December 28, 2015

So we have a mini missionary with us right now. he's a 16 year old and he's staying with us until Thursday. He sleeps, eats, and works with us all day. Pretty interesting. He has a really strong testimony though, so that's good. We started teaching April's brother, so that's been kind of cool. Don't know if he's staying here though or going back to LA.

Card from April Amor

December 21 letter

Merry Christmas! I got your box, Ken and Monique's box, a big cardboard envelope with a smaller envelope with a card from Grandma and Grandpa Weber, a card from Gma and Gpa Sherwood, and a letter telling us about El Nino.

So we are going somewhere at 10 (11 your time) and 5 (6 your time.) Do you know if all the family wants to join in on the call? I mean just like Grandma and Grandpa, Ken and Monique, John and Rachel. Let me know if more people want to join the call or come over, or what you want to do. 

I'm feeling better.

Missionary work is going good though. We're finding people and Jennifer seems to be building a lot of faith. I think she's felt the Spirit. 

Some random guy in a white van drove up, asked how we were doing, said his daughter was going to BYU and gave us a big box of expensive chocolate. Then a random old couple saw us and gave us a ride up this pretty big hill. It was the weirdest day. 

This transfer has gone by very quickly We're already half way through. I feel the Spirit teaching me a lot. And it's been leading me pretty much every day. I know for a fact that I couldn't do this without the Spirit. I probably couldn't find anyone, and my teaching would be atrocious. Any success that has happened on my mission is because of the Spirit. On multiple occasions we've arrived at places with perfect timing. Sometimes it'll even be right after someone was thinking about us. Something I've learned is that faith is an object of power. God works through faith, and miracles and priesthood power are brought through faith. I've also learned that faith is a principle of action. Faith without works is dead as the scriptural saying. So to build faith or even maintain faith we have to do things like pray sincerely, study the scriptures, go to church, and attend the temple. That is how we receive revelation, and in turn build our faith. Following the commandments is how we qualify for the Spirit, and through the Spirit we receive revelation. That is my sermon for today haha.

Anyways, hope you guys aren't too bored. Did you guys see Star Wars yet? Maybe that will make this Christmas season more exciting. 

I miss you guys, and hope you do have a good Christmas

Elder Sherwood

I'm sick.... Again... 

I'm freezing. I don't know why, but I've been pretty cold in the mornings and evenings especially. I should be used to the colder temperatures. You'll probably laugh at that since you guys are probably covered in snow right now. But yeah. And I'm sick, so that probably makes me colder. 

I've been enjoying your advent calendar. My companion is fine. We are getting along just fine. His bike broke though so we've been walking most of last week and still today. It works a whole new set of muscles than biking does. Plus he's like 6'3" so I have to practically jog to keep up with him. We've been sharing both of the videos on here with all the families in the ward. christmas.mormon.org   They're pretty cool. The church is getting really good at media. 

We finally saw Jennifer again. She and her kids were sick. We gave her a King James Bible and a copy of Our Heritage, and we are probably going to get do a formal lesson sometime this week. She watched the Christmas Devotional, and says she loves MoTab, so that's a positive sign, right? I'm pretty sure she's feeling that this is right. She just seems pretty excited when we're over there. Keep praying for her please!

But I think that's it for me!

Love you guys!

Elder Sherwood

December 17, 2015

My companion. His name is Elder Peterson, he's been out 9 months, and he's from Ohio. He's ok. He doesn't work as hard as Elder Anderson did. It's also been kind of hard to teach with him. Oh and he snores very dynamically, and very loudly. I've been sleeping on the couch all week. I'll survive though.

I'm kind of stressed right now because I'm in charge of the area. I have trouble planning and sometimes I feel like I'm wasting time. I find a lot of strength in prayer though. I feel the Spirit guiding and helping me a lot recently. I'll survive. I feel bipolar. I keep going in this extreme pattern of stress/anxiety, to being super happy and full of joy. I've also cried more times than I probably ever have in my life. But I'm ok with it because usually when I cry it's because I have to dig deep emotionally and afterwards I feel stronger so I think it's just all part of the building process that the Lord has planned for me. 

