the mission in general.
The first big thing that happened was Elder Bednar came to NY and talked to all of us missionaries together. It was absolutely amazing to be in the same room with a member of the quorum of the twelve. When he walked in my companion tapped on my shoulder and said "Can you feel it?" The answer was yes, I could feel the change in the room the minute he walked in, he carried with him the spirit so very strongly that I don't think anyone in that room didn't feel it. I always thought Elder Bednar was a very serious guy but hearing him talk to all of us young missionaries I come to find out that he is actually really funny. As funny as he is though that doesnt take away from the message he had come to share with us. The things I learned in that meeting are things that I will never forget, he taught us wonderful things that will stick in my brain forever, but the most valuable things I learned, I learned through the power of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost touched my heart and brought truth into my heart that would help me to become a better disciple of Christ. It was such a powerful, and wonderful learning experience and one that will always stick with me. After Elder Bednar talked to us we had the oppurtunity to shake his hand and say hi, I cannot tell you how nervous I was and definitely can not describe the way I felt when I shook that mans hand. Meeting him and seeing the kind of person that he is makes me want to be much, much better. I have a lot I can impove on and I know we all do, sometimes its hard to make those improvements in our lives, but the Lord wants us all to do better and when He wants something done it can most definitely be done. I encourage all of you to reflect and pray about some areas in your life that you can do better in, wether it be scripture study, praying more, working more effectively, loving more, it really doesn't matter. You need to take it to the Lord and see what things you can do to better those areas and improve them, then after you come up with ways that will improve that aspect of you life, DO THEM. If we seek without the intent to do, our prayers stop at the ceiling because Heavenly Father knows you won't do the thing your asking for so He most likely won't give you the answer. Their is a great talk by Elder Bednar titled "Ask in Faith" it talks a lot about praying with the intent to act and then showing your faith in that prayer by doing your best to accomplish the thing you have prayed for. I promise all of you if you will read this talk, and then ponder and pray about certain things in your life that could be improved, and then follow the counsel of your Father in Heaven in how to improve, you will see a big change in your life for the better:)
Some other really cool things have happened this last week. I don't think I told any of you this but the missionaries that cover the New Canaan ward also cover a singles ward called Waveny Park. On sundays we get to church at about 7:15 and don't usually leave until about 5:30 because all of the meetings and what not. So we were in the singles ward on Sunday helping some of the people get ready for the linger longer that they have after church. We were helping them get the food ready and also eating some of the food because we are missionaries and pretty much eat everything. So as we were helping I saw these 2 girls walk in to the kitchen and I thought to myself, those two girls look so familiar but where do I know them from. A thought popped into my head that I knew them from high school but no way was that possible because I was 2000 miles away from my home town. Well then they both saw me and then I knew that I definitely knew them. I knew both of these girls (their names are Erika, and Carissa, I may have spelled them wrong) from school, they were in some of my classes and I knew them both pretty well. They both came up to NY to nanny for some of the families that live up here, apparantely a lot of girls from Utah or other mormon communities do that a lot. So now I am serving as a missionary in the same ward that 2 of my high school friends attend, I'm not going to lie that it was a little weird because I am a missionary. Its really cool though and it was nice to catch up with both of them and see that everything is going well and they are both active in the church. Then after we caught up on stuff I used my missionary skills to ask them to find some friends that aren't mormon and bring them to church so that they can recieve the happiness of the restored gospel into their lives. Hahaha I love being a missionary.
Now on to the really really cool miracle that happened on that same sunday that I ran into my friends. Another member of the singles ward brought a friend to church and her friend thought it was really cool and is willing to learn more. I asked her what she is looking for in religion and she said that she wants something that balances out her life and really focuses on the family. She wants something that helps her spiritually, mentally, physcally, and in a family way also. After I heard that I got really excited and told her that she has just come to the right place. We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her a little bit about the church, answered her questions, and set up and appointment with her and her friend on Saturday. Her name is Suzanna and if all of you could remember her in your prayers that would be super cool and very helpful. The Lord will definitely bless us in the ways that would best help us, all we need to do is be as obedient as we can be and trust in Him. Heavenly Father loves all of you, I know that He loves me, and I absolutely know that this gospel is something that He has given to us that will help us all find happiness. I want to hear from all of you and I love and miss you all. Remember who you are and what you stand for.
