June 26, 2017

HI Mom!

I'm going to talk to him on Wednesday. I think if Pierce gets transferred it'll be fine. The dad is actually starting to make moves on his own actually. He cut off communication with his daughters and Elder Rudd. It'll work out. 

Yeah it's hard to not count. I just got an email about My Plan, the thing they make finishing missionaries do. I'm practically home already. 

That's cool that Nate is going on Trek! Trek is pretty fun if you have a good group. So if he's with his cousins he'll be fine. They don't work them pretty hard either. You don't walk that long, and it's all flat.

We had a baptism yesterday! Wooooo! I'll get the photos for you. Her name is Sarah. I think I told you about her. She has a less active Step Mom and a non-member Dad. I think they felt the Spirit at the baptism though so that was cool. They had so many people there. She is related to our Mission President's Councilor too and he was there so I got some aspiring points too. Not much else happened this week. We're just trying to meet the ward. It's kind of hard to connect with this ward though because I know I'm leaving in a couple months anyway. There's some cool people here though. There's a fire chief in this ward that I really want to meet. There are also some guys who lived in Colorado Springs. We both knew the Bakers. They were some really cool kids in another ward that we'd see at camps and other stuff. Chris probably knows them. Walker Baker, and his brothers.

I'm trying really hard to lose weight this transfer. It's kind of working. I'm down to 194 from 197-198ish

I'm in the process of getting a California ID so I can get on the plane. I have a DMV appointment on the 3rd. Hopefully I got everything I need. I got some stuff from the Mission office and they said my mission medical card would work as well.

I think that's it.

Love you!!!

Elder Sherwood

June 19, 2017                                                                           

Hey mom!

Getting to your letter early today!

I just missed her haha. I went on exchanges in French Valley when I was in Lake Skinner. That sucks I wish I knew that a year ago!! Escondido is probably the least nice place I've been haha.

I lost the magnet to my nametag. So I'm waiting for a new one. Hopefully it got here this week. 

So I am in Escondido. It is the Mexican part of our mission. Most of the people that I've seen only speak Spanish or broken English. Our ward boundaries are huge. The third largest in the mission. We do have a car but it's only for administrative (DL stuff and p-day) use. We only get 300 miles a month so we can't really use it to proselyte. Despite all that though it hasn't been so bad. We have a baptism this Sunday and we picked up a pretty solid investigator that we are going to teach this Wednesday. The girl getting baptized is Sarah, an 8 year old who lives with a less-active stepmom and a non-member dad. She's a convert baptism because her real mom is a non-member. Neither of her current parents go to church though which is the incredible part. She decided to go on her own and has her grandma pick her up every week and take her. She is such a reserved kid though haha. I think she had a rough childhood because she is very reserved and careful about things. Our apartment isn't as nice as our old one but at least it has air conditioning. Someone also set up a sound system that goes all over the apartment so we get surround sound pretty high quality music playing. This is the first area however that I've had to pay for laundry. And it's flipping nuts too, 6 dollars every time I have to do laundry. I should be ok though. This ward is way better about feeding us though. We have all of this month filled up and next month filled up. On Saturdays we eat lunch and dinner at the Edmonds, who are the people I went to the Safari Park with. They're crazy. The parents are returning to activity and the mom might be a recent convert, and they have four 17-20 year old girls there who are not really religious at all. And some of them have boundary issues..... So we stay there all day Saturday and also go over Monday night for FHE. I kind of feel like it's a little much but my companion is pretty adamant about it. 

That's pretty much everything going on in the area. being a DL is kind of stressful. I struggled through my first DM but they assured me that it went fine for my first time. I have another one tomorrow. I think this one will be better. I also have to keep tabs on all the district and their investigators. I also take numbers at the end of the week. That's about it really. Not very exciting. I don't really enjoy the mantle it puts on me.

We're going to go ice skating today as a district though! That should be fun!

I don't really need anything right now.

Glad to see everyone's doing good. 2 More months!!!!!!

Love you!

Elder Sherwood

June 12, 2017

Hey Mom!

Sorry this is so late. We spent the whole day at the Safari park with this half active half less-active family the missionaries in this ward have been spending a lot of time with. They're names are the Edmonds. I'll hopefully send you a bunch of pictures when I get them. I forgot my camera but this other Elder took a bunch. Sister Edmonds is also going to text you some. 

Sorry for worrying you guys, I think it's going to be fine, I just got to gently push him. and he'll work. As DL I have to set up a district meeting which involves delegating a discussion and a short talk, and coming up with a training, and I do that 4 times in a transfer. Everyone reports their numbers to me as well. I was more worried about the companion and the area, but the area seems to be doing pretty well. I just got to stop complaining. 

We have a baptism on the 25th, this 8 year old named Sarah who's had a pretty intense childhood and is very mature for her age. We're also picking up a pretty solid investigator on Wednesday. 

So we went to Vista and I found my phone charger sitting in a box. so I'm good.

I gotta make this one kind of short sorry. 

Love you!!

Elder Sherwood

Text from someone in the ward:

The cat doesn't want him to leave.

June 5, 2017

Hey Mom!

So surprise ending. I'm leaving and Adams is staying. I'm going to Bear Valley Escondido. I'm going to be with Elder Pierce. Double Surprise, they called me as a District Leader. So the Bear Valley thing is interesting because I got called there for my second area. But 2 hours later they reassigned me to Lake Skinner Temecula. So now I'm going back. God really wants me there I guess. I have pretty mixed feelings about my DL call, as well as my companion. I heard that he's pretty lazy and I'm going to have to push him pretty hard to go work. Oh well. I've decided to just accept it all and do my best. 

So this week was kind of slow. One day we spent most of the day in Vista for my new leadership training meeting. We also went on exchanges on Saturday, which was cool. We painted this fence for this guy who is pretty into Jiu Jitsu as well as his son. We also gave his wife a blessing which was cool because they're non-members. We finally reconnected with Sean Brazwell a less-active we've been working with. Other than that nothing much happened. There was a point in one of the days where I actually took a nap under a tree for a solid 20 minutes.

Other than all that I'll just ask for your prayers. I'm kind of struggling with this transfer. 

Love you!!!

Elder Sherwood