I have a special request. Can you guys pray for this lady we are teaching? Her name is Jennifer and she is the nicest lady I've ever met. She's about your age and she has 4 daughters. Her husband had a heart attack and I think it caused some brain damage. They are non-practicing Jehovah's Witnesses and when the accident happened they didn't really get any support from them. Also when people in that religion leave, or even visit other churches, they get shunned and they come down very hard on them. She's been part of that religion her whole life and it's very hard for her to take this step. So please pray for her to have the strength and confidence to make this change in her life. If there's one thing I've come to know, it is the power of prayer.

 Well that's all I can think of right now. I forgot my camera sorry I got emailed a picture I'll forward to you after this though.

Miss you guys! Hope you're having a good Christmas season!

Elder Sherwood

November 30, 2015
Happy Holidays! I heard about the Planned Parenthood shooting, that's crazy. They ran the swat car into the building??? That's flappin nuts! As for me, we had a very nice Thanksgiving with this Spanish family. They were in a very different circumstance than us and it was actually a very humbling experience. The sister who invited us's mom has some kind of terminal illness and some mental issues, and when we got there, she started yelling for us to come read her scriptures. We read her some scriptures about how the Atonement is for our sicknesses, infirmities, and sorrows, as well as our sins. Then we gave her a blessing and the spirit told her to be at peace and build her faith in Christ and her family, and if she did that she would be healed. Very humbling. I have come to learn that as you build your faith more and more, you open yourself up to more guidance and more promptings from the Spirit. Faith has pretty much been the underlying theme of this transfer, and it's through faith that miracles happen, and the more faith we have, the more we will see/recognize miracles when they happen. I've also learned that as you build your faith you also build hope, and that hope is what makes you happy. As you become closer and closer to Heavenly Father, the more you feel that he loves you and that he has a plan for you.

Transfers!!!! I'm staying, Elder Anderson's leaving. A sister in our district started having seizures this week and I just heard that she actually is going to have to go home. It's pretty sad because you can tell how much she loves being a missionary. As for the work it's pretty slow at the moment. I feel like God wants us to learn some things, before he is going to lead us to someone we can teach. We are working super hard though. I can't feel my legs.

Love you guys!

Elder Sherwood

Carlsbad Zone

November 16, 2015

Woow I wish I knew you were sending those emails to everyone. I'm going to write you an email then I'm going to write a weekly email to everyone. I have a box with the DVD. Sister Miller is super pushy so there was no way I was going to not end up sending you that disk. I don't care if you get it for me haha.

As for my emotional state I'm doing fine. I've quickly learned that I had a lot of emotional, spiritual, and social walls that i had built up in my brain that would keep me from being a successful missionary. SOOoo I've pretty much been spending these first two transfers having to tear down all these walls that I've built up. It's sufficing to say that it caused some stress. Some of those walls included talking to strangers; being attached to the same dude for every minute of every day for 3 months; holding conversations; being interested in what old people talk about; planning out every single day; getting over mass rejection. Plus all of the spiritual aspects such as; Deciphering my thoughts from the promptings of the Holy Ghost, and the ones from the adversary; finding personal meaning in the scriptures, as well as finding things that would help the people I teach; boldly following promptings I get from the Holy Ghost; listening to people with love and sincere care, and asking questions and teaching doctrine the Spirit gives to me. Those are only a few. The hardest thing about being a successful missionary is staying worthy of, and listening to the promptings and guidance from the Spirit, which comes from daily repentance, taking the sacrament, relying on the Lord and His Son's Atonement in everything that you do such as teaching, planning, and learning how to love everyone around you, which comes from sincere prayer and scripture study.

I sent you pictures of the baptism we had on Saturday. April's daughter Aleadra was baptized and then was confirmed yesterday. She apparently saw a spider in the font and tried to wan me before I baptized her so when she came up she darted out of the font. It was a great service though, everyone there could feel the Spirit.  It's been so awesome seeing the transformation that the gospel has brought in them. You can physically see how different they are and it has definitely been a testimony builder for me. I'm also going to send you another picture of a service event we did called Stop Hunger Now on the same day. We helped package 20,000 meals to send to people who are in need of food. It was a great event because everyone had something they could do, from the 4 year old to the 100 year old. The picture is of a box fort Elder Anderson and I, and another companionship made out of the food boxes. My standards for fun have dropped a lot since I've been out haha.