Love Elder Shepherd
New Canaan!!!!!
Hello Friends and Family
I am writing from the richest zip code in the United States, thats not bragging but I am just explaining what kind of place I am serving in. Its amazing here and I feel so loved and taken care of by the New Canaan members. I have a super awesome great companion who loves to work hard and have fun so I am really looking forward to serving with him for a while. Yesterday we went tracting on a street full of HUGE houses and it was way cool. Nobody let us in but we still had a lot of fun, I slipped and fell on the ice 3 times and one time I hit really hard, but we both laughed about how funny I looked when I fell. Elder Beswick didn't know what to do with me cause I kept falling over and stuff haha. We have 2 baptisms coming up in March, a girl named Sasha and a guy named Matt. They are both way ready for the gospel and have been prepared throughout their lives to be able to receive it. Its truly amazing to see God's hand in our lives and how He knows us perfectly well to be able to put certain things or people into our lives so that we may be influenced to come closer to Him. Every person that I have met that has accepted a baptismal date has had something in their life that has lead them to want to know more and more about God and ultimately leading them to the truth of receiving the fullness of truth contained in this Gospel.
People say that I am going to get fat while I am up here in New Canaan, the member feed us a lot and usually give us some stuff to take home. Since I got here on Thursday we have not missed a dinner appointment with a member, I fell really really taking care of. Oh and yesterday I saw Deer!!!!! Thats kind of random but its ok because I haven't seen deer since I left Utah and its really cool to see Deer!!! I don't really have any cool stories to tell since I have only been in this area for less then a week but I am sure that they next letter I send will be a lot better ( I think thats what I said in my last e-mail). Ok I have one cool story that is kind of spiritual too, Elder Larsen ( an Elder in my apartment) and I were on a split for a district blitz and we were tracting for the sisters. Well we came across this door and knocked and this huge guy opened up the door and just let us in. His name is Ramon and he is way way cool!! For a long time he has been searching for God and looking for truth, and every thing that he said connected to the message that we were there to share. We taught him a little bit about the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon and told him the sisters would be back soon to bring him one in spanish. Well the sisters went by that same day talked to him and they said he is way solid and definitely wants to learn more. I am going to keep up on him and finding out about his progression and it will be awesome to see him progress in the gospel. Sorry if this e-mail was confusing I am being distracted by a bunch of Elders talking around me as I write and since I get distracted very easily it is really hard to write a spiritual e-mail and have a lot of noise around me. I want to hear how everyones doing so keep the letters coming. I promise I will do better next time.. Love you
Love
Elder Shepherd
I am writing from the richest zip code in the United States, thats not bragging but I am just explaining what kind of place I am serving in. Its amazing here and I feel so loved and taken care of by the New Canaan members. I have a super awesome great companion who loves to work hard and have fun so I am really looking forward to serving with him for a while. Yesterday we went tracting on a street full of HUGE houses and it was way cool. Nobody let us in but we still had a lot of fun, I slipped and fell on the ice 3 times and one time I hit really hard, but we both laughed about how funny I looked when I fell. Elder Beswick didn't know what to do with me cause I kept falling over and stuff haha. We have 2 baptisms coming up in March, a girl named Sasha and a guy named Matt. They are both way ready for the gospel and have been prepared throughout their lives to be able to receive it. Its truly amazing to see God's hand in our lives and how He knows us perfectly well to be able to put certain things or people into our lives so that we may be influenced to come closer to Him. Every person that I have met that has accepted a baptismal date has had something in their life that has lead them to want to know more and more about God and ultimately leading them to the truth of receiving the fullness of truth contained in this Gospel.
