No Time

Sorry, I don't have time to talk. I gotta go. I will email more next week. But this picture is for all you Big Bang Theory fans.

Elder Shepherd

[I think Elder Shepherd had a lot of personal emails to respond to this week. I know I sent him two myself. Oops! But he did reply to my emails, so I'll put a section of what he told me about his Thanksgiving on here. Coming from a sisterly point of view, I'm glad to see this picture. I miss seeing him. We haven't seen pictures from him since he was in the MTC. He is promising that he will send his SD card home. Expect more pictures when we get it!]

Hey Em.

I know I already sent you an email, but you sent me two, so I should only return the favor.

Yeah, for Thanksgiving, we had a lunch with a member in another elder's area, and, since Thanksgiving isn't the greatest day to go out working, we watched the new Sherlock Holmes. (Chastise me if you want, my District Leader watched it, too) It's a good movie. Also, we went to the Bishop's house for dinner. Their dinner wasn't nearly as good as the lunch, but they did have pumpkin pie flavored cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. That was SO GOOD! I know cheesecake isn't healthy at all for you, but I couldn't resist.
I miss butt rolls. I haven't had them in so long. I finally made myself not lazy and made tacos last night, though. So good. I've been craving those for the longest time. 12-layer jello also sounds really good right now. I really love Thanksgiving. By the way, what is this missionary calendar you talk of. I certainly haven't heard anything of that. Have you guys been counting down the days until I come home? That is a bad idea (mainly because it makes me want to count days, too). I won't tell you to not do it, but it'll only make the time go slower for you guys. I've got 734 days in the mission, and if I've done 165, I'm already getting closer to coming home. I bet you guys will be excited for that, as am I. But, let's not dwell on the future for now.
You bet your biscuits I'm calling home on Christmas. The good thing about that is that I'll be able to call straight from our cell phone. Normally, we'd have to do it at a member's house, but since it's on a weekend, we get lucky, and can call from anywhere. I'm thinking of calling you guys around 7:00 PM Utah time on Christmas day. I have to coordinate with dad, but I'm sure that shouldn't be too big of a problem. As for what I want for Christmas, I'm still coming up with some ideas. I already know a few, and I'll tell them to dad, but I don't know when. I do know, though, that I'm sending my SD card home soon (probably tomorrow, even), so keep an eye for that. I've got some interesting photos and videos, to say the least.

Well, thanks a ton for your prayers, and I'll keep all of you in mine. Love you.

Elder Shepherd

P.S. my main email may or may not have a few pictures in it. It all depends if this computer will cooperate.

Week number 4 of transfer 3

Hey y'all

Things aren't really changing around here. I've been doing okay, but things are still pretty much the same. We haven't been able to get any new investigators, really, and our current ones are still going so so. I wish I had more to say, but I really don't. Except, actually, for last night. We were doing family home evening with a less-active family, and their 3-year old son was acting up because their DS wasn't working, and nobody wanted to help him. He was crying the whole time, and abusing the DS like crazy. It somewhat depressed me that the kid was spoiled a bit, but a little more when I saw the poor DS taking that abuse. Is that a bad thing? Aww, whatever. It's probably nothing. Well, that's about it, so I'll talk to you all later.

Love, amor

Elder Shepherd

Here's my new year's resolution (In November)

So,

We haven't been having the best weeks, lately. The problem is that Elder Adamovich has insomnia, and so he doesn't get the greatest sleep in the world. He usually sleeps past 7:15, and so that's been a problem. It's not for him, since he has medical permission to do so, but it's a problem for the rest of the people in the apartment because it's contagious. We have been trying hard to get up, but it has so far been unsuccessful. We are going to try, however, from now on to get up, and work out at 6:00 AM. It's really hard, but I have 15 pounds of weight to lose, so I'll do anything to do it. Also, proselyting work hasn't been too great, so we're making a resolve to up our efforts in that. So yeah, there's my November years resolutions.
As far as the work, we haven't been getting much different. We found a less-active family, and we're trying to bring them back to church. As for our investigator, she came to church, but her autistic son was acting up, and so she excused herself and left. I was really disappointed when that happened, because she's progressing really well. We're praying that something good happens soon, though.
That's about it for this week. Stay tuned till next week.

Con amor

Elder Shepherd

Emailing on a Wednesday

Wednesday Email!!!

Yeah, we were supposed to email yesterday, but that didn't work out because the car elders had no free time for email. So, we're doing it today. Not too bad, though. Anyways, here's my update.
The area has been doing okay since the transfer. We got one of our solid investigators to come to church. She said she really liked it, and we have now begun teaching her the commandments. She is progressing really well, especially since she's already in the late Mosiah chapters. We're still shooting for her baptism this month, and things are looking up. However, we've noticed that our ward isn't as strong as what it should be, so we are going to focus this transfer a ton on less-actives. We're hoping that if we can re-invigorate the ward with some more members attending, things will start picking up.
As for any funny experiences, we decided to regress to childhood and make a fort on P-day. I've got some awesome pictures that I expect will be posted on my mission blog when I send the card home. Keep an eye out for those.
Well, that's about it, I'm almost out of time, and I got some more stuff to do, so, I'll talk to you all later.

Con amor

Elder Shepherd

New Transfer, New Companion, Same Area

Hey Everyone

This week was transfer week, so that means I'm now two transfers out of sixteen down. I'm not really trying to count, but I guess it just happens. I'm really excited because this week has been fun. Mainly because it was Halloween. I'll have to probably keep this short because I'm running out of time.
On Friday, we had a ward activity called Trunk-or-Treat. Elder Houghton and I chose not to go because it didn't seem to get much promotion, and sounded a bit lame. We chose to work, and eat dinner at a member's house. She said it was actually pretty fun. Serves us for our pre-conceived notions. On Saturday, because that was the day that we get our transfer/leadership calls, Elder Houghton gets a call that says he's leaving, I'm staying, and that he's going Zone Leader. I was excited for him, but also sad because he's come to be a really good friend. We stayed inside on Saturday packing. Later that night, we bought pizza from Costco, and had a small district party. We ate, played Settlers of Catan, and, don't freak out, watched a movie. We only watched it because proselyting on Halloween is pretty risky. It's the new version of "Bridge to Terabithia." If you haven't seen it, check it out. It's pretty cool. On Sunday, it was a lazy Sunday because we didn't have much energy. We continued packing, and had our regular dinner. Nothing too eventful. Yesterday, Elder Houghton left around 2:30, and Elder Adamovich, my new companion, came in around 3:00. We came inside, and played Magic the Gathering for about two hours. I should stop playing it because I'm starting to like it, and I don't need a trading card game to blow money on. Elder Adamovich is actually a really cool guy. He was actually my former Zone Leader for these last two transfers, and so he had to be released from that. He's pretty cool, though. He works a bit differently than Elder Houghton, but I imagine I'll be just fine.
Unfortunately, I don't have much else to report. The area has been fine, and we are going to start extending baptismal commitments. We haven't been doing it because for some reason Elder Houghton thinks that it'll be kinda pushy on our investigators, but we have to do it at some point. So, we're going to be doing a lot of that these next few weeks. That's about it. Thanks everyone for your support, and I'll still try my best to keep you guys up to date.

Con Amor

Elder Shepherd