Elder Ian Shepley
Uruguay Montevideo
Spanish Speaking
Elder Shepley is still serving in Durazno. He has been serving
his mission for almost 15 months now. He is still Zone Leader. His new
companion is Elder Borst. These are the various activities they have done
during these past weeks besides teaching people: they watched conference, they
visited a petting zoo on
one of their P-days,
travelled to Montevideo (the capital of Uruguay) to have conferences with their
new mission president. While in Montevideo, they visited the iconic Plaza
Independencia, in downtown. They are enjoying the spring weather and look
forward to being able to talk to more people.
Elder
Ayden Nichols
Washington,
Yakima Mission
Spanish
Speaking
Hola todos, ¿cómo andan?
Me quedé aquí en la ciudad de yakima, y sabes que?? Soy un entrenador. Mi bebe
se llama elder headrick y el vino de sal laik citi Utah. El anda bien valiente,
sin miedo.
Cape Verde Praia Mission
My
new companion, sister Webb, is literally a clone of me. It is scary.
Personality: exact same. Hair: exact same. Clothes: EXACT SAME. Energy: exact
same. everything about us, you guessed it, is the e x a c t s a m e.
As
area goes, Calheta is SO CUTE and the people are so much more friendly than my
old area. We are RIGHT on the beach which is also a dream. I look out every
window of my house and you can see the ocean except for one window where I look
out and see green mountains. It's absolutely incredible. Also pigs just
roam by our house all the time and I think it is so funny. Also we don't have
filtered water in our house right now so I've gone to drinking milk as a
result.
For
missionary work, this area is extremely hard. President said it is one of the,
if not THE, hardest area in the mission. Calheta is EXTREMELY catholic. You
walk around and see nuns everywhere. Sometimes I feel like I'm living the Nacho
Libre life. At church today there were 3 members, the branch
president, and us two sisters. Definitely a change from my last area, BUT I
LOVE IT!!! God put us here for a reason and we know we're gonna change
this cute little town around. Although it's gonna be difficult, just gotta put
our trust in God that He will continue to use us as instruments in His hands to
share the true and living gospel with the people here. I COULDNT BE MORE STOKED
FOR THIS TRANSFER IN CALHETA!!!! SISTER WEBB AND I HAVE ENTERED THE AREA and
we're about to make our presence known to everyone here.
Senior Service Missionary Coordinators
The last couple of months have been very busy for us.
The Church has rolled out a new computer program to process new service mission
applications and track the missionaries. We have been charged with
training the operation managers of the Church operations in our area of
responsibility (North Texas and Oklahoma) as well as the stake
presidents. That's about 15 operation managers and 36 stake presidents!
Whew! That is in addition to working with the operation managers and
stake presidents to make sure each operation has enough service missionaries
for the operation to run. Current critical needs include missionaries to
mentor job seekers either virtually via the internet or in person at the
Bishops Storehouse. The Dallas Distribution Center located at the Dallas
Temple needs customer service assistants on Tuesdays for 4 hours. It involves
lifting and standing. There are also numerous opportunities to work in Family
History in our area. They need records scouts, community liaisons, and
photographers (they will train you). There are also opportunities to
serve via the internet as mentors in BYU-Pathway working with people all over
the world. Service missionaries are needed everywhere and you don't have
to be old and retired to do it. You're a senior if you are 26 years old!
As ambassadors for service missionary work, we travel each week to
a stake conference to meet the stake leaders and service missionaries in that
stake. We hold a mini "zone conference" with the missionaries.
Those meetings have been very inspiring. There is truly a marvelous work
and a wonder taking place right here in North Texas and Oklahoma!
Elder and Sister Bickmore
Brazil,
Belo Horizonte Mission
Portuguese
Speaking
Before I
let y'all go, I just want to share something that's been on my mind a lot
recently- urgency. The number of temples is increasing at an exponential rate.
The number of people that are accepting the baptismal invitation in Belo
Horizonte is at a rate that hasn't been seen since the 1990s (when they did
missionary work a little differently). And prophets and apostles of God are
pleading with us to get and maintain our own testimony about Jesus Christ, His
Gospel, and His Church. Brothers and sisters, family and friends, my invitation
to each and every one of you this week would be to be a little more urgent with
everything you do. Now is the time to get and maintain a testimony. Now is the
time to keep and make covenants. And now is the time to be more united with our
families more than ever. I testify that at least here in the Brazil Belo
Horizonte mission, the Lord is hastening His work. I promise that if each and
every one of you pray this week to know how you can be a little more urgent,
Heavenly Father will improve your lives in ways you didn't know were possible.
