04/04/16 - Siler City, North Carolina

Hola mis hermanos y hermanas! Como estan? Que dicen?? Wow, a full week. Last Tuesday I went on exchanges here in Apex and it went well! We found a new investigator for them and a few really solid potentials. Haha it always seems that I do better work outside of my area than inside.. Oh well, as long as it is getting done somewhere I'm a happy camper! Elder Niko and I gave another instruction in District Meeting this past Wednesday on the importance of asking bold, simple, and direct questions. It went very well and it was very spiritually powerful! We are giving another instruction this week, but this time it's for Zone Training. The whole zone! Scary! I made a new numbers board this week for our apartment and it looks gooood if I do say so myself.. Wednesday was just a blessed day. We were on our bikes and for some reason random strangers were waving too us as we rode by! And we caught all green lights too! Our member dinner that we had loaded us up with like three bags of bagels, strawberries, and grapes! Then on the way home, we ran into a potential investigator that we met like a week ago but forgot to ask for his number or address! He was outside his house with his dog and he stopped us on our bikes and started to talk with us and told us that he really wants us to come by sometime. So we got his number that time (not really, we actually forgot again) and rode home! And if that wasn't enough, we got a random phone call from a hispanic that asked for the address of our church and said he wanted to come! Craziness!! We are helping a recent convert through a smoking problem and it is my first time on the mission helping someone through an addiction. To go through it with them, we promised that we would stop snacking on anything other than fruit and healthy things. It's been rough. But it's good for all of us! Our teaching pool has been a little difficult lately as many of our investigators do not seem to understand our message or really have a desire to change and act, but we are staying faithful in our finding efforts and are really trying to teach more simply! We rode in a completely gutted out Mustang this week! There is a member who is restoring it and he has taken out all of the seats and everything, but he took us for a drive in it! It was a little scetchy, but thankfully we're still alive. Sad story time! It was April Fools on Friday, and I didn't even pull a single April Fool's joke!! Seriously bummed about that. Awesome story time! I finished the Book of Mormon for the first time in my life. That's what's up. I grew up reading it with my family plenty of times and have read it on my own too, but have only ever made it through Alma. But this time, I read all of it! I started it in the CCM and finished it the morning before conference. I have developed such a strong testimony of it's validity and power! It truly is more correct than any other book on Earth as stated by the Prophet Joseph Smith. General Conference. Oh my goodness. So wonderful!! I am saddened by how quickly it went by!! But it was awesome while it lasted. And we can continue to read and study the words given! Something that I really got out of it is that we are literal sons and daughters of God! I have always known that principle, but have never really thought about it too much. It is so powerful! God loves us. Oh, one more story! So there is an investigator here that will go unnamed, but he has been meeting with missionaries for about a year. His whole purpose is to prove us wrong with random Bible doctrine that is against our church like having a Christmas tree or having women cover their faces when they pray. He pretty much just likes to intimidate the missionaries and gets a kick out of watching them squirm. Well I met him last Monday whilst frolfing and he told me that if I don't have my Bible scriptures down and the Holy Ghost with me, he will run me out of this town. The next night we had a lesson with him and just hardcore set expectations. I told him that I wasn't there to play games, but to teach Repentance and baptize converts. We were pretty bold with him and told him that he isn't going to intimidate us and just bore testimony of the truthfulness of this church. We think he could feel of the power of the Holy Ghost that we had with us and he didn't know what to say and threw some little insults at us, but it was good because we set expectations! Well later that night he texted us and told us that he is done learning from us and that he wishes us luck on our missions. That's what's up! Boom! Look who ran who out of town! But yeah, it's actually pretty sad how long it was going on for, but thankfully not anymore! Anyways, it was a great week! Thanks for tuning in! I love you all, have a good week!!

Smacking down doctrine,
Elder Shearer