Transfer 1, week 6: Miracles and Transfers

Hey Everyone,
       This week has been a great little week of miracles and preparation for things to come. I am really excited for several people, including Elder Ritchie.
       This week we didn't have a whole lot of busy work, but we did see a few miracles. So that was great. Well, let's jump into it. 
       Preparation was a blast this week. Normally they are great, but this one was different. We went disc golfing. That was fun. It was hot, and kind of fast paced. We didn't really have an order to it. And I noticed that I was the only one trying to score it correctly(like normal golf). Everyone else was scoring it by stroke. But then what is the point of a par 3 hole. Weird.🤔 Later, we went to the Schenks for dinner. Nothing special there yet, but I'll come back to it. 
       Tuesday has a pretty good miracle. We had been working with our investigator John for quite a while now on his smoking addiction. The zone leaders had given us a lesson for a stop smoking program which has a very high success rate. So we studied it and gave it a try with John. Well, needless to say, it went extremely well. He gave us all of his cigarettes, and stopped smoking, after throwing out everything he had related to smoking. He has been following the program exactly, and we have been seeing some pretty great miracles there. No baptismal date yet on him, but one step at a time.🤗
      We also helped one of our members practice roping cattle. So, that was fun. 
      Our other investigator, Jerry, has been progressing very very well. We had two lessons with him, and he is very golden. He knows the material, and has accepted a baptismal date of Aug 18th.😂 We are so excited. Jerry was willing to give up his occasional beer to become a member of the church. One of the little miracles we saw there was Bishop Steyee was with us for a lesson. And Jerry had mentioned that he was considering suicide before we arrived. But now he feels like he has more if a purpose in his life, and feels a lot of comfort from our church. It makes me feel really good to hear about and see the changes we are making in the lives of others. 
      Thursday we were really rushed around the place. The back story behind that is Elder Ritchie had lost his wallet. So when we went down to Great Falls for district meeting. Turns out it was sent back to Fairfield with a member. But we couldn't get it in till that night, because we had housing and vertical inspections that afternoon. So we actually drove around illegally for about 2 days, because I am forbidden to drive anything for another 5 months because of my driving record. It's a good thing we didn't get caught.🤗😲😥
       Saturday was the famous swim day celebration for our area. Think of Pony Express Days, combined into one day. The whole day is spent on activities to raise money for the community pool. We helped in the community hall, with the church sponsored bbq. That was fun. We took tickets, and counted how many people were there. They cost $9, ouch. But luckily we got to eat free because we helped with the whole thing. We were at the building though from 10 am till almost 5pm cleaning up and service around there. There were auctions, music, a car show, and a small parade. That was all very cute, but it was fun to see. 
       The only thing that was new or exciting about Sunday was that after the three hour block, we had a pot luck lunch. Yumm. It was a great activity they do out here called "Linger Longer". Definelty worth the time. We were there at the church that day from 8am to 4:30pm that after noon. Phew, that's a lot of church. The rest of the day was spent doing normal Sunday stuff, while anxiously awaiting the exciting transfer news call. 
      Now, about that transfer news call. Guess what, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to still be in Fairfield for at least 6 more weeks.😥 Sounds good. My companion, Elder Ritchie isn't so lucky though. He is getting transferred into town, and is now going to be one of the zone leaders. 😭So I'll still get to see him, but not as much.
       Remember that family I told you I would get back to, The Schenks. Well, cool story there. On Monday for dinner, Ethan, who had just graduated high school, had previously stated that he was NOT going on a mission. But on Saturday, we ran into Brother and Sister Schenk, who told us that Ethan had changed his mind after we left, and was very excited about going. I didn't even think we had a major impact on him. But something changed, and I am so happy we were there to help him make that decision to go. So I guess that's going to be my spiritual thought for the week. The examples we set forth by our actions can have a major impact on others and help them to make their own choices. This makes it all the more important, to listen to the holy ghost, and make sure we are keeping ourselves in line with His teachings, because we are all watched, and the actions we make affect others greatly. This is probably the whole reason I am out on my mission, to do all I can to help others come into Christ, by the example I set before them. 

All my love,
Elder Sherwood

Pictures:

The disc golf course

Helping with roping the cattle.

