21 years old

6/20/11
We had an all mission conference this last week to say goodbye to our mission president and his wife as well as to the Connecticut Hartford mission. As of today all of our records are now part of the Boston Mission and we have electronically made the switch to the new mission even though our mission president doesn't go home until next Monday. We'll get texts from our new president, President Evans, about transfers and will have a huge all mission conference with the almost 200 missionaries in our new combined mission on the 30th of June, next Thursday. I am probably staying here in Hartford to finish out my last 6 weeks here but President Evans is making a change in every single companionship to pair us up with missionaries from the other mission to fully integrate us, so there is a chance that I'll be moved. If I am transferred I won't leave Hartford until the 30th of June and if you plan on sending me anything in the mail that week then you should send it to the new mission office address:
Massachusetts Boston Mission Office
182 West Central Street
Suite 203
Natick, MA. 01760
I can't believe that my mission president is really going home! I guess it made our goodbye easier knowing that he'll be at my homecoming in August but it's still strange to think that everything is changing. It's good in a way because it will really keep me on my feet these last few weeks that I have left so I'll be able to make the most of them. I attached a picture that I took at the conference with President and Sister Pehrson.

I love them so much! We had great occasion to celebrate this past weekend in particular because it was Sister Pehrson's birthday on the 18th, mine on the 19th, and it was father's day, so we had a party at the mission home last night for cake and ice cream.

I attached a picture of us sitting in their house last night and singing hymns. I was at the piano in the corner and you can't really see me in the picture, but it was a great gift! We just sang our favorite hymns for a while and President Pehrson shared some 'last words' with us. It was a really good birthday. Other birthday activities included going to church and having a lot of investigators there and visiting a recent convert who has changed a lot since his baptism. The mission is so great...

I included a picture as well of Elder Downs and I at the Capitol here in Hartford. We're 'showing a little leg' because we're cracking a joke about our mission president who sits like that sometime, that is, showing just a little leg. He thought we were pretty funny.
Just a brief note about when I come home: They do transfers in the Boston Mission on Thursday, so I will be flying home on a Friday. I officially fly home on Friday, August 12th. That's just FYI. I'm not trunky. That's impossible.
Missionary story of the week: We were eating dinner at a member's home last Wednesday who invited a couple of non-member friends over. One of them, Maria, was particularly interested in our message and what we had to say. She recently had injured her leg pretty badly and it was pretty swollen. She was scheduled to see her doctor on Friday to discuss the possibility of surgery. She requested a priesthood blessing and we gladly offered her one. We felt the spirit very strongly and blessed her that she would recover. We then taught how we were able to do so because of the restoration of priesthood authority through the prophet Joseph Smith. We received a phone call from the member who is good friends with Maria last night telling has that Maria is really excited to meet with us again this week at her home. She saw her doctor on Friday who was shocked that her leg had miraculously recovered and told her that surgery wouldn't be necessary. I was touched and grateful to my Heavenly Father. I know that priesthood power has been restored and that it is very real. I know that the spirit inspires us as we are engaged in God's work to bring to pass His will in His way.
I love my mission.
  with much love from your favorite elder,
       -Elder Shepherd

Inclement Weather‏

6/13/11

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 first picture I attached: So I don't know how I fell asleep like that, but I did. My companion always takes pictures of me whenever I fall asleep during the day. This one was particularly funny.

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

Mini Puerto Rico

6/6/11
This week was kind of a heartbreak as far as baptisms go. We were going to have 3, but all of them have fallen through in one way or another. One woman we are teaching loves reading the Book of Mormon and took a long time to get an answer about it and was ready to be baptized this upcoming Saturday, but we got a text message from her saying, "I have to go to New York for 3 weeks. It's family problems. I can't tell you more. We'll set a date for my baptism when I get back." It was sad but good at the same time that she still has baptism on her mind. We hope she'll stay strong in New York for the next couple of weeks. Another young lady we're teaching wants really badly to be baptized but her dad won't let her. He is 'VERY Catholic' (that's the phrase that they use to refer to themselves), even though he doesn't go to church, and he swears that he will die Catholic along with his family. This girl lives with her mom (her parents are divorced) and her mom was baptized almost a year ago and wants her daughter to be baptized also. We hope that prayers and gentle persuasion will be enough to soften his heart enough that he at least offers his daughter her agency. Another woman we're teaching LOVES the Book of Mormon and says that it always takes away her pain and fears when she reads it but she is scared to get married to her boyfriend of 20 years (yes, they have been together for 20 years, faithful and loyal to one another, without being married). He wants to marry her, but she had a really bad experience with her first marriage to an abusive and cruel husband. She swore that she would never be married ever again. In my head it just doesn't make any sense. In their situation, marriage wouldn't change their lifestyle at all! The only thing that would change is that they would be living God's laws and be able to be baptized and sealed in the temple! Of course she does have a genuine fear of commitment, particularly in marriage, from very tragic past experience. We're praying and fasting that God will give her an answer that living the law of chastity is the right thing to do. *sigh* I love these people so much. I want nothing but their happiness.
I attached 2 pictures to the email:

