Breaking your heart over and over

Arrived Feb 17 2016

Love you more than….Muddy Buddies!!!! Holy cow! who knew that chocolate and peanut butter covered chex mix with powdered sugar could taste so darn good!!! Sheesh like best birthday present in the mission ever!

  

Chocolate cake waffle and frosting for Elder "waffle boy's" birthday 

This week was a good week! We are still working with my favorite family to get the mom back active and the dad to accept a baptismal date so the daughter can get baptized. Heydi wants to get baptized so bad and I feel bad we keep having to push her baptismal date back but she needs the support of her immediate family to continue coming to church and not going inactive. I think that’s a big goal with our mission right now, more quality over quantity. Cristofer, he missed church these past to week but he is super ready, just kind of a similar problem because he lives with his mom, all while his dad and step mom are the active members and also in the branch. Elder Bouwhuis and I are working hard to get new investigators since our last batch or lack of a better term, are never home and so we can’t ever share! The Caribbean “go with the flow” and “pass by anytime” feel is frustrating because we can’t ever get set days and times, people just about agree with any day we tell them. Sometimes I think people don’t have anything to do but sit in rocking chairs on their porches, blast their crazy music, play dominoes, smoke cigars or hide from missionaries. It’s like everyone is free until Christ and his teachings come looking for them, it’s like they think we are the CIA or something. 

Elder Bouwhuis is progressing a lot with his Spanish. Sometimes it’s frustrating when the people will straight-up tell him his Spanish is terrible even when I thought it was fine. We are getting to be good friends and we have fun and work hard. I think it’s funny how we either get really good contacts or really difficult people.

Lately we have been waking up early some days to work-out more. He has a new missionary appetite and yet we (and most of the mission) have a deathly fear of the Dominican rice belly. It’s like a curse that you hope you never get, but you pretty much eat rice everyday for most, if not all your meals. 

This week was another week though when I realized that the mission is full of awkward times and also breaking your heart over and over. I have made some amazing friends, almost like family, yet when they aren’t willing to change or don’t improve it breaks your heart. Luis and Angelina haven’t been progressing and its because Angelina isn’t very interested. Luis however is like my best friend and he loves reading and talking about the gospel and enjoys talking to me about dirt biking, paintballing, food, hiking. IT breaks my heart how many times he says he wants to go to church but Angelina (Wife) and family-in-law don’t want to leave the Catholic church. Every time we go to tell them we can’t pass by as often they feed us or something. 

 

Valentine's (and my birthday) Party with the Branch

I was thinking about how thoughts of ¨What if¨ or ¨If I had only¨ are like poison to the mind. There have been many times in the mission I’ve been thinking about if I had only been better at___ or if I had only shared___ or what if they had___. The more you think about things like that the more I feel like you lose confidence in yourself, in others and start to doubt yourself. I think this is a big part to discouragement and a loss in confidence in faith. I love a scripture that was shared in elders quorum the other day, 2 Nefi 4:19  I know in whom I have trusted in. Once we begin to trust Him, it should only strengthen us and increase our faith. From before we got here, we trusted him. I can picture in my mind Christ and Heavenly Father in Heaven sadly pleading for us to only trust. Like Christ said, “fear not, only believe”. Every time I hear that, I think of Elder Jeffery R Holland’s voice saying it. The best way to live, and the only happy way to live is to trust, even when it is difficult and hard, and to fear not. There is a silver lining behind every cloud and a happily ever after just around the corner. 

“I trust every man, I just don’t trust the devil inside him” Italian job 

“And it came to past that I am the best” Nate Sheffield

Asombro me da el amor que me da Jesus

Elder Sheffield

Christ will increase what we bring to Him

Arrived Feb 10, 2016
Love you more than.... Ice cream!!!! Last p-day after the mountain adventure we got some ice cream and it was soooo good! We have this place nearby that is pretty cheap and after a good long week of working, ice cream is like manna from heaven. 

