Don Sherwood Family Blog: 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.