People say that I am going to get fat while I am up here in New Canaan, the member feed us a lot and usually give us some stuff to take home. Since I got here on Thursday we have not missed a dinner appointment with a member, I fell really really taking care of. Oh and yesterday I saw Deer!!!!! Thats kind of random but its ok because I haven't seen deer since I left Utah and its really cool to see Deer!!! I don't really have any cool stories to tell since I have only been in this area for less then a week but I am sure that they next letter I send will be a lot better ( I think thats what I said in my last e-mail). Ok I have one cool story that is kind of spiritual too, Elder Larsen ( an Elder in my apartment) and I were on a split for a district blitz and we were tracting for the sisters. Well we came across this door and knocked and this huge guy opened up the door and just let us in. His name is Ramon and he is way way cool!! For a long time he has been searching for God and looking for truth, and every thing that he said connected to the message that we were there to share. We taught him a little bit about the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon and told him the sisters would be back soon to bring him one in spanish. Well the sisters went by that same day talked to him and they said he is way solid and definitely wants to learn more. I am going to keep up on him and finding out about his progression and it will be awesome to see him progress in the gospel. Sorry if this e-mail was confusing I am being distracted by a bunch of Elders talking around me as I write and since I get distracted very easily it is really hard to write a spiritual e-mail and have a lot of noise around me. I want to hear how everyones doing so keep the letters coming. I promise I will do better next time.. Love you
Love
Elder Shepherd
New Canon!!!!
Hi Everybody!!!!
Well this may not be a very long e-mail since I have a super a lot of things to do today but I wanted to let all of you know that I am working hard. I am also being transferred to an area called New Canon Conneticut which is a very high class place where many wealthy members of the church live. I am really excited for this change and looking forward to the new and wonderful things that will be happening while I am up their. Hopefull I will have the oppurtunity to see someone enter in the baptismal covenant with Heavenly Father. If not then thats ok because I am called to invite others to come unto Christ and if they don't accept the invitation then I love them anyway. I have been reading and pondering recently about faith and the power that it has in our lives. With an ample amount of faith in Jesus Christ one can do things that seem nigh impossible to most people. Our faith should constantly be growing throughout our lives as we continue to see the evidence of faith through the things the Lord has helped us to accomplish. If we just have faith in Jesus we will be ok. I know a lot of my e-mails talk about the same things over and over but I really don't think you can talk about faith enough. It is the first princple of the gospel and the first step in gaining a testimony of any gospel truth, the Holy Ghost cannot bear witness to us of truth if we do not have faith first. I have faith that every trial no matter how big or small in all our lives will be ok if we just have faith. I love you all and I promise that next week we I will send a much better and bigger e-mail.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Well this may not be a very long e-mail since I have a super a lot of things to do today but I wanted to let all of you know that I am working hard. I am also being transferred to an area called New Canon Conneticut which is a very high class place where many wealthy members of the church live. I am really excited for this change and looking forward to the new and wonderful things that will be happening while I am up their. Hopefull I will have the oppurtunity to see someone enter in the baptismal covenant with Heavenly Father. If not then thats ok because I am called to invite others to come unto Christ and if they don't accept the invitation then I love them anyway. I have been reading and pondering recently about faith and the power that it has in our lives. With an ample amount of faith in Jesus Christ one can do things that seem nigh impossible to most people. Our faith should constantly be growing throughout our lives as we continue to see the evidence of faith through the things the Lord has helped us to accomplish. If we just have faith in Jesus we will be ok. I know a lot of my e-mails talk about the same things over and over but I really don't think you can talk about faith enough. It is the first princple of the gospel and the first step in gaining a testimony of any gospel truth, the Holy Ghost cannot bear witness to us of truth if we do not have faith first. I have faith that every trial no matter how big or small in all our lives will be ok if we just have faith. I love you all and I promise that next week we I will send a much better and bigger e-mail.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Thursday, February 10, 2011
We may fall short of perfection, but atleast we can fall right into the Lords hands.
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
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
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
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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
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
Thursday, December 16, 2010
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
Love
Elder Shepherd
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
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
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
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
An Explosion of Craziness!!!!!!
Hey Everybody!!!!!
I have a lot to write and a very short amount of time to do it, but I will try to get it all in. So transfer calls came on Sunday night and 2 of the people in my apartment left out of the 4 of us that were their. Elder Palu got sent to Newburgh and is called to be zone leader, which is really crazy because he has only been out 6 months. He is a great Elder though and I see why the Lord needs him to be a zone leader. Then we found out that Elder Craig was going to be in New Pultz which is way upstate right by Newburgh so they will both be in the same zone. Then came the most shocking new of all, Elder Lawerence got called to be a trainer... its super crazy because he has only been out 3 months!!!! Then came another shocking update on what would be happening.... Elder Shepherd (me) got called to Train!!!!!! oh man when I heard the news I did not know what to think and I felt all sorts of emotions all at once.
