The LAST door‏

Let me explain that picture that I attached. We showed up to our investigators house, and he was watching a cheesy cartoon network cartoon in spanish when we came in called "Dragonball Z". I laughed way hard, and that night, my companion and I took some fun "Dragonball Z" pictures.
The other picture has a good story with it too. We had this appointment with a woman who lives way out in the boondocks of our area. I was surprised that any Hispanic people lived there, because it was a neighborhood for old, white, well-to-do Americans, and it was just unexpected. Anyway, we walked for about 2 hours, talking to people in the streets on the way, to get out there. It was really cold and cloudy. They weren't home... That's the face that I had on.

 It turn out to be a fruitful venture, because we stopped by someone who I hadn't seen in several months. We had a nice chat with them. They think that demons have been haunting their house since we stopped going over. We said a prayer and everything felt better. We'll start teaching them again this week.
We're quickly approaching thanksgiving here and it still hasn't snowed yet... not like Utah. Andy and Ashley set me some really great pictures that I enjoyed very much of them making snowmen. I was super jealous. As soon as it snows here, my companion and I will be sending some pictures your way. The beautiful fall colors still linger here, but it's getting really cold. It's been cold enough to snow the past couple of days, but it hasn't been wet enough. It frustrates me, because all fall long it was raining and wet, and now that I want it to snow the moisture has left. *sigh* I have hope for a white Christmas still.
So, you know how in all the 'American' wards they always play football on thanksgiving? "Turkey Bowls". What a great tradition. Last year in New Haven, I participated in the turkey bowl, and I got creamed, but it was lots of fun. This year I'm in a full out Spanish ward, so no one plays American football. They play the real deal: "Futbol", or as gringos call it, soccer. They're playing 'futbol' as a ward thursday morning. I'll definitely send you some pictures, because I'll be the only white guy out there, and I'll be a foot taller than everyone else. It'll be awesome.
We had kind of a rough week this week. My companion and I are both sick, and we had to walk a lot in the cold. Lot's of our appointments cancelled. It's sad because we'd like to see more progression in the people we're currently teaching. It was good though, because we met a lot of new people who have a lot of teaching potential for the future. It doesn't matter how many doors I've knocked, or how many people I've opened up conversations with in the streets, I still have that initial 'butterfly in the stomach' feeling as I open up my mouth. "Are they gonna yell at me? The last guy spit on me... I don't know if this one looks any brighter. What am I gonna say to this person?" etc... are kind of like the thoughts that describe that feeling. It's hard getting past the doubt and fear and opening up your mouth anyway when you've already had 100 people reject you that day. What's cool about those kinds of stories is that it's always the VERY LAST door that you knock, or at the VERY LAST minute that amazing things happen. You've probably heard lots of missionary stories like that. I've lived them. This week for example, we were walking for a really long time in the freezing cold and a lot of people had already turned us down that day. People who shout, "Go Satan!" out their window as they drive by in the car taunting us, doors shut in our faces, and cold shoulders and awkward glances in the streets. Most normal people would give up by this point, but we were on a mission and we stayed strong. It was dark, we were tired, and it was probably about time for us to start heading home, but we decided to knock on one more door. This nice old man answered, let us in, served us sprite and cookies, talked with us, sang hymns with us, and invited us back. How cool is that!? God is so good to us when we persevere. I certainly don't like the pain and suffering part, but I know that no matter how fat and ugly this dark cloud may appear, it will have it's silver lining, and I'll be grateful for having seen the storm through till the end.
The mission is pretty much the greatest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. I LOVE teaching! I LOVE the people! I don't know if that's corny or not, but it sure does ring true to how I feel. The mission has made me a much more 'grateful' person. I count my blessings more often, and I give thanks to God for them. Try it! You'll be a happier person.
I love you all so much, and I hope that you have a happy Thanksgiving!

