Don Sherwood Family Blog: 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

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