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

I'm a Dad- I'm training a new companion

Arrived Jan 27, 2016

Love you more than… A lot of things. Carambola (star fruit juice), chichiguas which are the little Dominican kid kites, made from bamboo/twigs and grocery plastic bags, the little bit of baja blast I snitched from Elder Jeppesen and the smell of rain. Every week I can’t decide what thing to pick, so this week I chose a few.

A painting of Christ looking over Santiago

Well this week was absolutely ridiculous with how things have changed. I’ll start with an amazing experience with a golden investigator, but I wont tell you his name because whenever we do the missionary curse comes and something happens to them. 

So we had the big world-wide Preach My Gospel training broadcast last Wednesday. It was rally good, even though it was like Preach My Gospel word for word. I think sometimes we as missionaries forget its significance and its contents, so this was nice to bring up some of the bigger points in it. It had a lot to do with finding people and then bringing the spirit to people so they can feel the desire to find out more. It was almost depressing, yet really inspiring at the same time to think of all the possibilities. Elder Jeppesen and I had a few investigators stop coming through, so we needed some new people. In this mission it’s a sign that it’s a difficult time, when you schedule an hour or two for contactando/door to door knocking (or whatever its called in emglish) on the days schedule. Jeppesen and I passed by an old man investigator who was kind of like our last option kind of person, who we didn’t think would be interested. The seventy year old has a member son who fell away and now wants to change his life. The old man is curious about baptism and wants to get baptized so we taught a spontaneous lesson on baptism! The man is on crutches but really wants to go to church, so we will see how it goes. The son bore his testimony how he has always known the truth, even though he fell into some bad things, he now wants to change his life and is going to head to the temple with the branch even though he will just sit on the grounds without a recommend! That’s not the half of it though! The son has a friend who he was talking to about baptism and the church!  The son is so blatantly honest its amazing, and he gave the friend a Book of Mormon who dizque (supposedly) has been reading and is into 2nd Nephi. The friend is 19 and he came over and we set a date to return. We were pumped! When we came back to teach we asked if he had any questions and believe it or not he asked why there are so many churches in the world! I didn’t even know people actually asked that, it was just something we as missionaries focus on in the restoration lesson. He was asking the perfect questions almost faster than we could teach! It seems almost too good to be true, so I’m trying to not get my hopes up to much but at the same time have faith that the Lord will see us through. 

Speaking of the Lord seeing us through, his perspective for what should happen this new transfer, starting today, was totally different than my idea. My new comp is Elder Bouwhis (Im still learning how to spell it haha) from... OGDEN UTAH! He went to Bonneville high school and is good friends with Nate and Jared Ford in our ward and we know a lot of the same people. The interesting part is that he just got here and his training will be with me. I’M A DAD! I think some of my friends in the mission were joking about it happening in front of President because it happened. This will be my fifth straight American companion, if you include the MTC. He seems like a really good guy and I’m excited to be with him, but nervous to train. I feel bad if he expects some larger than life baptizing machine because I’m not there yet. He couldn’t have been “born” in a better area though. I honestly love this area with the members and investigators. None of us are perfect but that’s the goal and our camino together. 

I found out I was to have a brand new missionary as my companion on Sunday night, and ever since then I have been filled with butterflies and stress. I’m nervous and honestly a little scared, but we can’t let it diminish our hope and our faith. I think I’m most worried about not being the best companion I can be, or the biggest help I can be for the area and not as trustful as I can be in the Lord’s plan. We had the trainers meeting on Monday morning though, and it was a little emotional. The mission turns children into adults, but there I felt like a toddler. I’m one of the younger ones and I was a little emotional. I was worrying like good old Elder Sheffield, yet I felt the spirit so strong with Presidents love. It was pretty inspirational. I loved the way President put it, “The Lord has chosen you because he wants you to train at this moment. You are meant to train right now.” I got called on, to give the closing prayer and I made it through like Dad. I have turned more into him because I talk the same way as I’m on the border of crying and I can feel my chin trembling just like how Dads does.

I was doing well after that, then Tuesday I was super nervous and this morning too. Elder Jeppesen and I were waiting in our house for Elder Greer, the office Elder to drive my new companion to the house. They pulled up and once I saw him I was relieved and I felt comfort. We will have to learn Spanish better, and how to teach better, but we will be able to help each other a lot to since we had similar experiences.

Spiritual thought is about faith. I think faith is something we sometimes forget to treat as important as it is. Faith really can move mountains, we just don’t need to move mountains sometimes. Why do we sometimes forget the miracles that faith brings because we don’t see these miracles as mountain movers. Miracles constantly happen but after we exercise faith and it is with God’s plan. The more we align ourselves with having the same desires He has for us, the more the miracles will come. When HE wants it to happen it will, so we need to walk alongside him so what He wants we want too. Anyone who doesn’t believe in miracles, has failed to cultivate their faith, put it into action and give up their wants and take a risk. Why do we think the biggest risk is putting our trust and faith in Him. Don’t we remember that with Him all things are possible, his yolk is easy, his burden is light and He ALWAYS makes us better than before. I know He lives. I know it. 

Love you so much,
Elder Sheffield

Learning to deal with Failures

Milk!!!! (Mostly the memories of it) This week eating me frosted flakes with powdered milk I was thinking about all the milk drinking contests my sister Emily, my dad and I would have back in the day. Dad would always drink slow so one of us could win but ruthless 8 year old emily would never let me win. Just kidding, haha. American milk is different than both the powdered and cartoned milk here, a common missionary complaint.

