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