Super excited for conference

Arrived April 6, 2016

 

Love the fam more than hammocking! We got permission to sleep over at our district leaders house so we could get to watch all the conference sessions in English! There were only two beds in the house, so I made a hammock out of my bed sheets. I should have triple layered my sheets because after 15 minutes it ripped and I fell through haha.

Responding to last weeks family email. Skiing and hiking red rock canyons sounded way cool and those Easter socks are cool too! Josh how are things going with SBO elections? You better not be putting things off like you did last year haha, you and Emily gotta teach me how to go rock climbing and we can go hammocking with real hammocks! Jacob sorry but I couldn’t stop laughing about how the dog threw up on you, there have been a few times on the mission I am glad I don’t have a bad gag reflex, good luck little buddy!

Starting this week we were super excited for conference and it kept us excited! We made a house contact the other day and the man named Elias was actually really nice and interested! I was shocked as he made arrangements for us to have a lesson when we passed by and he was still in his motorcycle repair shack. 

We had a really interesting lesson with a man named Antonio, that we had contacted a week or two ago. The second time we passed by, the sister was there and she was super kind and told us for a really long time how the world and youth and family need people like us. She is part of a religion that I have never heard of that really focuses a lot on families so it was amazing to have a complete stranger talk to us about that. Normally people think we are pretty great for preaching la palabra de Dios (the word of God) but aren’t super dedicated. So the third time we passed by Antonio was watching a cartoon program about different bible stories, which made a good transition into our lesson on prophets and apostles. We get to the first vision and he tells us he has a Book of Mormon. Some missionaries from 2000 had taught him and they did well. He told us he recognizes that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is scriptures. The interesting part is that he is Catholic like everyone else here in the good ol DR, but he told us he thinks one day Catholics will recognize and accept the Book of Mormon as part of the Bible. We are working on helping him understand what is the significance of the Book of Mormon and that it is true.

For Saturday general conference, we teamed up with our district leader in Villa Olga, teaching and inviting people to general conference. We made and ate cheesecake, and it was an all around good time. It was strange to get back to our area Sunday night after being gone, it felt like we hadn’t been there forever and we had lost some ground with the work. “I just cleaned up this mess, cant you keep it clean for just three minutes” (Mr Icnredible) kind of feeling. Cristofer still is progressing towards his date for the 15th. Not many of the investigators could make it to conference, Cristofer, yes though. He is basically a member already since his dad and step mom always drive him to church because they all live in the same neighborhood.

Johan is doing well, his wife (the less active) is amazing though! We shared Alma 5 about if we can picture ourselves in heaven in the last days. We asked what they were willing to do to have an eternal family. He gave a typical broad answer but Elizabeth said that they need to get married, keep coming to church and everything, ella sabe (she knows)! 

I am continued to be convinced that nobody below the age of 20 is super open to the gospel! If you can find a non-tigre teenager, they will almost always be alright talking to missionaries. The problem is parents, hooligan parents don’t have interest in gospel things sometimes ahhh! Elder Bouwhuis makes fun of me for avoiding groups of kids walking home from school, teenage girls and walking behind people looking like we are stalking them like the FBI. The kids are mischief, girls are constantly hissing (cat calls) and I dislike looking like we are stalking people, so I make us walk the long way sometimes. Elder Bouwhuis laughs and makes fun, but I just say it’s a prompting ;)

Last night the power was out so we planned by candle light

Conference was so amazing! I laughed at the talk about how its good life isn’t fair because that’s how Christ helps us, don’t worry dad, I still like your spiritual thought last week (all that is unfair .. can be made right) 

Some of my favorite parts of conference were:

You can have what you want or you can have it better. 

We mistakenly think if we forgive, then justice will not be made. 

Nefi (Nephi) recognized life would be most unfair to Jesus Christ. If life were fair there would be no way for us to stand before God. Through Him we can receive more than we ever deserved. 

I loved how Elder Holland encouraged us to not forget what we learned in conference. In the scriptures people go bad because they slowly forget, that cannot happen to us! Never forget and never fall! Like Holland also said, don’t get discouraged for not immediately living up to what we heard, we CAN improve and we get credit for trying even when we don’t have success. The slowest growing things in life are often the longest lasting. We were meant to last forever and we have a choice to work hard now, laying the foundation for how we will last forever. Fear not, only believe. Want to improve and He will unfairly allow you to become more than you deserve.

Love Elder Sheffield