We had a member of the 70 come to our zone conference last Wednesday. His name was Elder Grow and he told us that we should also try to reactivate less active members and also teach the investigator's family instead of just the investigator. He was awesome, I got super pumped up from that conference. 

Love you guys!

Elder Sherwood

November 9, 2015

Hi. Sorry about last week. I was really stressed out. I think i have been putting way too much pressure on myself to be perfect, when I've only been out 1 1/2 transfers. I think I was just feeling really discouraged and stressed. We had been teaching a lot of people and we weren't seeing any progress, no one was inviting us back, and I felt like I was failing as a missionary I guess. I'm doing better now. I got a blessing and talked it out with our local patriarch. I still felt depressed and stressed out for the next couple days after that but it gradually went away and as I prayed for comfort and guidance, I felt myself gain more confidence and feel better. And it came from working, go figure. 

But yeah my patriarchal blessing kind of hit me a little hard. To be honest with you guys I had a shaky testimony at best before I came out. And ever since I've come out I feel like God has poured out so many spiritual experiences and has let me feel the Holy Ghost so strongly, more than I have ever felt it, in fact I wonder if I have ever truly felt it before this. And it's like a whole new world, and I think I'm having trouble even comprehending reality right now. I have felt the healing power of the Atonement, and I have felt the Spirit fill my body with warmth and peace. We were in a zone training meeting and I remember saying a prayer in my mind for one of the missionaries speaking, and afterwards my body just got filled with this overwhelming warmth, and I felt so much love for everyone around me, and for God. While this was happening, me and my companion were chosen to do a practice lesson. In that lesson, I said a prayer and asked for us to be able to feel the spirit, and then afterwards, everything was so quiet, and as we taught, I felt the spirit speaking through me and giving me the words to say. Then we had a testimony meeting where we all gave our testimony on the atonement. I said a little 3 sentence testimony on it and sat down. After the meeting tons of people came up to me and shook my hand saying how much they felt the spirit during the lesson and during my testimony. That feeling stayed with me all the way until lunch. It was the best feeling I have ever felt and I know that it was the Holy Ghost. But yeah when I read my patriarchal blessing, it said that I would have experiences like that, and that I would be able to easily share the gospel with others, and some other stuff. So I guess after that I just put this expectation on myself that I couldn't meet. Such as putting the eternal salvation of me, my family, the people I don't talk to, and the people I teach all on myself and my ability to teach. I've since learned that I can't be perfect, I cant get over all of my social and physical problems all at once, and even though it is my duty to talk to everyone, the lord won't let my follies ruin the chances for someone else. 

So yeah. My blessing also talked about how God would stretch me and the stretching process might be unpleasant, and that's what's going on right now. He's stretching me. But I know that as I stay faithful He will bless me and the people I care for. 

But yeah, sorry if I worried you guys. This is just all really new to me, and it's freaking me out a bit. I read the letter you put in the box. 

 

Sister Miller is being very persistent about that magic hair growth comb so I'll be sending you that DVD about it pretty soon haha. 

That's about it I think. Miss you guys! I hope stuff gets better!

Elder Sherwood

November 2 letter

Contacting has gotten a lot easier. You just gotta do it. We are finding a lot of people. We have started to pray individually and together to start finding people ready to hear the Gospel, and after that our teaching pool got really big. It's very exciting. It's funny that you talked about charity too because that is what we've been trying to focus on. I've also learned that charity is a gift, and that it can only be truly gained after "praying with all energy of heart"

I have been feeling very discouraged since yesterday. I've found that the more people we find that want to hear our message, the more people we find that hate us. My patriarchal blessing said to ask you guys for prayers and faith on my behalf. Could you guys please pray for me? For protection from evil and harm. I have come to know for a fact that God answers prayers. And after reading these emails I feel prompted to ask you guys to build your faith and ask God to help you. I read this in Jacob 2 last week.  

18 But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.

 19 And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good—to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief tot he sick and the afflicted.