The first is a picture of Elder Downs and I knocking doors in some ghetto apartments. This is pretty typical for the areas where we work. There are nicer areas of Hartford in the west and east, but we just don't seem to find people to teach there. In fact, we taught a guy in the building in that picture that same day, and his roommates were doing drugs and didn't want us in the apartment so we taught him in the hall.

The other picture is just to pose a question: Do you think glasses are a good look for me? Be honest.
Yesterday was the Puerto Rican festival here in Hartford, an all day, all night party on the street where we live where everyone is dressed scandalously and is waving Puerto Rican flags in the air, driving around on their mopeds and scooters while honking their horns incessantly and screaming at the top of their lungs. It was nuts. Our street contacting proved to be fruitless because everyone was drunk and going crazy. I think I've temporarily lost hearing in one ear from all the commotion. I'm just grateful that I was still able to sleep last night with all the noise. Of course I do live on the 12th floor of a tower, so most of the sound didn't travel that high, but I was still pretty impressed at how long, hard, and loud they partied. I tell you what, they sure are proud to be from Puerto Rico... We would have taught Carolina, an investigator, yesterday but her house was on the Puerto Rican parade route and I couldn't even hear myself think over there. She is from Guatemala and came here to work and send money back to her family. She's here all by herself and she is illegal in the country. I felt really bad for her because she along with 30 of her fellow employees were fired without notice on Monday without opportunity to collect unemployment or advance notice. Of course none of these people can fight back, even though they've worked there for 10 years, because they don't have papers and would most likely be deported. My heart goes out to them.
I can't believe that it's June now. My mission is flashing before my eyes! My mission president ends his mission in a couple weeks and he's working on selling the mission home and getting rid of a lot of stuff. We got a free bike, helmet, and some beds and sheets from the mission home this week, and someone gave us a really nice mirror for helping them clean out their basement this week, so we seriously upgraded our apartment. Not that any of that is really important, I just counted it as a blessing. I'm gonna turn 21 in 2 weeks! I'm so old.
The mission life is wonderful and I love every minute of it. I'm ending these 2 years strong and hoping to start off strong when I come home.
   with much love from your favorite elder,
          -Elder Shepherd

Memorial Day Weekend‏

5/31/11

So all the libraries were closed on Memorial Day, so I couldn't email yesterday. In fact, it was as if the entire city of Hartford was closed yesterday. It was weird. There was no one in the streets, all the stores were closed, and it was the most quiet that I've ever heard it here. We just met in the church for our P-Day and watched movies. I finally got to see Toy Story 3! I was very pleased! After we finished watching it, I watched the whole movie again in Spanish. It was awesome!

I attached 3 pictures to this week's email. 

The first is of me sleeping on my knees. I fell asleep while praying on my bed at night and my companion took a picture of me an hour later. I woke up early that morning on my knees... I was kind of sore. 

The other is just a random action shot that I took of myself while walking past this tall building with orange, reflective windows in downtown Hartford. 

The third one might not be as funny unless you've served a mission and had to do weekly planning. We were a little past hafway done with a weekly planning session where we set goals and plan for our next week when we got interrupted and had go help someone. When we came back, I was looking at my companion's planner and noticed that my weekly plans looked very very different from his weekly plans... My planner is the one on the top and his is on bottom. Somewhere along the line we must not have been communicating very well... We figured that Elder Downs had just gotten bored and stopped participating in our discussion and decided to act like he was listening and draw pictures instead. We've got to work on our communication skills... Either that or we need to make weekly planning for 2-3 hours more fun...