 

A picture from our hike last week

This was a good week. It has been kind of a standstill with investigators, which can be frustrating, but it is the process. We have been trying to get more lessons with the people we have contacted but they never seem to be home. Everyone says “oh yea just come back at night or on Saturdays and Sundays”, but that means there’s still five days of the week that we are looking for lessons. The more effort you put into finding new people the better the result, but it has been a little frustrating that we haven’t found people yet and we haven’t been able to share with them hardly at all. We spend the days walking a lot in between lessons. Here, with the go with the flow Caribbean feel, we don’t really have set lessons. We just tell them what time we will return then they say yeah come back whenever we are normally home. It’s hard since there isn’t a lot we can do about it and if we just keep contacting we have lessons but not conversions. 

We have a really good mission leader in the branch, I think but I only have experience with one other haha, and he has been working hard to get the branch leaders and member more involved. We are trying to focus on getting references from members. It’s like a focus on quality not quantity. He always says “excitement elder we have to work hard”. It kind of whips me into shape because I feel like I have excitement but now I have to prove it.

 

My really bad tan lines; collared shirt line and t-shirt line

Elder Bouwhuis and I get along really well. We spend probably more time than we should talking about people and places from home we both know. We joke around a lot and still work hard. It’s nice working with new missionaries because they have such great faith and expectations. They still feel like they can conquer the world and that everyone is our next target for lack of a better term. I would say that I still have that excitement and hope but I think the more time you have in the mission you kinda’ forget it because you try not to get your hopes up to high in case people stop wanting to improve.

We have a handful of people really close to baptism like Cristofer and Heydi and a lady named Daisy and a guy named Leo, but there are just little barriers that make it so things aren’t progressing. Its like we are so close and yet we are just waiting ah!!!!

 

For all the teenagers, Dominican Zeppies (Italian Ice)

I really want to make these 12 weeks like amazing so Elder Bouwhuis can continue with it and have a good start. Sometimes it still feels like I do my best, but things could go better if others were here. But I think this is a good time for us to learn more about how we will be guided to people and the spirit will teach people if we have trust in the Lord and do what we are supposed to do. 

I just restarted the Book of Mormon and I also got into the New Testament and I’m in Juan haha, I mean john. I still am learning how to mark the scriptures because all my pages are just filled since I have the habit of underlining just about everything. 

Each time I read the story of the 5 loaves of bread and two fishes it hits me how significant it really is. I think it is important how Christ doesn’t turn stones into bread here or water into wine, but he increases what the people had, 5 small loafs and two small fish. (I start singing the scripture scouts song every time I think about this) Christ will increase what we bring to him, it isn’t what we ask to receive but what we offer and ask for improvement. There is also a Liahona article about gaining light, that just came out. It talks about how every good thing we do allows us to gain light, but the back things or our lack of obedience causes us to lose light.  If we will work to get rid of our faults and offer up what we have, we will increase. Line upon line, immediately and after the trial of our faith we grow as we walk shoulder to shoulder with the greatest person to ever live, Jesus Christ. 

The big red letter stands for the sheffield family oh..!!!

One year older and (hopefully) wiser 

Elder Sheffield 

Life Lesson

Love you more than….Exploring the rainforest like jungle and cavern in the mountain above my area! Today we went in the morning with an investigator to go hike the mountain. The investigator is a really cool guy even if he isn’t really progressing. The whole time I was thinking of Jurassic park, ancient Indian Dominican Lamanites and how the cold weather at the top is nothing like the snow covered rocky mountains. I have like a three ring tan line on my neck from white to sunburnt to kind of tan wearing t-shirts and the collared white shirts. 

One kind of funny thing though, is how we wake up to about 75 degree weather in the morning and it feels cold! I feel my friend Elder Porters California pain, the DR has destroyed my cold tolerance.

