Elder Andrew Sheffield: What makes a good missionary?

Arrived Nov 25, 2015

Love you more than… American laws against disturbing the peace with loud music. Maybe it might sound a little negative but there are these announcer trucks that always drive down the streets with music and political advertisements and event announcements blaring so loud they literally shake the houses! I also love you more than the peach nectar/juice I had the other day that reminded me of summer family nights at home eating fresh peaches and ice cream.

Fresh coconut

This week in review. The zone leaders came to our house and watched us weekly plan and looked through out area book. We got a few strict words but I really love the guys! Elder Holbrook speaks with like a Russian speaking Spanish accent that cracks us up, and Elder Orellana from Gutamala? Speaks amazingly good English, he knows how to joke in English better than I know how to speak Spanish in general haha. In Carbonera we are working with Alecs, the 19 year old in college, again. He is a super nice guy, a stud and seems to be getting re-interested in the lessons after kind of a break. We also have a nice guy named Miguel who has had a hard life but him and his little family always welcome us and we are excited to get into the lessons with them.

Elder Dickson at our spaghetti activity with the Branch

We had a branch activity where a few members showed up and our mission leader, to so Elder Dickson and I ended up playing basketball against the delinquents/tigres/gangsters. We got beat but then Elder Dickson got super competitive and we won after a feisty-trash-talking game :) It was fun but I think well try to be more tranquilo if we play again. We had interviews with our mission President, which went pretty well. He is a strict but really nice guy. I feel like I’m able to communicate a lot better with him now, and I want to be good friends with him like Emily was with her president. We got flu shots from Hermana Castillo (Mission Presidents wife) and the mission couple, the Granges, and ate granola bars and juice. The disappointing part is that president pretty much told us we can’t baptize Yeffri because he is only 15 and doesn’t really have the family supporting him to stay super strong in the church. It’s hard, because he is so ready and the family is super nice, but we are trying to convert people not just baptize people who will soon go inactive. Hard, but the Lord works in mysterious ways.

One of the moths that is always flying around in the church

We seem to have re-interested Andri and should be getting somewhere with him again. Also our area of La Fe and La Eperanza has tons of potential with the amazing ten-year-old Yamile (her family is inactive so she could get baptized if we get the family coming back to church) and the twins Ronis and Adonis and a really nice family, the Almonte family. We had a district meeting (like stake conference) in Monte Cristi, which went pretty well.

One crazy but good fruit called Guanabana

The other day we had three meal appointments with a lunch dinner and the amazing family of Chachi who invited us to family night and made chocolate chip cookies with fresh (not amazing, but decent) milk. Hermana Marilis, who owns the Colmado (that is the mormon hangout spot I call the mormon corner) is still reading the Book of Mormon in English and made us one of my favorite shakes, papaya/lechosa. We are continuing the tradition of playing uno on p-day and even though we woke up early this morning to play ball with Yeffri, who never showed up, today has been good. Tomorrow us three Americans and one Dominican are planning a thanksgiving dinner of mashed potatoes, my homemade gravy I learned from Grandpa Anderson and mom and a pumpkin cake mix we found at our super market. We are excited for tomorrow and the countdown till Christmas.

Merry Christmas from Elder Sheffield

Spiritual thought: I was thinking this week about what makes a good missionary or a good person. I think our personal commitment or duty to obedience to God could be one of the things I wish everyone had. Before the mission, you think every missionary is a hero and perfect, but then you get out here and you realize how it’s not completely true. The mission and life are really mental/spiritual struggles. Do we fear man more than God? Do we sacrifice obedience for personal desirers? I love the scripture in Samuel that says obedience is better than sacrifice. OBEDIENCE IS NOT A SACRIFICE. MISSIONS ARE NOT SACRIFICE. Sacrifices come when we give up we want right now, and doing what we know to be right. IF we could always feel our duty to be obedient then Satan would be bound and not have power over us. Satan isn’t bound, but he is unable to exercise control over us, we bind the enemy of all mankind one good act of obedience at a time.