Re-found one on my favorite investigators

Arrived Feb 24 2016

Love you more than…Apostle talks! Elder Bouwhuis (my companion) got a package this week and got a flashdrive with lots of church music and like 100 talks from apostles so we plug in the usb to our little portable dvd player that all the missionaries have #whoneedsipads and get pumped up to work everyday. Because Elder Bouwhuis is in training we spent from 8 to 3 studying and listening to talks.

Well this week was a little hard but good. Or it has been kinda feeling that the area hasn’t really been progressing this past little while which is a little hard for not just us, but the branch. Our investigators never seem to be home and so we are having a little bit of a hard time getting members to come to lessons. I feel bad bringing members to lessons, which then fall through, and our back up plan is to contact. It feels like the members see this and kinda lose confidence/excitement. One thing also difficult is that since there aren’t street sign or house numbers and addresses, it is really difficult to receive a reference and find them or even contact somebody in the street. It seems like our two options are to house-to-house contact or to pass by less actives who are super kind but not willing to come back to church. I love when people go to give you directions to their house and its something like "green house next to the factory of cigars, by the little snack shack (colmado) and kiddy-corner to the lottery shack. If you have problem just ask around for papi" It does allow for the really exciting experiences of sitting down in random houses and sharing a brief summary of the restoration. 

We re-found one of my favorite investigators the other day! Wesley is 19 and after a super spiritual, teary few lessons of the restoration, he disappeared. We found him again and he was like can we read more from the Book of Mormon? Its hard finding people educated enough to read the scriptures well, but then again they are the most humble. The rich people can read well but are not normally interested so it’s a balance. Wesley was a reference from a menos activo who was always reading the Book of Mormon and talking about baptism with him! 

Amazing story:

One experience the other day was a new investigator that lasted two days, but pretty spiritual. He was telling us we can’t just claim things and not follow the bible, even though there isn’t anything we do contrary to the bible. I was pretty bold, maybe a little too much, as I explained that God calls prophets and wouldn’t just stop and never call them again. I felt the spirit really strong as I finished with my testimony. The Church of Christ has been restored. God loves us and has called prophets to help us. I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, this is the true church. This is the Church of Jesus Christ.

We have a new goal/rule that we can only have lessons with people who read or fulfilled the commitment we left with them, or else we just explain the importance of these commitments and go to plan B. It will help a lot to get people to progress, yet at the same time it will leave us a lot more time looking for new people as well. The work goes by a little slow when you aren’t teaching, and when you cant teach-  you look for new people. We are gonna get really good at street contacts, Dominican directions and prayer. 

The Spanish is going well and Elder Bouwhuis is getting super good super fast. The members and investigators will comment how fast he is learning. It’s nice to have such an obedient and hard working comp, it’ll be hard to get a different comp.

I got some new sheets and a rain jacket the other day so that’s cooll. I finished Jesus the Christ and am most of the way through the New Testament, after all these people who know so much about the bible I thought I could study a little more in depth.

Jacob it sounds like you are going loco with scouts and getting a lot of new pins, good job buddy. You look super old its scary. Samuel I played a little basketball today and thought of you; its super cool seeing pictures of you at MT Ogden Stomps haha! Those were the days. Josh I saw that picture of you wearing my snow coat, when I get home all your stuff is mine ;) Neigh how are you? I still can’t stop laughing at the valentines picture! Mom and Dad don’t worry about forgetting to send last weeks email, I never know what to write and I feel bad my letter are getting worse, thanks again for the package and the pictures and everything.

Love Elder Sheffield