05/22/17 - Raleigh, North Carolina

This was the best week of my mission!! I am absolutely loving every second up here in Raleigh. The promise land! Elder Barlow is an incredible companion and we are having a blast. Last Monday we went suit shopping and both bought new suits! We are excited to tour the mission throughout the transfer with our 7 different zone conferences. We have about 2 each week, it is about to get pretty busy!! We didn't have much of a preparation day with all of our meetings with President and what not, but that's okay, I'm here to work anyways! :) Once we got back into the good hours (the working hours), we met with one of our Bishops and we set up a time with them for when they are going to invite a non-member into their home for us to teach! We actually ended up having that lesson yesterday and it was incredible! The young man was so interested in everything we shared, he even came to church today! What a blessing. Tuesday was a crazy day!! We drove for 8 hours. We started the day off by going to the mission office and getting a few things done. While we were there, the office staff asked us to run a few errands for them. The first stop was two hours away to Siler City where we took the Elders there a new phone. While in Siler, we ate lunch at a place I used to love eating at when I served there! It is called Sir Pizza and it is delicious! We then drove another two hours from Siler City to Sanford where we delivered a different phone to some Sisters. From Sanford we drove an additional two hours to Fayetteville where we went on an exchange with the zone leaders there for the rest of the night. It was a great exchange, I went with Elder Jones! He is an incredible missionary. We actually went onto base at Fort Bragg and it was awesome! We had some solid lessons with some of their investigators, and we set goals and made plans to help their zone improve. We then drove two hours back up to Raleigh where we slept in our nice comfy beds. We went to a district meeting Wednesday morning and it was very inspirational! Elder Hoggan is a great district leader. We went to lunch afterwards at a place called Cici's and as we walked in, a woman stood up and demanded to pay for all of us!! What a tender mercy. I know she will be blessed for that! After lunch we went on another exchange with our zone leaders here in Raleigh. I was blessed to go with Elder Sheely in his area (the Spanish area of Raleigh, AKA my favorite area). Elder Sheely is a powerful missionary and is such a good example to me! We did some good old tracting in a nice Hispanic trailer park and we found a new man there to teach! We then went to dinner and boy did I get full! I hadn't eaten like that in forever! I forgot how much the Hispanic members feed you! It was so good though, how I have missed that food. :) We then visited a less active member I used to work with a lot and we actually had a breakthrough lesson with them! I guess some things have recently happened and they hadn't felt comfortable sharing it with any of their current missionaries. Thankfully they felt comfortable sharing it with us and we were able to resolve some concerns. They should be back on track now! They fed us more food while we were there and I was convinced I was going to explode haha! I had a neat experience that night as I got a call from a good friend, my former scout master, Brother Plewe! He was passing through the area and wanted to say hello! Sadly I wasn't able to meet up in person, but we had a little conversation over the phone and it was good to hear from him!! Thursday morning we of course went tracting and we had a blast as we always do, regardless of if we find someone or not! :) We had to take our car into the shop for an oil change and we didn't want to be stuck at the shop waiting for it, so we grabbed an extra car from the mission office and after dropping off our car at the shop, we went working with the extra car. It was fun to drive to the shop alone in our car!! First time in 20 months! We got some things done at the mission office and while we were there, one of the office workers that I work closely with told me that in all his time there, he's never seen the car and mileage reports as organized as they are now! So that was good to hear that at least I am doing something right ha.. We got caught up in our office work and made it home at 5:55. We were determined to be obedient though and get out the door before 6 so we scarfed down some cereal and got back out the door! We went and did service for some elderly people and made a bunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! We also knocked some doors and stayed effective with our time. Friday was a blessed day as we went on our third exchange for the week. I went up to Durham with Elder Garlick, our zone leader up there, while his companion came to my area with Elder Barlow. It was an exchange full of miracles! We literally tracted all day with a total of 6 hours on the doors! But, we found 4 new investigators! One of which was previously going to get baptized! He had moved though and had lost contact with the missionaries. What a miracle that we found him!! Another one of the 4 was very in need of the message. She was in tears on her doorstep as we shared with her the blessings and peace that she will receive as she acts on this message. A great exchange, I learned so much from Elder Garlick! Saturday was busy with our weekly meeting with President James taking up most of the morning/afternoon. We got a lot planned though! Sister James again made us an incredible lunch and it was delicious! After lunch we got on the doors and found a man by the name of Frank! It was a great story. We tried to share the message with him and numerous times he cut us off to tell us he wasn't interested. We kept sharing the message with different tactics and eventually even after him rejecting us 9 times, we got in the door! We had a powerful lesson with him and he agreed to let us come back. He promised us he would listen with an open heart and pray about our message! That right there Brothers and Sisters is why we must never be easily defeated! We tracted for the rest of the day and we found someone else to teach as well! Today was beautiful. We had 6 of our investigators come to church and they all loved it! Many of them are going to bring their spouses next Sunday! We had a great dinner with a counselor in the bishopric and we helped get his family on board with missionary work! Following dinner, we knocked on their neighbor's door and although the man condemned us to hell and told us we are on the wrong path, we kept the smiles on our faces alive and we testified to him of our message. It took him back so strongly that he began to shake and fear! With a shaky voice he attempted to keep bashing us, but our testimonies were firm. We truly confounded him as the scriptures would call it. It is amazing to know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ! Nothing will ever change that! We are firm and valiant in our testimonies of it. We will defend it to our dying day, this is the truth! What greater cause could we have than to stand for this message of hope, truth, and love! We continued to tract and we found quite a few people! One of which lost his mother this morning and he asked us to pray for him. After the prayer he hugged both of us and we shared the plan of salvation with him. I know this is God's work. It has to be! When we seek his will above our own, he will guide our paths and our lives will be made great in his hands.

Witnessing miracles,
Elder Shearer