Another week in the life of a missionary. The weather for the most part has been kind to us up to this point. This week was really hot and humid and sticky. Then a huge thunderstorm system came rolling in and hung around for a couple of days. The storm got really bad and destroyed some trees and knocked out everyone's electricity. There were a lot of roads closed after the storm because of branches and debris all over the place. It was kind of cool to watch the storm from my 12th floor apartment though. The lightning looked really cool. It was pretty scary at the same time because it was striking really close to us. We were in an appointment the next day when the storm started up again. The power went out and it was really dark and the lady we were teaching was screaming because she was afraid of the thunder. We calmed her down and her kids found some candles and we got some light in the room. We were stuck in her house for the next hour while the storm outside raged on. Luckily there was no real damage done to her house or anyone nearby, but as we traveled home we saw a lot of tree branches and other debris in the streets and on the sidewalks. The weather made it kind of hard to work.
The other one is when I fell asleep while we were planning this week. I promise you that I don't just sleep all day. I'm a hardworking missionary! I just thought that these pictures were funny and that you would enjoy them.
We taught a 17 year old girl this week who had been taught by the missionaries about a year ago and both her parents got baptized but she didn't want anything to do with the church. She randomly called us and said that she wanted to be baptized. We set up an appointment for the next day and talked about baptism. My first question of course was, "So... what changed your mind?". She talked about an amazing experience she had this week with prayer. Her parents have been in the US for a while (her dad for 13 years and her mom for 6) and she has only been here for about 17 months and has been working on her residency papers. Normally it takes people 10-15 years to get their residency papers, and that whole time they have to be here on a work visa that they continually renew. She promised God that if He would help her get her residency papers that she would be baptized. The next day she got a phone call and a court date, and she won her case and got her residency immediately. I guess it was God's will. We set a baptismal date with her for the upcoming weeks. Cool, eh?
I hit my '2 months left' mark this week the exact same day that my companion hit his '7 month mark'. It's still really scary to me that the mission is almost over. I'm excited to come home but I'm sad to say goodbye. It's just been a lot of change recently, and there will be a whole lot more change in the near future. We have a 'mission conference' this week with the whole mission. It's more or less a "our mission president is going home and our mission is combining with Boston" get together. We're gonna take pictures and say goodbye to our mission president and his wife and reminisce about all the good times we've had here in the Hartford, CT mission.
I know that the work I'm doing here is the work of the Lord. He guides me every day in what I say and do. I love being an instrument in His hands. He can make so much more out of me than I ever could make out of myself. I've let him expand my capacity and stretch me in ways I didn't dare nor think possible. I love being one of the Lord's missionary.
with much love from your favorite elder,
-Elder Shepherd
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