This last week was jam-packed with awesome experiences! I wish I had time to write all of them down and share them with you but I'll have to just share a few select stories for this past week. Last Tuesday we were eating dinner with a nice Peruvian family, Sister Cornejo and her husband. Sister Cornejo is very active in the church but her husband hasn't gone to church in 10 years. He was really quiet the whole time until we sat down for a lesson. I asked him a couple of questions about his background and got to know that he hadn't been to church in forever and proceeded to ask him about his baptism and his conversion experience. It was as if a light turned on inside of him as I asked him about the Book of Mormon and he began to talk about his favorite stories and how he knew it was true. He loved the Book of Mormon and had a strong testimony of it, and we were able to have a delightful conversation with him in which he actively participated after that. I was also impressed by his enthusiasm about the Book of Mormon. Even though he had other issues that had kept him from coming to church and fully embracing the gospel he had never forgotten nor could deny his testimony regarding the Book of Mormon. Another testimony to me that one doesn't simply 'forget' a witness from the Holy Ghost as to God's truth, but they allow other influences to darken their vision and blur their discernment. It was also a testimony as to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The spirit was really strong and gave me promptings and certain questions that I needed to ask him. I felt that sensation that Joseph Smith spoke about being 'pure knowledge flowing through you... giving you sudden strokes of ideas..." throughout the lesson we had with him. I learned a lot from what we spoke about. It was really cool! There were several lessons this week where I felt the same way, where I explained things to investigators in ways that I had never thought of before and I found that I was learning a lot from what was coming out of my mouth. The spirit is an amazing influence that can guide our very emotions and thoughts. Another such special instance was this morning as I taught a sister who is struggling with depression about prayer, and I began to make connections and explain things in a way that I'd never thought of before but explanations that made perfect sense to her. The spirit bore witness to our hearts collectively, to missionary and investigator, of the truthfulness of what was taught. I suppose that that is what the scripture means that says, "Seek not to preach my word but first seek to obtain my word and then shall your tongue be loosed..." or another scripture that says, "Teach ye diligently and ye (the person teaching) shall be taught from on high..."

The same spirit inspired us in another lesson this last week to ask a question and delve into a subject that was completely off topic of what we had just been talking about. Come to find out that it was exactly what this investigator needed and it brought to our attention something that we wouldn't have expected.

We have several investigators now in a nearby city, Manchester, which is about 15 miles east of Hartford, so we dedicated a day this week to take the 1 hour bus trip there by taking 2 busses and working there all day. We set up appointments with our contacts there and had a good day worked out. The sister missionaries in Manchester gave us the names of streets and places we could go to find the most Spanish people, and they even had a couple of referrals for us. The Spanish population there isn't as high as Hartford of course, and they were a bit more scattered, but we found some really great people there who are willing to take the bus to church in Hartford so that they can go to church in their native language. It's impressive because there is an LDS church there in Manchester, but the services are in English and they WANT to go to church in spanish. It'll be cool to see what happens there in the coming weeks. We might need to coordinate more with the members there to see if there are any Spanish speaking members there or people who could help with rides. It's kind of fun hitting 'new' territory.

On a random but cool note I helped a couple from our branch move last friday from East Hartford to Marlborough, CT, a small-city about 15 miles to the south-east of Hartford. As we were driving a load of their stuff to their new home and we drove through the trees and the beautiful scenery of Connecticut I thought to myself, "Wow, I really do love this place." Several people have asked me if I would ever consider living here. I really do love Connecticut. I love the trees and the nature. I love being able to get lost in the woods easily. I love the unbelievable snowfall here that just buried us this last winter and caused all kinds of problems. That may sound weird but I really feel drawn to this place. At least for 2 years I've been able to call New England 'home'. Utah will always be HOME, but now New England is a special place for me.

