05/29/17 - Raleigh, North Carolina

I cannot believe it has already been a week! That was by far the fastest of my whole mission. It was probably because it was the busiest week of my mission! But boy did I enjoy it though. :) Last Monday Elder Barlow and I actually had a few hours of a preparation day so we decided to take full advantage of it! We went to the North Carolina state museum and had a blast! We took some pictures there and made the most of the time we had! We worked the rest of the night and went tracting! :) We have been very diligent on the doors and don't take no for an answer! This is the truth, we are called of God to change your life! He has called a prophet in our day! This is the way He wants you to follow Him! Tuesday was the beginning of the busy schedule as we had our first zone conference of the transfer. We have 7 zones and therefore we have 7 conferences planned out during the course of 4 weeks and they all go from 8 in the morning until 4 In the afternoon! Our first one was here in Raleigh and it went very well! All of the instructions given were very uplifting and inspirational. Thankfully my instruction also went well. I have 30 minutes to use and the objective of my instruction is to help us become more effective teachers while tracting! My first point is that we must smile on the doors! Our message is one of joy, we must convey it. If the joy of the gospel is not on our faces, how can we ever feel it in our hearts? My second point is that we must never be easily defeated. Like I said, we are called of God! We must share our message until the people we are talking to either slam the door in our faces or let us in. Slam the door because they realize we know our message is true and we're not giving up, or let us in because they feel the Spirit testify to them also that it's true. It was incredible to see the hand of God in my instruction, numerous times as I was speaking amazing phrases came into my head that I had never thought of! Things such as "Sometimes we have to fight a little harder to find those that will be a little stronger". After the close of the conference, President asked to speak to us privately in his office. He let us know that a few Elders were having some problems and that we needed to split them up. We planned out the whole transfer of who would go where and with whom and then we went to do it! We moved the Elders around and did our best to inspire hope and love into them. We got home around midnight and were asleep before the door closed behind us! We woke up early Wednesday morning to have another zone conference in Apex! It was equally as fantastic! Except for the fact that the lunch gave everyone food poisoning... haha classic Hispanic food. After our conference in Apex, we went to a dinner in Falls Lake (our area) and the members gave us HUGE steaks!! They were amazing. We visited Rich after, one of our investigators, and talked to him about his baptismal date for June 10th. He has such great desires to make it, he is just struggling with smoking! We had a powerful lesson with him and he told me after that I speak with great power and authority. I doubt that is true, but I was so happy to hear him say that because that means the Spirit was testifying to him with great force! He promised that he will make it to the 10th of June and that he will put an end to his bad habits. He told us how badly he wants to be a member of the church! He is one of the most elect people I have ever taught! We had to get a lot of work done in the office on Thursday to make up for the other days that we couldn't go in. We had to go pick up some new Malibu's coming into the mission and we got to drive them alone! It was fun driving back to the church side by side. Elder Barlow actually tried to take a shortcut to beat me and he got lost! He ended up calling me and needed me to give him directions back to the church! I luckily was able to guide him back, but only after taking him in a few circles of course. ;) We visited Yuliya, one of our really solid investigators who is actually Russian, later that night and she is doing great! She has actually read through the entire Book of Mormon before! We talked about how that is the evidence of our message and that if it is true, everything else is true too! We planned out a fast with her and her husband so that she can receive an answer! We then had to run to the church and plan our instructions for a meeting the following day. Without much time, we prayed with faith and were able to plan out a pretty decent 20 minute instruction! I know God has his hand in this work, that was truly a miracle! The next day we had Mission Leadership Council, a meeting with all of our zone leaders and sister training leaders and President and Sister James. Our discussions went really well along with our instructions and we are excited to help the mission this coming month! After MLC, an investigator called us and asked if she could take us to dinner with her three sons and we had a great time! We taught a lesson afterwards in the parking lot and it was amazing. The sons are pretty excited to be baptized!! We tracted the rest of the night and loved every second of it. I love showing the Lord our level of faith and commitment!! I also got a package on Friday from my delightful sister and it was a huge blessing. She is the best, I love her so much!!! :) Saturday went by at the speed of light. We started our Saturday meeting with President James at 9 in the morning and we didn't get out until 6! A lot of top secret confidential stuff was coordinated and we are excited for the upcoming changes in the mission. :) Let's just say, it was a lot of work!! Following our meeting with President, we went to dinner with one of our ward mission leaders and he had a friend there for us to teach! We had a great lesson and Alex (the friend) is very interested! He was wanting to come to church today, but he had already made other commitments. We will see him again tomorrow night though and it should go well! Today was of course a delight, isn't every Sunday?!? Yuliya came to church and as we were fasting for her, she had a thought that she needs to go back to the Russian Orthodox church she grew up in to see how it feels to her. We at first were hesitant, but quickly felt that this is what she needs to receive her answer. She will feel the difference in spirit and will have her testimony confirmed that this is the true church! We tracted the rest of the night tonight and even when we had 3 minutes left, we ran to the next door to knock it and we actually found a new investigator! His name is Sahr and he is from west Africa! He is very interested in our message and is excited to come to know that it is true! It was an incredible week, I love seeing the daily miracles. The Lord truly provides when we put our faith and trust in him.

Busier than a bee,
Elder Shearer