Only 20 months-ish left!

email dated 2-4-2008
I always like joking with the Hermanas in our Zone about the time I have left, because my trainer Elder Dennis always did. He was in his last change, and he would call them just to say "387 hours left" or whatever. He would just make up times but they always believed it and would be like "ELDER!! DONT BE SO TRUNKY!!" So I have adopted the habit of teasing the Hermanas like that because they are so gullible. We ran into them today at the Cyber for email and the first thing I said was "614 days left". I don't actually know, but that sounded pretty good to me. "ELDER!!" Oh dear, oh dear. I am just too funny for my own good.

So we had a really good week this last week. Our best investigator finally committed to baptism. It has been 4 weeks that we have been working with her, maybe a little more, actually yes, it has been more like 5 or 6. Anyway, she came to the funeral service for President Hinckley with us on Saturday afternoon. It was SO good. She got to see the Conference Center, and the Brethren, etc... She started crying during the closing song while they showed footage of President Hinckley. I can't make fun of her because I did a little bit too. He was always the prophet I have known. Anyway, after that she went to a baptism that we didn't even tell her to go to or invite her too. She came up to me after the baptism and told me "Okay. I want to be baptized. What do we do?" I LOVED that so much. We didn't even challenge her to be baptized. She knew that was the end result. We had never even brought it up. She used to study with the Jehovahs Witnesses, who are pains in the neck sometimes but are really good faithful people and I wish our members were as faithful, etc... Anyway, she's a really good one. We were taking flak for not challenging her for so long, but we really wanted to take our time. And it paid off. We never had to challenge her. She wants it for herself!! In our ward, we have take time with people and we work with the ward a ton. Every week we take flak from the Zone Leaders for our numbers, only because we aren't finding as much by means of contacts. But I really wanted to point out to them that last week we had more lessons than they did with a member present, we taught more menos activo lessons, and as much other lessons as they did. We had a third the contacts they did, but we are the ones with investigators who have baptismal date. But I can't say things like that because that is pure pride and I know it. But I get so frustrated every week that they harp me for numbers. Every week its the same thing "Why aren't you finding!!??" We are finding! We have investigators. We work all day. We have never had even an hour this last week where we had to stop and ask ourselves "what should we do now?" because we plan our days and we have enough people to fill them. I hate numbers with a passion!! The zone leaders know it and they can think whatever they want about Elder Shepherd. I feel good with the way we are working. We still bring in the numbers that count: investigators in church, people in church, baptisms, lessons taught. What more do they want. I hate numbers. Every time they bring it up and try to make goals for me to do more contacts, I tell them I will do my best and that is all the Lord asks. They hate that. I always say if we do our best, and follow Preach My Gospel which says talk to everyone anyway, and we try to meet the needs of our specific area, we will have success. PMG lists 10 different ways to find people. Contacts is only one of them. And we do our contacts!! We just don't get their beloved 10 a day rule they are trying to institute. It is 110 degrees outside. Nobody is in the street to contact except for teenage girls dressed really immodestly and young punk kids that swear at us. Occasionally you see someone legible. What we are doing here is teaching lessons. We have more investigators than menos activos that we visit. Elder Davies and I have less contacts than the ZL's because we are in the house teaching!! Anyway, sorry to vent for a minute, but I had to get that out to somebody. If I am ever a zone leader I will NEVER EVER harp on numbers to anybody. I am working my hardest and trying to be as efficient a worker as possible. If they want 70 contacts a week I can try to stay out in the street more, but I don't see what that is going to help. I am not alone in this sentiment. The rest of the zone pretty much feels the same way as I do. But that is a bad thing because I am one of the leading rebellors in the eyes of the Zone Leaders. I am trying to up my contacts to respect them, but in the end if I am doing my best that is all that counts to me. And I am doing my best and working as hard as I know how.

This week I had a really fun experience with cigarettes. A menos activo in our ward is trying to quit. So we went to visit her the other day and her little girl had just bought a pack from the Almacen down the street and was taking it home (here little kids can buy anything). I took it from her daughter, and then walked into her house and opened it and gave her 4 of the 20. I said "you can only smoke 4 of these today, and tomorrow we'll see how it was. If that's too small with start with more, maybe 6 or 8 or 10, whatever it is you need, but you are going to stop smoking. Not only to go to the temple, but to be with him longer (and I pointed at her 7 year old son Douglas who is ADORABLE in every way and reminds me of Teddy)." She is trying. 4 was too small. She is accustomed to 30 a day. We'll have to start smaller and work our way gradually. She was so upset that she couldn't do it with 4. But she apparently went hysterical after we left and after she had smoked her 4. She refused to buy more because she wants to quit, but she was losing it. Smoking is such a hard habit to quit. It breaks my heart to see her hurt. She was crying when she failed and told me she finally had to buy more. But we stayed calm, told her we loved her, and helped her to institute a plan to quit and made her a chart. Anyway, the funny part of this story is that I wouldn't throw away her cigarettes because she bought them and she was going to end up smoking an x amount more anyway, if I threw them away it would be a waste, so I went around with cigarettes in my pocket for a few days. It was kind of awkward. But now she has her plan and so I won't have to carry her cigs anymore. Anyway, my heart ached to see her crying because she felt like a failure. I bore testimony of the miracle of forgiveness, told her that quitting smoking is one of the hardest things anyone can do in life, that I loved her and I would be here to help in anyway that I could, and that with faith and patience and step by step, she would be able to quit smoking. It is a work in progress.

Well I don't have a lot of time. I wasted way too much time venting about numbers. I apologize. I shouldn't be that way. I will try to be better. I need to not let it get to me when they harp on me either. Because it isn't going to change the way I work, but if I let it get to me it will make me less effective because it will hurt my attitude. I can't afford to have any negative feelings. I need the spirit all day to help me in this work. I will try to be better.

Anyway, I love you all. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I speak Spanish. I had another epiphany week and I just started understanding. I don't understand every word, but I understand the gist of everything and a majority of the words, but it does depend on who I am talking to, some people have ridiculous accents and stupid Portuguese mixes that I still struggle with them, but I am progressing. I feel pretty good about Spanish. And I try to still do my hour of study every day, I want to expand my vocabulary WAY beyond missionary words. I can teach the lessons, but I want to be able to talk about anything in Spanish. That will take some serious time. But if I keep studying for 2 years I think I can get there.

Love yall. Take care and don't forget to write. Missionaries love news from home. Proverbs 25:25. Ciao!!

Andy