So then on tuesday we all went to the kingsbridge chapel which is in the Bronx and we all waited for the new missionaries and the mission president. When they all arrived we lined up the trainers and the new missionaries and started pairing everybody off. Then is when I found out that the missionary that I am supposed to train is still at the MTC getting tests done because he was sick. He won't arrive in New York for the next couple weeks, so everybody pray for him that he will get better. So basiclly I am in a limbo just chillen with Elder Lawrence and Elder Goode, waiting for Elder Excilus to get here. hmmmm It kind of stinks but oh well I will definitly learn somthing. Woohoo Im excited to train but I know its a huge responsibilty so I will definitly stay close to the Lord and try my hardest to help him learn the best way to be a missionary.
Well I love you all and hope everything is going well. Please send letters. or packages :) i love you all and miss you!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
Sincerely
Elder Shepherd
I have a lot to write and a very short amount of time to do it, but I will try to get it all in. So transfer calls came on Sunday night and 2 of the people in my apartment left out of the 4 of us that were their. Elder Palu got sent to Newburgh and is called to be zone leader, which is really crazy because he has only been out 6 months. He is a great Elder though and I see why the Lord needs him to be a zone leader. Then we found out that Elder Craig was going to be in New Pultz which is way upstate right by Newburgh so they will both be in the same zone. Then came the most shocking new of all, Elder Lawerence got called to be a trainer... its super crazy because he has only been out 3 months!!!! Then came another shocking update on what would be happening.... Elder Shepherd (me) got called to Train!!!!!! oh man when I heard the news I did not know what to think and I felt all sorts of emotions all at once.
So then on tuesday we all went to the kingsbridge chapel which is in the Bronx and we all waited for the new missionaries and the mission president. When they all arrived we lined up the trainers and the new missionaries and started pairing everybody off. Then is when I found out that the missionary that I am supposed to train is still at the MTC getting tests done because he was sick. He won't arrive in New York for the next couple weeks, so everybody pray for him that he will get better. So basiclly I am in a limbo just chillen with Elder Lawrence and Elder Goode, waiting for Elder Excilus to get here. hmmmm It kind of stinks but oh well I will definitly learn somthing. Woohoo Im excited to train but I know its a huge responsibilty so I will definitly stay close to the Lord and try my hardest to help him learn the best way to be a missionary.
Well I love you all and hope everything is going well. Please send letters. or packages :) i love you all and miss you!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!
Sincerely
Elder Shepherd
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
O Harlem!!!!
Hey Everybody!!!!
I'm just here in Harlem having a good ole time talking to people and doing the Lords work. Its really awesome how important love is in this work and how important it is in life. Love keeps everything going, if Heavenly Father did'nt love us we wouldn't even exist let alone have a beautiful plan of salvation laid out before us. If people didn't love we would have destroyed oursleves a long time ago, however we could all do a little better at loving one another. Jesus told us that Love is the greatest commandment (Matt 22:37-40) so we should all try our hardest to love more and make this world a better place.
Nothing is really happening here in Harlem, we were teaching this great lady named Peggy who was going to come to church and continue to meet with us, but at the last minute she decided to go to her own church. Yesterday we were supposed to teach her but she wasn't home and wouldn't answer her door, we don't know if something happened but we are praying for her. We have a few other people that may progress but mostly our efforts are focused on finding. One of the Elders in my apartment said that when he first came out he had to come to terms that he was just going to be finding is whole mission, but he is getting baptisms every other week or atleast once a month. So far for me though it has been the exact oppisite, finding all the time everytime. Its good though and I know that as long as I am being obedient and desiring to build the kingdom of God, the Lord will bless me as He sees fit. Its really hard being 2 new missionaries together without an experience missionary but we have been learning a lot faster and doing a lot of trial by errors. Transfers are coming up thought and we know at least one of us is leaving if not both of us, we are really excited and a little bit nervous to see what going to happen.