He will include you in His work in ways you didn't know were possible. Heavenly
Father is hastening His work in ways like never before. He's preparing the
world for the Second Coming of His Son Jesus Christ. And trust me, you don't
want to miss the opportunity to be a part of this great hastening!! I promise
that more peace, satisfaction, and joy await each of you as you understand what
urgency in the Lord's work means and seek to develop it!! (:
Elder Jacob Mass
North Dakota Bismarck
July 25, 2022
Elder Mass is on his second transfer in Whapeton, ND. This
last transfer he became the driving Elder and his companion Elder Judy is the
phone Elder.
An experience that Elder Mass shared:
Later this evening me and Elder Judy went to go and visit a
branch members house and have dinner with the and as we were about to leave
they cautioned us to be mindful and watch for deer crossing the road at night
cause it was already dark and we said we would be careful. No sooner had we
left almost 10 minutes later I felt something telling me to turn on my brights
on the car and as I did so there was a herd of deer crossing the road
about 15 feet in front of us in the pitch black darkness. And we were going 40
miles an hour so I had time to slow down, I know the Lord was watching and
giving me guidance. 🌙🦌
The cold weather is hitting early this year so yay ❄️❄️❄️. A small blizzard blew through on the 14th. I also
got to enjoy some new food this week. I got to try mushrooms and olives with
pizza which I surprisingly did not hate normally I hate mushrooms in general. I
got to have bass and homemade french fries which was so good. I got to try
Goulash today which I don't know if that's how you spell it but it was so good
and yes I made more muffins this week lol.
Elder
Tom Hodnett
Employment
Service Missionary
This
will be my last newsletter, because I have been released a little early due to
health issues. I have enjoyed my mission and it is with sadness that I leave
before my term is complete. I even thought I would extend after my first year.
But, such was not to be.
However,
this past month has seen the AJS Group in Texas bring in 10 new candidates and
4 of those attend our meetings regularly. One of them was able to get a job
within two weeks of coming to our group. We love to see our candidates leave.
We
also had 3 other members of the group "Graduate" to new jobs that
they really enjoy.
I
will miss seeing these brothers and sisters work on their employment skills
everyday. I see them grow in confidence as they learn and practice the skills
to show employers that they are worth hiring over all other candidates.
Thomas Hodnett
Sister
Amanda Morris
Spain
Madrid
After three weeks at
the Provo MTC, Amanda is looking forward to getting out in the mission field.
She is schedule to leave the MTC on November 2nd, but she isn’t sure where she
will be going in that no one in her district has yet received their visas. They
are all praying that their visas come in soon.
She loves the
missionaries in her district. However, it is a change having someone with you
the entire day. Her favorite activity is attending the temple on P-day and
relaxing on the hill behind the temple.
Her Spanish is coming
along well. Gospel related words are a challenge, but they are coming along.
She misses everyone at
home, especially her nephews an nieces.
Idaho
Falls Idaho
Spanish
Speaking
Elder Marrero is just getting his feet under him out in
Idaho. He hasn’t had much time to get caught up on emails and such.
However, we got to chat with him this evening and here’s a quick message you’re
free to use for him. I’ve also attached a couple of pictures.
With just under 2 weeks at the Idaho Falls Mission, Elder
Marrero has already had some great experiences. In addition to tending to
the Lord’s harvest, he was also harvesting potatoes for a local service
project. He’s been translating Sacrament Service at the Spanish Branch
for the past couple of Sundays. He’s currently teaching a small Peruvian
family and says that they are some of the nicest people he’s ever met.
Later this week he’ll be on a transfer with the English-speaking Elders, to
teach a Spanish speaking family in the English area.
When asked what advise he’d give his siblings who are
planning on serving a mission: “Study, don’t just read, the Book of
Mormon. My daily personal scripture study time has brought the Spirit so
much stronger into my life. I feel like I am prepared, protected, and
guided by the Spirit, each day as I conclude my studies.”
He’ll have more to come in the weeks and months ahead.
Sister Becky Bryant
Australia Melbourne Departs Dec. 6, 2022
Sister Bryant will be speaking in the
Plano 4th Ward Sacrament Meeting on October 30th. She has invited the Primary Children to sing,
“I Hope They Call Me on a Mission” What
a wonderful missionary she will be!
Plano 4th Ward Missionaries
We have three remarkable sister
missionaries serving in Plano 4th Ward currently Sister Scoggins from Idaho Falls, Idaho,
Sister Smith from Mountain Green, Utah and Sister Luke from Provo, Utah. They have been teaching the amazing Teon
Garmon the Gospel of Jesus Christ and today, Oct. 21, 2022, he was baptized by
Daniel Marshall one of our wonderful ward missionaries. What a great day this was. These three Sisters or Sisternaries as we
love to call them are working hard and
finding great treasure in Plano, Texas!