Revelation‏

Can you remember an experience when you had a stupor of thought? I mean, like you were deeply in a train of thought, and then all of the sudden *poof* and it's gone? I feel like I have those stupors every now and again as I think about what I should teach and where I should go. It says in the Doctrine and Covenants that we need to pray and ask God if what were doing or the decision we've made is right, and if it's wrong, we'll experience a stupor of thought that causes us to forget the thing that was wrong. Every now and again, my companion and I will be walking down a street when I will have the idea, "Let's go that way instead." or "I feel like we should turn down that street." or "Let's knock this door.". I usually follow such promptings instinctively. Sometimes I have a stupor of thought that steers me away. It's an incredibly interesting process of revelation or inspiration. I had one particularly awesome experience this week on that note. We were walking down a busy road near downtown Providence as we passed by a heavily wooded park that I'd never walked through before. "We should walk through there." came the thought to my head. "Nah. There's no one in there, and there's a far greater chance of talking to people out here on this busier road.", I retorted to myself. As I thought that, the idea about staying on the busier road *poofed* from my head, and I said to my companion, "Let's walk through this park. There must be someone in here we need to talk to." He kind of shruggingly followed, probably retorting in his own head why we would walk into a vacant, wooded park, but followed me anyway. It was really pretty with all the brilliant fall colors of the leaves, and it seemed like a black and white difference from the buzz of the city. It was peaceful. It was trainquil. I could feel the spirit in here.

It wasn't long after we wondered into the park that a man seemed to show up out of nowhere. He was walking just off the paved pathway. As we got nearer to him, he saw us and motioned for us to come closer and talk to him. Both surprised and excited, we went to introduce ourselves and see if there was anything we could do for him. His name was Micheal, and he'd struggled a lot as a youth with drugs and alcohol, but he'd fixed his life and turned to God. He had gotten into an argument with his wife, and he'd been fighting the temptation to fall back into alcoholism when he decided to go into the park into some trees and pray. That's when we found him. He was convinced (as was I) that we came in answer to his prayer to receive additional guidance and help from God. We taught him about the atonement and prayer briefly, and we offered him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He accepted it with the determination to go into the trees and read through it's pages and pray and ask God if it was true. We exchanged information, and we went our way as he went into the trees. Isn't that AWESOME!? He doesn't speak spanish, so we have to pass him on to the english speaking elders, but I know that God led us to this man.

Revelation is a very interesting thing. I don't know if you know this, but we as members of the Church of Jesus Christ, having made sacred covenants with God and having received the gift of the Holy Ghost, are entitled to divine guidance from heaven. We can call upon heavens aid when we need it, and we can, in essence, require that the Lord reveal His hand in our behalf. (Enos 1:15-18)  That's what the gift of the Holy Ghost really means. This gift comes with conditions. Predicated upon our faithfulness, personal righteousness, and obedience, we can request this guidance from God, and He is bound to honor it. (D&C 82:10, D&C 130:20-21) I pray every single day for the guidance of the Holy Ghost to help me, and I exercise my faith through obedience and good works, knowing that I will receive the guidance I need when need it. (D&C 84:85) I just had the thought this week that personal revelation is pretty much the coolest thing ever, and I wanted to share that.

Jose is still cruising through the Book of Mormon. He will finish it this week. He is such a good example for his non-member and member friends alike. I see a future leader in him.

My clock is running out! I only have 42 seconds left to finish this email!

I love you! The church is true!