It was a good week, and I love being a missionary!

    with much love from your favorite elder,

            -Elder Shepherd

The Last Fireside‏

5/16/11
I met my new mission president, President Evans, this last Tuesday at a mission transfer meeting. He was visiting so that he would be able to get to know all of us here in Connecticut before the missions officially combine on July 1st. He and his wife both spoke and shook hands with every single elder and sister after the meeting. He seems like a pretty nice guy. The difference between his leadership and President Pehrson is almost like night and day. President Evans is short and looks really pleasant and seems to be very nice and sensitive. President Pehrson, while very loving and kind, seems much more authoritative and has a very intimidating persona standing at 6 foot 3 or 4 and has a deep bass voice. Both are great men who love the Lord and love the missionaries that they serve. President and Sister Pehrson also spoke to all of us in the meeting. They expressed their love for all of us and their love for the mission. It still hasn't hit me yet that they're really going home. They've always been here and it will be strange for them to be gone all of the sudden. They promised to come to my homecoming though, so that's pretty cool.
Yesterday we had a multi-stake conference involving several stakes throughout the New England area and was broadcast from Utah. President Eyring, Elder Russell M Nelson, Ann M Dibb, and Elder W Craig Zwick of the seventy (who just recently visited our mission last month) all addressed us in the conference. All of them had special connections to the New England area, whether they were born here, lived here for an extended period, had lots of family here, or all of the above. They spoke about the growth of the church in this area and what they've seen happen here in their lifetime. President Eyring spoke of visiting small branches out here in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey of only about 10-15 members each while he presided in this area in the 1950's. Today, there are over 14,000 members of the church in Connecticut alone, 2 stakes, and 50% of the members are first generation members of the church. I think there is a good reason why they are going to build a temple here in Hartford, and I think that with the erection of a temple here that the missionary work in this area will pick up enormously. The temple has a profound effect on people, especially those within close proximity to it. It made me feel good to know that even though I may not think that I've had tons of outward success here during the course of my mission that I have had a more profound unseen effect than I now realize working to prepare people for this temple, and someday I may learn and know more of it. The conference was inspired, and I thought it very significant as well that someone spoke as representing the first presidency, quorom of the 12, the quorom of the seventy, and the general auxiliary presidencies of the church to the saints in New England. The field here is white, and we're taking a role in the harvest.
After the conference we went over to the mission home to eat lunch with the Pehrsons before driving with them to the fireside. It was fun to get to spend the afternoon with them again, and it reminded me of how exactly a year ago that day I went over to his house after Stake Conference and ate lunch with him before performing at the musical fireside in Bloomfield. It was after that fireside a year ago that I got terribly lost on my way home and my companions and I almost hit Vermont by the time we realized we had no idea where we were or how to get home to Providence, RI. I had to call my mission president at 10:35 PM (past our curfew...) to wake him up and tell him that we were in a pickle. President Pehrson brought up that story again yesterday as we drove to the fireside with him in his car and we had a good laugh about it. We laughed at how worried and unnerved I was and how he had chewed us out. Good times...
We performed the last musical fireside of the Connecticut mission yesterday in Woodbridge, CT. One of the elders who was going to sing called me up last minute and told me that he had lost his voice and wouldn't be able to sing, so I was able to pressure President Pehrson into singing a duet with me in the fireside of "A Child's Prayer" in place of the elder who couldn't sing. It was a fun addition and it went really well. It felt really special to be able to sing it with him as well. The spirit was very powerful throughout the whole program and everyone in attendance was blessed. It marked the end of a long tradition here in our mission and it was both happy and sad. I got to see members in New Haven who I haven't seen since the beginning of my mission when I first served there and see how their children had grown and how they had grown and how I had grown... It was an emotional experience. After the fireside I drove home again in President and Sister Pehrson's car and had a great talk with them about the mission and about the future. Sister Pehrson wants me to bring over my future wife, once I have found her, to their home in Kaysville, UT so that they can meet her and approve of her. I LOVE the Pehrsons. They have changed my life and I hope to continue our association after the mission.
This week is gonna bring great new experiences and trials, and I'm so stoked for it all!
  with much love from your favorite elder,
             -Elder Shepherd