My testimony is growing so fast. You can't put a limit on God. Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you.

I miss you guys. I love you and hope things get better.

Elder Sherwood

October 27, 2015
Sorry, no post this week.  Letter was very short and personal to Justin's parents.  He is doing great, though.

October 19, 2015

Hey Guys. 

Didn't get transferred, didn't get my bike, did baptize April. It went super well. Elder A baptized her and I confirmed her in church. She feels so good. Its great. I'm going to forward an email with a couple pictures. April has better ones so when we get those from her I'll send them. 

So yeah me and Elder A are still here another transfer. Which is probably for the best because we are getting pretty busy and it would be good to keep the guy who knows the area pretty well. This is Elder Anderson's fourth transfer in this area.

We bought a cantaloupe the other day because i was craving fruit right? We haven't been able to eat it because we have no saran wrap. So I've been staring at this cantaloupe all week and I want it really bad, and it's made me sad. :(

So at the baptism this pretty old Hispanic lady in our ward comes up to us and says "Ohhh elders I'm so happy for you! I've been thinking a lot about you lately and i want you to come over and watch this video." So we're like "Well what's the video..." "Don''t worry about just come over and see it." Long story short we came over and she sat us down and made us watch a 40 minute add on QVC about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsWV_BWchoI 

She's like "you're so young!! you should have hair!!" "Don't worry my dad and my grandpa are bald I'm ok with it" "Ohhhh you can all share it then!!! It's only 5 easy payments of 78.95! QVC sells goood products." She forced it on me haha. She even gave me the cd she taped the commercial on and wants me to send it to you haha. I probably will. It might be funny if you actually got it for like my homecoming present or something. 

I don't necessarily feel different, but I feel I don't know, purposeful I guess?

Anyway, thanks again for all the support. As for a scripture, Alma 32:27. Is that too long? That one is kind of summing up my whole experience so far. Let me know.

Love you guys!

Elder Sherwood

 

 

Note from Shawgo family on 10/16/2015:

Had dinner with these awesome elders tonight. They are happy and healthy! Thanks for sharing them with us.

October 13, 2015
Things are pretty good. It has been really hot but but I've promised myself that I'm not going to complain because I've really been spoiled. I got grandma's stuff.  It was in the box of stuff you sent me. I'm running out of time today so if i don't get a chance, can you let them know I appreciate it.

April is getting baptized this weekend!! I'm so excited for her. It has really been awesome watching her grow her faith and see how the gospel has already blessed her life. Something I have come to learn is that the Gospel is a Gospel of action. We have to take action to build our faith. We have to read the Book of Mormon, We have to pray to know that it is true. We have to know how to sincerely pray to know that it is true. There was a quote from conference about about faith. 'Faith and doubt cannot exist together" Full conversion comes from having faith in all of the areas of our church. Faith in Jesus Christ, Faith in his atonement, faith in the Book of Mormon, faith in Joseph Smith, and faith in our current prophet. If we develop true faith in these things then doubt literally cannot exist. If you have doubts then you need to study it and then ask God if it is right. The power of prayer is really the center to developing our faith. Take action. Learn for yourself.

Made these yesterday.  Mine is the one on the left, Elder A's is the one on the right. Oh, and I probably won't get transferred but we think elder Anderson will.

 

Justin thinks his helmet looks ridiculous.  

October 5
HI Mom, things are great! April is still going strong and her daughter's name is Aleadra and she is 11. She also has a 1 year old named Anastasia. We had a super cool experience with them this morning, Aleadra's dad was there and April wanted us to pray with them. So we got to know him and taught him how to pray and he says he wants to move back to Carlsbad and spend more time with Aleadra. So we had him say a simple prayer and we left him and April to talk. April just walked in and told us that he wants to go to church. So this morning was pretty awesome. Conference was pretty good. I thought that the fact that I was excited about it would help me actually stay awake. It didn't. April even came for a session and I couldn't stay awake. I liked President Monson's talk. He also gave a super good one at the priesthood session. I really liked elder Bednar's and the ponderizing one, and I like the 3 new apostles especially the one that was a bishop. .

I really appreciate all the support I've been given. A lot of missionaries don't get the kind of support that you and everyone have been sending me, so I want you to know that it means a lot to me.