This last week I learned the power of the Book of Mormon, not only by reading it but by just having it around it gives us a stronger spiritual force against evil. As we are walking through Harlem I try to always have a copy in my hand. I use it to show people how it is needed and they can feel the spirit as I bear testimony that it is true. Its made a huge effect in how the work goes and we have handed out a lot more copies of the Book of Mormon. I encourage all of you to read the Book of Mormon regularly and try to apply the principle into your daily life. Sorry if i don't have that many cool stories but it is really hard to remember everything that we did throughtout the week. I hope you are all doing great and I hope you all have happiness in your life.
Love
Elder Shepherd
I'm just here in Harlem having a good ole time talking to people and doing the Lords work. Its really awesome how important love is in this work and how important it is in life. Love keeps everything going, if Heavenly Father did'nt love us we wouldn't even exist let alone have a beautiful plan of salvation laid out before us. If people didn't love we would have destroyed oursleves a long time ago, however we could all do a little better at loving one another. Jesus told us that Love is the greatest commandment (Matt 22:37-40) so we should all try our hardest to love more and make this world a better place.
Nothing is really happening here in Harlem, we were teaching this great lady named Peggy who was going to come to church and continue to meet with us, but at the last minute she decided to go to her own church. Yesterday we were supposed to teach her but she wasn't home and wouldn't answer her door, we don't know if something happened but we are praying for her. We have a few other people that may progress but mostly our efforts are focused on finding. One of the Elders in my apartment said that when he first came out he had to come to terms that he was just going to be finding is whole mission, but he is getting baptisms every other week or atleast once a month. So far for me though it has been the exact oppisite, finding all the time everytime. Its good though and I know that as long as I am being obedient and desiring to build the kingdom of God, the Lord will bless me as He sees fit. Its really hard being 2 new missionaries together without an experience missionary but we have been learning a lot faster and doing a lot of trial by errors. Transfers are coming up thought and we know at least one of us is leaving if not both of us, we are really excited and a little bit nervous to see what going to happen.
This last week I learned the power of the Book of Mormon, not only by reading it but by just having it around it gives us a stronger spiritual force against evil. As we are walking through Harlem I try to always have a copy in my hand. I use it to show people how it is needed and they can feel the spirit as I bear testimony that it is true. Its made a huge effect in how the work goes and we have handed out a lot more copies of the Book of Mormon. I encourage all of you to read the Book of Mormon regularly and try to apply the principle into your daily life. Sorry if i don't have that many cool stories but it is really hard to remember everything that we did throughtout the week. I hope you are all doing great and I hope you all have happiness in your life.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Pivotal Moment!!!!!
Dear Friends and Family!!!!
I love thinking of the things to put on the subject line of the e-mail. That line has to capture the readers attention so that they desire to read the rest of the e-mail, and not to be prideful or anything but I think the ones I use are pretty darn good :) So this week was fun, I have learned a lot and become a better missionary, I think... anyway I hope everything is going well back home, I miss you all very much, but I'm sure you are all getting the point where you have forgotten about me :(. Just kidding. I love being a missionary even though sometimes it is really hard, I try my hardest to focus all my time on serving the Lord but occasionally I will get caught up in thinking about home or people back home, or random stuff.
This week I realized something really important, it really changed the way I looked at steet contacting and tracting and everything else pertaining to missionary work. The thing I realized this week is the importance of us all being chilren of our Heavenly Father. We ALL lived with Heavenly Father before this life and we ALL chose to come down to this earth to experience mortality and to be tested. This puts all of us on the same page when it comes to this life, we all forgot who we are and where we came from and we are all experiencing a test from Heavenly Father. So here is a few questions that I ask myself sometimes: If this man is my brother why should I be afraid to ask him if he wants to learn about God's plan of Salvation? How can I help these people understand who they are? How can I become more of who I truly am and not who my natural man is?
Those are just a few questions I came up with to help me along my path of being a missionary and a child of God. We truly are brothers and sisters, and for those of us who have recieved the truth of our divine heirship, we have a sacred calling. We must step up and tell the world who they are and what they can become. We must awake our brothers and sisters who haven't recieved this knowledge, to the fact that they have a loving Heavenly Father who wants whats best for them. If we won't do this, who will?