Hazel street-2 strikes then a home-run!‏

Elder Downs and I we're knocking on Hazel street this week in Hartford because we felt strongly that that's where we needed to tract. We met a couple of nice people but no one was really interested in our message. That was that. Several days later we still felt that we really needed to tract on Hazel street, so we went to the area again and talked to some more people but still no luck. Why are we here on Hazel street? Oh well. The very next day, one of our members called us and said that she had just spoken with a woman at her work who needed help and gave us her phone number. We called this referral right away. She introduced herself as Mercedez and was more than happy to have us over that next day. I was kind of floored when she told us that she lived on Hazel street. I was even more impressed when I realized that we had knocked on her door and rang her doorbell that week tracting Hazel street, but she hadn't answered the door because she is an old lady who lives on the 3rd floor of a 3 family home and doesn't come down 3 flights of stairs to answer the door to strangers. We had an amazing appointment with her in which she shared with us some of the difficulties she has been going through recently with an injury at her job and other problems she'd been having. She told us how she used to be a very active Catholic and would take her family to church every week but that had all fallen apart with her divorce years ago. She expressed her yearning to be close to God again and said that she had been praying that He would send her some help that whole week. Well, that whole week we felt the impression to tract her street. Eventually we were able make contact with her through someone else! It was nothing short of miraculous. She loved our lessons, came to church, loved it, wants to be baptized, and has invited all her family and friends to come over to her home and listen to us as well. I'm so grateful that God loves us and is aware of our needs. He still works miracles in His work today.
Last night we had our second performance of the musical fireside I've been organizing in Bloomfield, Connecticut. We had a really good turnout among members and non-members. All the members from the Spanish branch who were there told me after that it was really weird for them to hear me speak in English. It was weird for me to be speaking in English over the pulpit because I haven't done so in so long. I'm very comfortable speaking Spanish in church now, probably more so now in Spanish than English. The spirit bears a very powerful witness through music. I feel like I can express my feelings so much better through music than I can through words. It was a powerful program. I included a picture of me with my Uncle Alan and Aunt Shirlene who were in attendance at the fireside again!

It's fun having family in the mission. It's even more fun knowing that if their next-door neighbor spoke Spanish that I would be the elder who gets to teach them. I urged them to do some missionary work and find some Spanish people out there so that we can have dinner and a lesson in their home.
Tomorrow we get to meet our new mission president, President Evans, in anticipation of July 1st when our mission will officially combine with the Boston, Mass mission. It's kind of weird to me that my mission president is going home in a little over a month. It's weird to me that I'm now the oldest elder in my mission and I still have 12 weeks left! I'm getting old.
I love life in Hartford! The work is moving forward and we'll see a lot of success here as we continue to work hard and trust in the Lord.
   with much love from your favorite elder,
          -Elder Shepherd

Mother's Day

5/9/11
I loved calling home on Mother's Day and talking with all my family. It's always weird calling home in the mission but really good at the same time. It was my LAST TIME calling home from the mission field because I'm going home come August. Nothing could make me 'trunky' so don't worry about that, but I do honestly miss my family and am excited to go home. Now I'm gonna finish strong!
I baptized Jose Bayon this last Saturday! The baptismal service itself was slightly comical because not a lot of members showed up, including our assigned speakers and prayers... At the same time the members who were there filled in and the baptism was still a really good experience. I don't know if Jose understood my instructions about plugging his nose before I dunked him in the water because, after I said the prayer, he put his hand over his face with his palm squishing his nose and his fingers poking his eyes. "Plug your nose! Plug your nose!" I whispered anxiously to him. He still didn't plug his nose and was submerged with his hand in 'starfish formation' over his face. The important thing is that he was submerged, the baptism was performed correctly and by the authority of Jesus Christ, and he has now made a covenant with God. His confirmation was a sweet experience. I felt the spirit really strongly as we laid our hands on his head. Jose is going to be a really great member of the church. His non-member mother was present at the baptism and we now have the opportunity to follow up with her this week and help her understand that 'strong feeling' that she had at Jose's baptism.

The first picture I attached is of us at Jose's baptism. 

The second is a picture from inside our mail box. In case you didn't notice it was empty--not even junk mail. We were sad and decided that the moment needed to be captured.

 The third is another one of me falling asleep in a weird position. I can fall asleep anywhere, anytime, and really quickly. It's both a gift and a curse.
I'm sorry this email is short this week, but none of the other elders are emailing home today because they all spoke to their families yesterday and they're waiting on me.
I'm doing really well and the work in Hartford is great! This gospel is true and it changes lives. It's changed mine forever.
  with much love from your favorite elder,
              -Elder Shepherd