I'm doing great. I've never felt so sure about God or this religion in my life.

Love and miss you guys.

Elder Sherwood

Asked Justin a bunch of questions.

1.  See above about Dad's old apartment.  Where are you living?  Apartment?  Is it nice?  

2.  Where are you doing your laundry?  Do you have to haul it somewhere on your bike?

3.  How do you get groceries?  Do you have to do that on your bike?  You said the members feed you dinner.  What are you doing for food the rest of the time? 

4.   How are you liking California?  You look a little damp in all the pictures.  They had pictures from the Emmy Awards last week with the guys' shirts all wet and stuck to them because it was so hot in LA.  Still pretty hot?

5,  You have a ton of short sleeve shirts.  How come, in all the pictures, you have your long sleeve one on with it rolled up?  Isn't that hot?

6. I know it is hot now, but it will get colder and right next to the ocean, it is going to get chilly.  Would you like me to send you some workout shirts with long sleeves or a jacket? 

7.  Are you getting along with your companion? 

8.  Are you having problems with your allergies? 

9.  The picture you sent of the sunset said that it was Bertha.  Is that the sun?  Why Bertha? 

Now, his letter: 

1. Yea that place looks pretty bad, no our place looks better than that.

2.  We have a washer and dryer at the apartment, our dryer is awful though.

3. On P- day we get picked up by elders with a car and go shopping with them.  For breakfast we either have cereal or eggs, lunch is usually sandwiches, unless we go somewhere.

4.This is apparently the hottest summer in 20 years or something like that. So yeah it's been hot and I sweat about 80% of the day.There have been a couple pretty cool days though. Other than that it's been great. It's super pretty here, Lots of super tall palm trees everywhere.  The ocean is right next to us so the view is pretty good. The people are usually pretty nice. The ward is awesome, and there's a lot of great missionaries here too.

5. I don't have enough short sleeved shirts to wear one every day, I think I'm one short, so whenever we have a meeting or church and we have to wear a suit I just roll the sleeves up when we're done. It's not too bad. Don't worry about sending another shirt

6. I have sincere doubts that I'll ever want to go run in anything but a t shirt and shorts but I'll let you know.

7. Yea things are pretty good right now.

8. no

9. Bertha is what everyone's calling the ocean

I think i told you about April last time, right? Well she's getting baptized hopefully on the 17th and she's having us teach her daughter starting on Tuesday. It's so exciting!!! It's been so amazing watching this woman grow from a very sad, angry woman, looking for meaning in life outside of drugs and partying and working all the time, to completely giving up those things and becoming full of joy and hope. She used the phrase 'hungry for more' The atonement works. This will also be my trainer's first baptism so it is a pretty special milestone for both of us. After this I' m not going to talk much about baptisms I have though because I feel like it takes away from their sacredness, We aren't here to grow the church's numbers, we're here to bring souls closer to God.

A member of the 70 is coming to talk to us on Wednesday, excited for that. Also looking forward to conference.

Love you guys!

Elder Sherwood

We took these on a hill above the beach. The pens are from a guy in a ward. He makes custom pens out of cool wood and bullet casings.I thought Chris and Dad would get a kick out of them. The small one is an oil vial. How sweet is that?

I'm feeling better now by the way. And yea I just dealt with it on most days. Ran and everything. One day I convinced him that I needed to take it easy so we didn't run or bike. But yea I'm better now. I am destroying my clothes. I've already ripped 2 pairs of socks and a pair of slacks. It got caught in my bike gears.

Did you get that photo in a text? Because I wasn't sure if you could or not. I couldn't get pictures in texts. I saw you got another one from the Hansens. We actually haven't eaten with either of them, but we visit a lot of members in a day. We don't tract, (knock on doors), we contact (talk to people on the street), and we work through members. Wards that actively work with missionaries and are missionary minded easily baptize twice as many people per year. That means they invite their friends to church, activities, etc. They also come to lessons with us. Having members present at lessons is a HUGE part in conversion. So one of our main jobs is going by member's houses and seeing what we can do to help them become more missionary minded, or basically ask them who they can invite and what they can invite them to do. We just committed one of our investigators to baptism! She's going to get baptized on the 17th of October. She is awesome because as we've been seeing her we have been successfully able to get her to stop doing drugs, quit smoking, and quit drinking. It's really cool to watch her faith grow. 