On monday Elder Craig and I had a great experience in being able to teach a lady named Peggy. She is a fantastic lady who really does know Heavenly Father and wants to become closer to Him. We taught her from the scriptures and helped her to understand the true nature of God's plan for His children and the importance and need of a restoration and a living Prophet. Throughout the lesson her countenance seemed to grow brighter and brighter as we spoke of God's love and how He has shown us His love. She got very excited about the Book of Mormon and will definitley pray about it and ask if its true. She is a member of another church and told us that she doesn't want to change because she has been a member for 16 years, but we told her that if she read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it, she would learn it was true and where Heavenly Father truly wants her to be. It was a great lesson and the spirit was so strong, even if she doesn't get baptized atleast we helped her along the way just a little bit more. :)
I love all of you and am praying for all of you to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and become more aware of who you truly are. We can all become stronger and closer to God if we just trust in the Lord and walk in His path.
Its really cold here in New York and its a bitter cold. Just to let all of you know I don't have an accent yet, and I don't plan on getting one. People in Harlem talk really funny and most of them have bad pronunciation so yea...
Love you all and hope things are good.
Love
Elder Shepherd
I love thinking of the things to put on the subject line of the e-mail. That line has to capture the readers attention so that they desire to read the rest of the e-mail, and not to be prideful or anything but I think the ones I use are pretty darn good :) So this week was fun, I have learned a lot and become a better missionary, I think... anyway I hope everything is going well back home, I miss you all very much, but I'm sure you are all getting the point where you have forgotten about me :(. Just kidding. I love being a missionary even though sometimes it is really hard, I try my hardest to focus all my time on serving the Lord but occasionally I will get caught up in thinking about home or people back home, or random stuff.
This week I realized something really important, it really changed the way I looked at steet contacting and tracting and everything else pertaining to missionary work. The thing I realized this week is the importance of us all being chilren of our Heavenly Father. We ALL lived with Heavenly Father before this life and we ALL chose to come down to this earth to experience mortality and to be tested. This puts all of us on the same page when it comes to this life, we all forgot who we are and where we came from and we are all experiencing a test from Heavenly Father. So here is a few questions that I ask myself sometimes: If this man is my brother why should I be afraid to ask him if he wants to learn about God's plan of Salvation? How can I help these people understand who they are? How can I become more of who I truly am and not who my natural man is?
Those are just a few questions I came up with to help me along my path of being a missionary and a child of God. We truly are brothers and sisters, and for those of us who have recieved the truth of our divine heirship, we have a sacred calling. We must step up and tell the world who they are and what they can become. We must awake our brothers and sisters who haven't recieved this knowledge, to the fact that they have a loving Heavenly Father who wants whats best for them. If we won't do this, who will?
On monday Elder Craig and I had a great experience in being able to teach a lady named Peggy. She is a fantastic lady who really does know Heavenly Father and wants to become closer to Him. We taught her from the scriptures and helped her to understand the true nature of God's plan for His children and the importance and need of a restoration and a living Prophet. Throughout the lesson her countenance seemed to grow brighter and brighter as we spoke of God's love and how He has shown us His love. She got very excited about the Book of Mormon and will definitley pray about it and ask if its true. She is a member of another church and told us that she doesn't want to change because she has been a member for 16 years, but we told her that if she read the Book of Mormon and prayed about it, she would learn it was true and where Heavenly Father truly wants her to be. It was a great lesson and the spirit was so strong, even if she doesn't get baptized atleast we helped her along the way just a little bit more. :)
I love all of you and am praying for all of you to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ and become more aware of who you truly are. We can all become stronger and closer to God if we just trust in the Lord and walk in His path.
Its really cold here in New York and its a bitter cold. Just to let all of you know I don't have an accent yet, and I don't plan on getting one. People in Harlem talk really funny and most of them have bad pronunciation so yea...
Love you all and hope things are good.
Love
Elder Shepherd
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Blessingz with a z!