   With love from your favorite elder,

               -Elder Shepherd

Serving is fun!‏

I had a way cool service opportunity this week with my El Salvadorian friend Teresa Flores and her corner store, "the Pulgarcito". OK, so as we walk into her store, she calls out to me," Elder! Do you know how you are always asking me if you can do anything for me? Well I have a favor to ask," she say as she puts a confusing-looking manual in front of me for a 340-ZA Sharp cash register. "My register keeps showing this error sign, and I don't know how to fix it! I can't sell anything. Can you help me?" I impulsively responded, "Of course I can!". As I sat down in front of her register with this weird manual in front of me, I remembered something, "Oh yeah... you don't know anything about cash registers. You don't know where to begin." I puzzled for a moment over this situation that I'd gotten myself into when I thought, "Well, I'll just say a prayer in my heart, and put myself to work." I began reading the manual and looking for any information about the error message that popped up on her register. I eventually found out what the message meant-"Error 02=incorrect key entry"... yeah, that was helpful. I didn't feel any closer to solving the problem then before, and the manual didn't tell you how to fix it. I was kind of hoping for an easy answer, but I wasn't getting out of it that easy. Anyway, I kept reading the manual and troubleshooting this register, and after about 30 minutes of trial and error with it, I finally pin-pointed the problem-the batteries that are used for storing the memory in case of a sudden power outage had run out, and the manual had mentioned that if that ever happens, and you switch the machine accidentally to another certain function, that this error would pop-up. (keep in mind, these answers came very spread apart over a long period of troubleshooting) I promptly replaced the batteries, but to my dismay, that only meant that the memory would be completely erased, and that I would have to reprogram the register from scratch. I had to follow a very long and tedious process, leaving the machine unplugged for EXACTLY one minute, then punching in a code as you placed the batteries in, and then programming in the tax rate and other functions following a really long series of codes in the book which, if not pushed in exact sequence, would result in a failure and I would have to start all over again. I followed the instructions to the tee, and at the end of a very long process, I had a cash register that was working properly and a very grateful El Salvadorian woman. "You fixed it!" she cried. It was one of the most satisfying feelings I've ever had.
This experience was great for a lot of reasons. I felt good knowing that I'd confronted a challenge that I knew very little about, but was able to overcome employing perseverance and the 'instruction manual'. I would have been totally lost without the manual. It was frustrating because it didn't give me the answers easily, and I had to search hard to find them, but when they came they were clear. It's satisfying when you overcome something difficult. It was also great knowing that I'd been able to make someone else's job a little easier and lighten the load for them. Service always gives you a really good, satisfied feeling afterward. This whole experience was very reminiscent of many gospel principles of which I teach every day. The 'manual', or the scriptures, truly do give us the answers to how to face our little and big problems in life, but oftentimes it requires diligent study in searching them out to find them, and usually, an answer doesn't come all at once or even in the way that we expect. Of course, it's always more satisfying afterward when you overcome something that was difficult. I remember the great words of a family favorite baseball movie, "A League of Their Own". "Of course it's hard! If it wasn't hard it wouldn't make it great!" (or something to that effect). [sister's note:  Actually, the real quote is, "It's supposed to be hard.  If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.  The hard is what makes it great."  The middle of which doesn't fit quite as well with the point he was making, but I think we can forgive him for that.]
Hold to the rod! Even if you have no idea how to confront the next challenge ahead of you, I promise you will find true and wise counsel and direction if you hold to the iron rod. Obedience can sometimes be difficult or tedious, even undesirable, as was the case with the cash register, but 100% obedience will always yield 100% blessings. ALWAYS.

 OK, the other service opportunity I had this week has to do with the picture I attached to the email of us trying to fit that couch through the window. That was really hard. The couch didn't fit through the door, and their was no other way to get it into that house except through that window. It sure as heck didn't seem convenient, or desirable, but we just put our shoulder to the wheel, and got that couch into that house. (It took 8 elders working on either side of the couch to do it, but we did it) It was totally worth it.
Halloween was really laid back for us. We had a great day at church, then all of our appointments canceled, and we had to be in the apartment before it got dark, because Halloween is really crazy and dangerous here. I made some really good food (I cooked some chicken with green peppers, tons of spices, and rice) and we read our scriptures and talked and laughed about good ol' times. It was relaxing.
Missionary life is great. I have lots of fun experiences to share, but I usually can't remember a lot of them when I write this email. Any questions?
                                 With much love from your favorite elder,
                                        -Elder Shepherd