Jerry rigging the new AC unit

The new AC unit installed

Our favorite car from the car show

Elder Ritchie and I

Car selfie

Hay truck on fire

We tried a new way of drinking soda.

Elder Ritchie throwing away John's cigarettes.

Transfer 1, Week 5: Working at the carnival

Hey Everyone,
            Can you believe it's already been 5 weeks since I left the MTC? Wow, already almost 1 transfer down. Things are going great so far. Well, let's jump right in. 
          Early in the week we went on exchanges again, this time with the River's Edge elders. I came back to Fairfield with Elder Walker, while Elder Ritchie went to Great Falls with Elder Escobar. It was a pretty good exchange, we weren't entirely sure what we were going to do, not to mention this was my first tme fully in charge of everything. So it was a little slow at first, but I got the hang of it. One of the cool moments while on the exchange, was that we were invited to a Relief Society dinner. Wasn't expecting that, but it was great food, and a great program and night. 
       We had interviews with President Larsen on Wednesday. We were kind of rushed, because we had to get there, in Great Falls, by 8 am. That seemed kind of early, but it was alright. It was great to meet him in person. We had talked a lot about my experiences, who each of us are, and what to expect. One of the things we focused on a lot was my medical condition of cerebral palsy, and he was concerned that I'm not overdoing it. I'm not right now, but I'm supposed to keep him frequently updated on how the condition of my body. One really neat thing that happened was that President Larsen thinks we are related. He says he is related to a lot of Sherwoods down in Arizona. I know we have a couple families down there, any ideas who it could be? I'd love to know. 
       One cool thing that happened was that Elder Ritchie and I were allowed to go to lunch with Elder Ritchie's uncle who was passing through Great Falls. That was kind of cool. But sadly, don't expect that same opportunity to happen every time. I can't guarantee that we'll be allowed to visit. But we were this time. 
     Then later that day, we got lost going to dinner, it was kind of funny but also really embarrassing. 
     Thursday was both Elder Ritchie's birthday and the start to Indian Days up in Browning. It was pretty good. We got up in Browning at 8 am. It is a 1.5 hour drive, so yeah we had to get up pretty early. But it was fun, we got to walk around the carnival, handing out copies of the Book of Mormon, got to learn about the history of the people, and operate our little LDS booth. We also met a few drunk people, but that's not too important.
      We had Elder Ritchie's birthday dinner at the Phinney's. Lasagna, chocolate cake, and peppermint ice cream. Yum. 
       Nothing really exciting happened on Friday the 13th. We had a lesson with John, and met one of our referrals, Joyce. But that was about it. Probably not horrible seeing how it was supposed to be a bad day? Weird Friday the 13th stuff.
       Funny story, well at least for you. It's a Saturday afternoon. We have absolutely no idea where to go, because no one was answering. So we made the bad decision to bike 10 miles out to a members house to visit them. Yep 10 miles on a bike. Meaning a 20 mile round trip. Doesn't seem to bad, except that 16 of those 20 were DIRT roads. Ouch we ended up being on bike for 3-4 hours, and we only visited 1 person for about 15 mins. Yikes. That was really rough. 
But that was just about it for the week. I love hearing from everyone. And I can't wait to see what happens next in your adventures. 
         Quick spiritual thought to wrap this all up. I finished my Book of Mormon study on Faith the same day I got my new journal, thanks mom. But that day, I was in Moroni chapters 7 - 10. Both in Mormon's letters, and Moroni himself talk a lot about Faith, hope, and charity. I found it quite interesting how the cycle of those three principles works. To have Faith, you must have hope. Having that hope, builds your Faith. When your Faith increases, you become more charitable to others, and you gain more hope in Christ. Not only can I see evidences of this cycle every day in the mission, but I find it cool that each of these principles are Christine attributes from chapter 6 of Preach My Gospel. As we do our best to build these three principles in our own lives, we can come to know Christ better, and be better examples of him. 
         Well, I can't wait to hear from you all. And we'll see what happens next week when we get news on transfers. 
Love, 
Elder Sherwood

Pictures... not many. I guess I need to step up my game.

The tent at Indian Days. I had no idea Elder Ritchie took this picture. I'm the Elder that is half in the picture.

Tent at Indian Days

Random selfie

From Elder Ritchie's Facebook post about reading the scriptures.

From Elder Ritchie's Facebook post about reading the scriptures.