Dear Family and Friends
Wooohoooo my first baptism was this last Saturday and it was such a great experience. It really does make all the hard times worth it to see the person step into the water and act in faith towards the Lord and be baptized. Elder Craig did the actual baptism and I was able to do the confirmation. I was really nervous because its in front of the whole congregation during sacrament meeting. It went really well except that the kid that was holding the mic accidentally hit me in the mouth, it didn't hurt but it just made a poping sound in the mic and it was kind of funny. haha. We continue to search out to find the elect who are ready to accept this gospel but the fruits are few and far between. We have been really blessed to find 2 this week already and we are praying that they will progress and want to be baptized in the future. I hope everyone is doing well back home and Thank you all for the letters and packages that I have recieved (Aunt Judy and Loni) I really really appreciate all the mail I get and it always brightens my day.
So this sunday ( the same day as Ronells confirmation) was the primary program for the Harlem 1st ward. The whole Sacrament was done entirely by the primary children and it was so amazing. The spirit was so strong and my testimony definitly became stronger through hearing the words of a child. The children really are our future and we must continue to help them find and stay on the right path, sometimes the youth think its ok to stray off the path so they can gain knowledge of what not to do. They think that if they leave they can quickly come back to the straight and narrow and be a better and stronger person for having strayed and learned what the "world" has to offer. They are sorely mistaken when they think this because it is much easier said then done to make it make on the path of righteousness. The straight and narrow is the way to eternal happiness and eternal life, their is never any need to stray from it or to let go of the iron rod so you can be stronger. The Lord is the one that makes us stronger, not the world. Everyday here in Harlem I see youth who live lives of destruction and sin, I truly do not have place to judge them for I don't know thier circumstance, but I can see the pain that it brings into their lives. Even though I don't know their situation I do know that the Lord and Savior has His arm extended to everybody, everywhere, in every situation. We can always choose to follow the Lord and it will ALWAYS be the best thing we can do. The Savior lives and He loves all of us. I am so blessed to be able to bring this knowledge to people each and everyday for 2 years. Even though sometimes it might become hard, frustrating and seem unbearable, we are all children of God and we all deserve to have the truth in our lives. I love all of you and pray for all of you. Sorry if I can't write many letters, i am working on getting more written but thier is a lot to do on Preperation day. Stay safe and choose the right.
Love
Elder Keldon James Shepherd
Wooohoooo my first baptism was this last Saturday and it was such a great experience. It really does make all the hard times worth it to see the person step into the water and act in faith towards the Lord and be baptized. Elder Craig did the actual baptism and I was able to do the confirmation. I was really nervous because its in front of the whole congregation during sacrament meeting. It went really well except that the kid that was holding the mic accidentally hit me in the mouth, it didn't hurt but it just made a poping sound in the mic and it was kind of funny. haha. We continue to search out to find the elect who are ready to accept this gospel but the fruits are few and far between. We have been really blessed to find 2 this week already and we are praying that they will progress and want to be baptized in the future. I hope everyone is doing well back home and Thank you all for the letters and packages that I have recieved (Aunt Judy and Loni) I really really appreciate all the mail I get and it always brightens my day.
So this sunday ( the same day as Ronells confirmation) was the primary program for the Harlem 1st ward. The whole Sacrament was done entirely by the primary children and it was so amazing. The spirit was so strong and my testimony definitly became stronger through hearing the words of a child. The children really are our future and we must continue to help them find and stay on the right path, sometimes the youth think its ok to stray off the path so they can gain knowledge of what not to do. They think that if they leave they can quickly come back to the straight and narrow and be a better and stronger person for having strayed and learned what the "world" has to offer. They are sorely mistaken when they think this because it is much easier said then done to make it make on the path of righteousness. The straight and narrow is the way to eternal happiness and eternal life, their is never any need to stray from it or to let go of the iron rod so you can be stronger. The Lord is the one that makes us stronger, not the world. Everyday here in Harlem I see youth who live lives of destruction and sin, I truly do not have place to judge them for I don't know thier circumstance, but I can see the pain that it brings into their lives. Even though I don't know their situation I do know that the Lord and Savior has His arm extended to everybody, everywhere, in every situation. We can always choose to follow the Lord and it will ALWAYS be the best thing we can do. The Savior lives and He loves all of us. I am so blessed to be able to bring this knowledge to people each and everyday for 2 years. Even though sometimes it might become hard, frustrating and seem unbearable, we are all children of God and we all deserve to have the truth in our lives. I love all of you and pray for all of you. Sorry if I can't write many letters, i am working on getting more written but thier is a lot to do on Preperation day. Stay safe and choose the right.