This week felt better than last week. I dont know why but last week just felt kind of depressing even though it was a decent week. This week was a little rough only a few days felt bad. So Thursday I was on exchanges? I forget the english word since we either speak spanish or spainglish. My Dominican district leader came to see who are investigators with baptismal dates/goals are. The reason I say goals are  because we often set dates as our goal with investigators and try to fet them to work towards it. Patricia the thirty year old lady said she wanted to get baptized but her husband wasnt that interested and so she was preocupied with that. We shared with her and things were looking up. We shared with Cristofer and had a good lesson on th e word of wisdom and he doesnt have any problems with it. I want to work with him on the music he listens to though because he likes english rap music like Chris Brown and he likes to put it on and rap with Elder Jeppesen what a tigre (dilinquent) haha. That night we had our mission meeting with our super great branch mission leader and we also shared with Leuri the 10 year old. I was super excited with the goals we had and to start working on getting leuris mom to get back into th elessons and with patricias success and cristofer. Back at home and from that point this week got a little hard. My district leader told me to call President to get an interview with Cristofer since he is a minor. I called and President seemed really tired and stressed. In person he is smiley and happy and a super nice guy but over the phone he seems like a different person. To sum up the phone call I was told that we cant baptize cristofer since even though his dad and step mom are members, because he lives with his mom and step dad he needs the interview but he doesnt want to give it until we try harder to get the family taking the lessons. It was kind of a rough call and I felt a little discouraged. 

Elder Jeppesen, Cristofer and me

I also found out Patricia wasn't married and a few days later she started college and told us she can't share anymore. Angelina and Luis arent progressing even though they love when we come over which is heartbreaking. The young girls and cousin Marelyn and Heydi are minors with inactive mothers and we need to work on reactivation. On Sunday Leo came to church which just makes me chuckle. He always says he is to busy to take the lessons but he has been coming to church for months straight. The people we have lessons with we cant get to church and the people who come to church we can’t get lessons with. Heydi´s mom came to church and so did the two girls. It’s a good start. It is really special that even though the dad stopped taking the lessons that both he and the mom want to support their daughter in her decision and so they continue to take the lessons and went to church. 

We need to find some more/new people to share with which is always a challenge and something I’m not good at as of right now. Contacting/door to door knocking (we yell Saludos or greetings at everyone’s front gate since the front doors are always open) is not my strong point and I don’t know why but I get almost a little scared. I think my childhood shyness and fear of people has stuck with me because I have to work hard to have the courage to contact. I think we all before our missions thought that we would always have courage and plenty of people to teach but it’s not like that. 

We got a great reference the other day! A member gave us the name of a friend and a general direction and house color. We found Miriam and Anthony who actually were taking the lessons from sister missionaries two years ago. They seem to have interest and like all of us, great potential to be something more. I’m pretty comfortable with my Spanish now and talking with them and others is fun. The hard part is first meeting people and then getting people to act.

Dominican haircut "tapered sideburns" are really completely shaved off sideburns

Some fun things that happened this week. I got a haircut that looks super Dominican with tapered side burns and straight cut bangs. I don’t know if it’s just me being paranoid, but I think my hairline is receding ha! One of the Hermanas bought Jeppesen some taco bell Baja Blast Mountain Dews. We were watching the New Testament instruction videos and the actor that plays Harvey Dent in Batman is in it! Turns out he used to be lds. Lots of the members are Tabaqueros or cigar makers even though they keep the word of wisdom. They try to find better jobs but here in Tamboril, it’s the biggest job group. There are fruity cigars that smell like tutty fruity candy that actually kinda smell really good. One of the teenagers of the branch and Cristopher want to follow me on facebook and instagram so maybe Josh could get on and accept those. Also if you guys could send me my priesthood lineage. 

We had a zone meeting and training the other day and I really liked one of the training. It was about failing successfully. We are destined to fall short but this helps us to progress. There are three ways to fail and we should always do our best to be perfect but when we do fall short fail in a good way. You can fail from: 

1. A lack of preparation. Bad failure where you could have avoided it.

2. Inevitable failures. Many times other peoples agency causes stress or problems for us that we cannot avoid. These we should learn to manage and control how it affects us.  

3. Failing at the goals or things that push our limits. It’s the things like trying new things which we obviously wont be perfect at, or setting higher goals and stretching our limits

We may not want to fail, but it will happen eventually, but that isn’t a bad thing. We have help and support if we do the right things and have a bigger perspective. If something is within our control, it’s worthy of our effort. The wonderful and perfect gospel of Christ is a gospel of growth. A gospel of changing to become something better. I know God loves us. Jesus is the Christ. I know that if we sincerely work hard to meet our desire to be better we will become what He needs us to be. Light always defeats darkness.  

I’m worried for transfers next week since anything could happen and I feel like something big could happen, but I hope that whatever happens that the missionaries who will be here can help the area even more than we could this transfer. 

Que clase de hombres deben ser? Aun como yo soy. -Cristo

Seamos verdaderos representantes de Cristo

Al final esta equipo va a ganar. -Presidente Castillo

Translation: What kind of men they should be? Even as I am. -Christ

Let us be true representatives of Christ

Ultimately, this team will win – President Castillo (D.R. Mission Pres.)