I'm out of time. Love you guys!

Elder Sherwood

Awesome missionary!  We sure are enjoying having your son in our ward! He is so awesome!!!! We will take good care of him.

💗 Sis. Hansen

Map of Carlsbad, CA, Mission

President and Sister Kendrick

Letter - September 13, 2015
Hey! Finally done with week 1. I got put inside Carlsbad, Woohoo! It's a biking area so I need to buy a bike. It's so hot and humid. I've been damp ever since I got off the plane. But I guess we came in the middle of a heatwave. It feels pretty good today so maybe it's leaving. Something I should of told you when I was in the MTC is that I got sick. So I've actually been sick for like 2 or 3 weeks and it got worse when I dropped all that altitude. I'm on an antibiotic right now.

You can't mail directly to me. Mail everything to 

Elder Justin Sherwood
Carlsbad California Mission

451 W Bobier Dr.

Vista, California 92083-1906

My companion's name is Elder Anderson. He's got a super low voice and he doesn't talk loud at all. He's not that fun either. He's ok though; he's teaching me a lot. The ward seems to really like him, though. Oh and we get fed almost every night. So the ward's great. The 2 new restaurants I've been to haven't been impressive.We went to In and Out Burger, was a pretty mediocre burger as well as super stale fries, and it's funny because people were telling me that I HAAD to try it because its SOoooo good but I think every burger joint we had back home was better than In and Out. Then we went to some Mexican place, I don't remember the name. Got this bowl full of rice and chicken and beans and pico digio or whatever, but it was really plain and tasteless so eh. These members gave us these homemade enchiladas, however, and they were amazing. 

We can go to Lego Land!!!!!!!!! We were going to go today for a district activity but we couldn't find passes in time so we have to put it off until we can find some. Just gotta do it before they transfer me to Oceanside or something haha.

We have taught 3 lessons so far. 1 was with this couple named Taylor and Jake, who are super friendly and open minded. Jake talks a lot so we didn't really teach them a lot but we got to share a video, and it went pretty well. We see them again tonight. The other 2 were with April who is a single mother with 2 kids. She's really nice and just kind of wants to know that God is there and cares about her. We also see her again tonight. We have a couple other investigators that I haven't met yet. We don't tract in this area. We contact, which is just talking to people on the streets. So no door knocking but I don't know contacting is pretty rough too. I hate feeling like a nuisance, but I'll get over it I guess

Well that's all I got.

Love you guys!

Miss you!

Elder Sherwood

September 13, 2015 - Collins family - Justin and Elder Anderson - Carlsbad, CA

Letter August 31, 2015

Hey mom, It's P day. I miss you guys! But I'm also having an awesome time. My district is great.  We're growing pretty close which is good because 5 of us are all going to Carlsbad, including my companion. The district by the way is 4 girls and 6 guys. so 2 sister companionships and 3 elder companionships. My companion is a total nerd. He gets kind of anoying too but we're learning to get along. We also tend to butt heads when it comes to preparing lessons. In fact it gets extremely frustrating sometimes. But the other day we managed to pull it together and actually did a really good lesson together. We just have to find the balance between us and i think it'll work out.He is a lot better at doctrine knowledge than i am, but i feel like i am able to relate and connect to people better so we decided that he leads the lessons, and i slow it down and relate the lessons to the investigator. I'm studying hard too because I want to fix that weakness of mine. We get pamphlets of every lesson and I'm trying master them so I read them a lot. I also read my scriptures at least once a day. I also am getting a lot more interested in talks now. Well at least one. We watched a talk given by Elder Bednar, and it hit me hard. I think you guys should watch it, its called the Character of Christ. He gave it on a Christmas morning at the MTC. Super powerful. I don't know if I'll be able to write another letter, I don't have much time so make sure John and Rachael know that I'm really grateful for the rolls and tell everyone I miss them! Love you guys!

 MTC - August 26 - September 6, 2015