Transfer 1, Week 4: The New Mission President

Hey Everyone,

This week has been great. Lots of fun surprises, and new things to talk about. My mind is staring to blend days together, so bear with me. So let's jump right into our highlight reel. 

On preparation day, we did a whole lot of nothing. Just kidding, after the emails were sent, we went and did normal preparation day things. While we were shopping, we wanted a couple games to play, so I bought a monopoly game. We played it, found it fun, but has kind of a weird ending. Other than that preparation day went pretty normally until the evening. The Swenson's came over and cut our lawn. That was pretty awesome. I wish I had pictures.  But to give a description of the way it looked, we called it our "Grass Forrest". We had wanted to get it cut for a while, but all 3 of the lawn mowers on the property are broken.😭 But it now looks like we have a grass lawn again.

Tuesday honestly sucked mostly because of my attitude. We were a little high on miles at that point, so we cradled out the bikes. There were two issues that made it suck. 1. I had not hidden a bike for about 3-4 YEARS. Ouch. I was so sore and raw afterwards. 2. The bike I have, I got from a recently returned elder. Turns out, he was like 6ft 4in, or taller. The bike was/is way too big. We have lowered the seat as much as possible, making it bearable. But it still isn't all together a great experience. But it works. It was also my sister's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIANNE. 

The 4th of July was probably more like a preparation day than preparation day was. We were busy, but never had the chance to proselyte. We were invited by a ward family to see the show-doe  sorry for incorrect spelling, parade. It was a cute little parade. I don't think I had ever seen so many old cars in one place. It was pretty sweet. Of course I was expecting this though, a huge tractor. It was taller than the buildings, and as wide as the whole road. The rest of the day was pretty low-key. We studied, had meals, and spent some time napping because Elder Ritchie wasn't feeling too good. We got to go to kind of a bbq for dinner with our ward mission leader. That was fun. 

Thursday, we were on bikes again. Yuck. We rode 14 miles. It hurt. We met with John, had a good discussion with him. We are still struggling with his smoking. I need to find some way to get him out and about, so he doesn't have to sit in his apartment and smoke all day long. Any ideas? The Cut Bank elders arrived that night in preparation for our fun adventures the following day. 

Friday was the day we finally net with our new mission President. Their names are President and Sister Larson. They lived in Chandler Arizona, and were super excited to come here. I feel kind of bad for their 15 year old son, Elijah, who got the privilege of tagging along. He got to move as a sophomore in high school. And he doesn't get to get the full attention of his parents over the next three years, poor guy. But on a good note, he just met all 200 of his new brothers and sisters. So, win win?

Something new happened that day. I went on my first ever exchange. I went to Great Falls for the night with Elder Madsen. It was quite the adventure. We did missionary game night, and I learned a lot from him on how to be a better companion. 

Saturday was also kind of weird. We woke up, started to get ready for our service appointment at 9 am, when we got a call from someone in Missoula, giving us a referral, but he took around 30 minutes to do so. So, yeah we ended up being late to our appointment. We got to help the Sunriver Methodist church again. We spent almost 5 hours tearing carpet, removing drywall + insulation, and scraping old tile off the floor. It was definitely hard work, but it was totally worth it to see how much it help those poor people recover from the flood. 

Elder Ritchie, being the great guy he is, left the keys at the apartment, when we quickly went home, in the zone leaders car, to change. That was quite an adventure, trying to find a way to make the trip back and forth.  

Well, that's about it for the highlight reel. We had a good week. I hope yours has been as well. Let me know about anything cool that happens ok?

Spiritual thought of the week. I was reading in 3rd Nephi chapter 18 during my study this week, and this verse, kind of stuck out to me. It says, 

"Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed."  

It reminded me of the Mormon message about letting our light shine. I know that as we shine our lights, which light comes from Faith in Christ, others can see and come to understand the importance of Him to us, and how we feel we can come closer to Him. 

Well, anyway I love and miss you all, and can't wait to hear from you soon.

Love,
Elder Sherwood

Pictures:

Elder Sherwood with President and Sister Larson

Great Falls Zone Conference - July 2018

Elder Wright's ties! I've never seen so many different ties at once. Crazy!

Elder Ritchie's 4th of July scripture, just in case you missed it on Facebook.

