09/04/17 - Raleigh, North Carolina

This week was the best week of my whole mission. There is nothing that brings greater satisfaction than serving God's children. It is the daily desire to follow Him that brings purpose, peace, and joy. The Spirit is manifest in righteous living. We felt great happiness this week and saw many miracles as a result of our determination to smile regardless of affliction! Last Monday it was particularly easy to smile as one of our office missionaries brought in two homemade pies!! They were so good. We love our office staff. We are so blessed by their selfless service. We spent most of our preparation day in meetings, shopping, and exercising. Of course my favorite part was when we finally got to go back out and work! We first visited the Borrero family and finished the Plan of Salvation with them. They are the part member family with the mother that got baptized in Florida. Eileen has an ever-deepening conversion to the gospel and her husband Jay has fallen in love with Christ's teachings. Their son Rueben has a greater desire to obey God's commandments than any 9 year old I have ever met! We had a lovely time teaching them with our ward mission leader and as we were walking back to our car after the lesson, we saw a man come out of his apartment. We turned around, walked over to him, started a friendly conversation with him, and gave him a card. We quickly found out that he was super interested! It was a great contact and a perfect close to a wonderful day! Tuesday morning was busy in the office working on the church's program for returning missionaries called My Plan. It asks many thought provoking and goal centered questions to help you build a plan for the rest of your life. The program consists of six different sections, designed to have you complete one section each week of your last transfer. Because of my busy schedule I had only completed one section before this week! Needless to say, I spent a lot of time catching up on it.. We did however get to teach many wonderful lessons. Tuesday night we took a soon to be missionary out with us on exchange and we were blessed to teach Donald! We hadn't been able to catch up with Donald for quite a few weeks, but finally this week we got in touch and met at the church for a lesson. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and he had many questions, which is good! He has been reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know that it's true. At the close of our lesson, he actually knelt with us and prayed right there asking God to help him find the true path and believe in the Book of Mormon! He has great faith and that will get him answers! Wednesday morning we went to a district meeting and enjoyed every second of it. Our schedule only permits us to attend a district meeting about once a transfer and it is always so refreshing. I love getting the chance to interact with our missionaries in such small groups! I was very inspired by our dedicated district leaders and their presentations. Elder Jones and I went on exchanges with the Raleigh zone leaders following the meeting and I was privileged to be with Elder Springer in his area, the Spanish area!! We had a great day. We tracted and did everything else that makes a day the best ever! A family from our Wake Forest ward wanted to feed both Elder Jones and I and the Raleigh zone leaders for dinner. They had us meet them at a place called Shucker's and it was life changing. We ate oysters both raw and steamed, crab legs, shrimp, clams, mussels, scallops, and many other things! It was the best seafood place I have ever been to, easily. After getting full and spiritually recharged by all of that incredible food, we taught a few very solid lessons. I was nervous at first that my Spanish wouldn't be very good since I haven't had a chance to use it in a while, but I had multiple people ask me if I was a native so that was a miracle in of itself! God is good and the gift of tongues is so real. Thursday was another busy day in the office, President asked me to make a few changes to our weekly number reporting document. I spent a good amount of time working on excel rewriting the code for the macro. I was blessed to figure it out eventually! We had a fun time at our dinner; after eating, they asked if we wanted to learn how to play the bagpipes. Of course we said yes and before we knew it, we were blowing our lungs away into those things! It was actually pretty fun! Elder Jones and I had many appointments scheduled for that night that we were excited about, but unfortunately all of them fell through. Although saddened by not being able to help those people progress, I was grateful for the opportunity to show God our commitment to stay happy and positive no matter what! We prayed, gave thanks for the trials, and worked hard anyways! It was a great night and we loved it regardless! Friday consisted of me finishing My Plan and getting some other office work done to prepare for the upcoming week of meetings, but we also got a few chances to teach and testify of Christ. We taught the Buday family and really felt the Spirit as we testified of the Book of Mormon and the urgent need to make reading it a priority of our lives. It will protect us from danger and keep us on the right path! After teaching them, we worked the night away with smiles from ear to ear. Saturday was an especially beautiful day. Jay and Rueben Borrero followed the example of Jesus Christ and were baptized by his restored priesthood authority! It was a powerful service and everyone that was there could feel the intensity of their desire to be baptized. It was so touching to watch a father and a son take this step together. We are so proud of them! After that terrific monumental moment, we met with President James and spent some time working on the transfer board. The Holy Ghost was at work and revelation was flowing! I'm excited to see this coming transfer play out, there are many exciting changes being made. The Borreros invited us over for dinner to celebrate the baptism and they made us the best ribs I've ever tasted! We had a nice lesson about the gift of the Holy Ghost to prepare them for their confirmations today and they were literally jumping up and down they were so excited for it! As the night was coming to an end, we got a text from the Rathavongsa family asking us to come help them move some furniture into their home. Boy was it a workout! Elder Jones and I were covered in sweat by the end of it; we moved a huge marble-top dresser, a massive bed frame, and a few smaller dressers into their house and up the stairs! Not only was I covered in sweat though, I was covered in happiness from serving God's children. :) Today was just the cherry on top! I had the sacred opportunity of confirming Jay and Rueben members of the church and of giving them the gift of the Holy Ghost. As Jay was receiving that special gift, we could feel him sobbing beneath our hands. As the confirmation ended, he stood up and with tears streaming down his face gave us each a big hug. He sat down with his family and I caught a glimpse of them entering the holy temple to become an eternal family. I was filled with the Spirit and I was reminded of our purpose. To unite families. What a beautiful experience it has been teaching and baptizing the Borrero family, they have the brightest of futures ahead of them. Donald came to church and he soaked up every little thing. He even bore his testimony that he knows these teachings are good. We went tracting after dinner and then taught Anthony and Nicole. How fulfilling it is to watch the change and hope of the gospel come into the lives of those we teach. This week was full of miracles! What a life changing experience this mission has been and continues to be every day. I am so grateful I have another week to be a missionary. I will work harder than ever before and will make this the best week of my mission. God does after all deserve our best effort.

Uniting families,
Elder Shearer