Love
Elder Keldon James Shepherd
This is my temporary Home!!!!!
Dear Family and Friends
Yes the subject line of this e-mail is a Carrie Underwood song, yes we can listen to it, yes i almost have the whole thing memorized because one of the Elders in my apartment loves to listen to it, no i don't sound like Carrie Underwood when I sing it. How is everybody??? I got a lot of letters and e-mails this week and that made me very happy!!!! Thank you everybody for the support and prayers that you have given in my behalf, but remember that I am only the messanger, please pray for those recieving the message that they will recieve it into their hearts and see the truth of it.
This week has been hard just like last weeks. It has been full of people who just want to argue and other people who just don't want to listen. I found a trick to stay positve though, I have started measuring my success by my own conversion. After every bad contact or after a solid our of people who don't want to listen I ask my self, "Do I know that this church is true more now then I did yesterday?" If I can answer yes to that answer then it has been a good day and if I can't then I just keep pushing myself till I can. Its a useful technique that I use on those hard days :) Something cool that happened the other day is this man named Leo who I street contacted into. He had all the right questions and had all the right docterines about God and the bible. For a few minutes I thought that he might be a member that was just messing with me but I never let it off that he was even after the 2 hour lesson that we had in the chapel. He gave us his number and said he was going to come to church, it was really an uplifting experience and made my day a lot better. He didn't come to church though and he won't answer his phone. Oh well atleast we may have helped him find the truth just a little bit more.
Ronnell is getting baptized this saturday!!! He asked Elder Craig to perform the baptism and I will be confirming him on Sunday, we just really hope he doesn't show up late to ether of those meetings. He has a tendency to do that a lot of the time, please pray for him.. This church is true and I love all of you and hope that you are all coming to Christ just a little bit more. keep sending letters please :) Oh and read Mosiah 18 very carefully, it is basiclly the covenant we make at baptism and we should all brush up on it.
Love Elder Shepherd
Yes the subject line of this e-mail is a Carrie Underwood song, yes we can listen to it, yes i almost have the whole thing memorized because one of the Elders in my apartment loves to listen to it, no i don't sound like Carrie Underwood when I sing it. How is everybody??? I got a lot of letters and e-mails this week and that made me very happy!!!! Thank you everybody for the support and prayers that you have given in my behalf, but remember that I am only the messanger, please pray for those recieving the message that they will recieve it into their hearts and see the truth of it.
This week has been hard just like last weeks. It has been full of people who just want to argue and other people who just don't want to listen. I found a trick to stay positve though, I have started measuring my success by my own conversion. After every bad contact or after a solid our of people who don't want to listen I ask my self, "Do I know that this church is true more now then I did yesterday?" If I can answer yes to that answer then it has been a good day and if I can't then I just keep pushing myself till I can. Its a useful technique that I use on those hard days :) Something cool that happened the other day is this man named Leo who I street contacted into. He had all the right questions and had all the right docterines about God and the bible. For a few minutes I thought that he might be a member that was just messing with me but I never let it off that he was even after the 2 hour lesson that we had in the chapel. He gave us his number and said he was going to come to church, it was really an uplifting experience and made my day a lot better. He didn't come to church though and he won't answer his phone. Oh well atleast we may have helped him find the truth just a little bit more.
Ronnell is getting baptized this saturday!!! He asked Elder Craig to perform the baptism and I will be confirming him on Sunday, we just really hope he doesn't show up late to ether of those meetings. He has a tendency to do that a lot of the time, please pray for him.. This church is true and I love all of you and hope that you are all coming to Christ just a little bit more. keep sending letters please :) Oh and read Mosiah 18 very carefully, it is basiclly the covenant we make at baptism and we should all brush up on it.
Love Elder Shepherd
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