Transfer 1, Week 3: Past Week's Aftermath

Hey Everyone, 

     Happy early 4th of July. I can't believe it's already July. It has been a pretty long few days out here in Montana, but surprisingly a pretty short week. I guess the saying is true that the days will feel like weeks, and the weeks will feel like days. Crazy, huh?!😎

     A lot of this past week involved service. We went down to Augusta a couple more times this week to help clean-up the areas affected by the flood. We got the opportunity to be a part of the "Mormon Helping Hands". Its a church services service run by local ward/branch leaders where it is needed. We got to wear the yellow vests, and everything. The missionaries, half our zone went, spent most of the time moving sandbags. Either moving them from one spot to another house, or dumping them out where nobody will care about the extra sand. It was pretty tiring. Sandbags are supposed to weigh about 50lbs when dry. But when they are wet, they feel a lot worse, more like 75-80lbs. This doesn't  seem all that bad, until you have moved about 300 of them from around a house. Ouch, that really hurt the back and arms afterwards. But hey, no need for a gym, when I can just move sandbags for exercise right? 

     Funny, but scary story. So we put these 300 sandbags onto this really heavy duty truck. These sandbags weighed about a total of 15,000 lbs, and the truck could have carried more. But anyway, we take them over to the Ford's house, and begin cutting them open, dumping them out, and raking them level on their driveway. One of the Elders, Elder Black was opening the bags. They had some pretty sharp knives to open the bags. So here is Elder Black opening a bag, when Elder Madsen tosses another bag near him to be opened next. The thrown bag slides a little, and hits the arm of Elder Black that is holding the knife, and zip, the knife slips out of the bag, and right into Elder Blacks arm. It was pretty narly, but at the same time not a single tear was shed. Instead, we all, including Elder Black start laughing, and wanting good pictures. It was really hilarious.

     We had a couple visits with one of our new investigators this week. His name is Jerry. We met him by tracting last Sunday night (June 24th). I don't know if I talked about him last week or not. We taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation. He seems pretty golden. Other than the Book of Mormon, he knows and believes all the material. We were talking about the plan of salvation yesterday, and he said," sometimes I look up at the stars and wonder where do I come from and why am I here". The only thing keeping him from getting baptized is that he wants to know more before he makes that choice, which is understandable. The only sad thing here, is that he is going to North Dakota for a few weeks, so we won't be able to meet with him again until the 18th of July. 😢. So we helped him get a audio version of the Book of Mormon for him to listen to while he is driving.  

     We also met with John again. The word of wisdom is still a struggle there, but I think we are getting a little closer. President Swenson, our stake president wanted to tag along yesterday ended up being a great help to our lesson with him. He opened up like he never had before. It was great. 

     One night this week, for dinner, we got to eat a pig. Now, I know that doesn't so exciting, let me rephrase it a little bit. This week, we got the opportunity to eat a pig's face, minus the skin. It was interesting, but really great.

     The last few days have not been fun around 7:30 pm. Our plans fell through, and we scrambled to find something to do for a while. It kind of sucked. But it was ok. 

     I've heard stories that there have been a few fires in Utah this past week. This doesn't surprise me seeing how dry the winter was. I hope everyone is ok and that none had been in a need to be relocated recently.

     This past week, I've been studying a lot in the latter part of the Book of Alma. A.k.a the war chapters. It has really impressed on my mind the importance of building our own spiritual defenses in our places of security. In this day and age, it is becoming all the more prevalent to always make sure we put on the armor of God. Every piece to it's fullest. And that we build defenses around our safe places, that way we, and those we love, can be protected from the "lamanite" attacks that will come upon us. But I know and strongly believe that if we are strong in our Faith and put on the whole armor of God, we can be protected from their attacks.

I love and miss all of you. I hope everyone has a great 4th of July. 

Love,

Elder Sherwood

Now Pictures:

Elder Ritchie touched this hot light bulb with wet fingers. Awesome!

We got a lot of these recently.

Elders cleaning up debris

Cleaning up debris

Elder Madsen wanted to feel like a king as we moved this trough

All the elders that came out to help with the flood

Our sandbag mountain - all 300 of them!

Elder Black's bloody arm

The pig

Selfie with the pig

Elder Ritchie's note to the crew at lunch

Star Wars Monopoly

I had to sew a tie. It was falling apart.

The happy burger