On the hike today, we found a chocolate bean tree (cocoa bean)
and I had some. It's nothing like chocolate but its good

Things are constantly changing here, yet it feels so natural. We keep getting fruit from an old lady member and so I keep trying new fruits and my Spanish is getting better, even if my accent is officially terrible with my fifth, including MTC, American comp.

Holy cow this week went by fast, and I don’t know if its necessarily bad or good. We have been doing a lot of door knocking which is really door yelling looking for new people who are interested. I don’t really mind it anymore but its hard that it takes time and it doesn’t bring a lot of new people either. The constant struggle to find the people the Lord has prepared and to place my beloved sons (my new companions) first Book of Mormon.

 

My new companion "mi hijo amado Elder Bouwhuis

Elder Bouwhuis is a really cool guy and although he is still in shock, I think from trying to take it all in, we are getting to be good friends. We often talk about people back home that we both know, places and experiences in Ogden. I really hope he doesn’t get discouraged about his Spanish or about having to walk so much everyday or that we are spending time trying to find people because I kind of got frustrated with all of that during training and it was hard. I was frustrated with my Spanish, my fear to speak and that my companion couldn’t help me really. I don’t know how to be the best comp I can be so any tips would be bien recibido. 

Recent convert that is a "Tigre" and reminds me of my brother Joshua

Kind of funny and crazy experience we had the other day. We were walking down a street in our neighborhood with nice houses and we went to a house with a lady on the porch and so we went up and talked with her. She was a little rude and professed her love for her religion so didn’t want to listen to us, we asked if there was anybody living nearby that could have use for to good lookin’ missionaries and she pointed us down the street. Coming back up the street we saw a man and my comp went up to his house to talk to him, right across the street from the soury lady. I was a little prideful and smug that we could teach someone and show her, but boy did I get humbled. My poor companion starts talking to the man in Spanish and he says in English “Wow your Spanish is terrible, I cant understand anything you are saying. It was understandable for sure but of course it wouldn’t be perfect.” He then gave us a "life lesson" because he is a "teacher of life". We got stuck listening to a man that was really nice however I would compare to the judges and lawyers like Zeezrom that faced Alma and Amulek in Book of Mormon. He talked about how life is hard and how all religions are judgmental and therefore hypocritical. He had really good English and knew a lot and just kind of set traps for people that are religious. The whole time listening to him I couldn’t stop but thinking of the wonderful gospel of Jesus Christ. HE would bring up a point and expound and I would just smile since Jesus lives, has given us prophets and personal revelation to guide us and that there is hope in something greater than us called the plan of happiness. We left humbled, but more firm in our faith and happy to be here. We joked how the hardest experiences are just the precursors to the miracles. My comp turned to me and said "like Nate Ford would say, you win some you lose most"

Talking of people from home, Essie Jane Stromberg is in the march liahona! Elder Bouwhuis and I both freaked out, It’s super weird seeing a familiar face.

 

A cavern we found on our p-day hike today

Spiritual thought. I was think about a few things this week. I am almost all the way through the Book of Mormon, in the book of Ether. The experience of the traveling of the brother of Jared and his family was something new to me.

The family traveled and got to the sea and were set up to start there way to "a land of promise" but the land the lord prepared, had to wait because the chosen people or the family of Jared weren’t prepared. The family waited four more years before starting the process building boats to cross the sea. The Lord said unto them repent because you haven’t been remembering me or saying your prayers. Life and missionary work is definitely like that! There are people, places and things prepared for us to encounter, but we personally aren’t ready. Imagine if every blessing from God and every prompting of the holy ghost was listened to, we would be so much better off because we would be like the Savior. Prayer and preparation go hand in hand. If we don’t pray and act to prepare, the lord has to wait to bless us until we are ready. He wants more than anything else to help, I know it and I feel it. 

Muchísimo amor 

Elder Cheffrllld  (Dominican for Sheffield)

Deep fried oreoas, a p-day night tradition