Hebrews 10:39

This is my last email home from my mission. I can't believe it. I don't even really know what to say! This past week was awesome! We had MLC on Monday and Tuesday, lots of lessons and planning for Zone Training Meeting. We were really really busy. And then General Conference was so awesome! The past few weeks have been so crazy. And these next two days will be even crazier. Here's what's happening. Today is Preparation day, tomorrow we have lessons set up and I have to pack and send stuff home, Wednesday same deal, then Thursday I get on the transfer loop that morning and we go to Tulsa. Then I'll spend the night in the mission home Thursday night with all the other missionaries going home this transfer, then we fly out Friday morning!

Serving a mission has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. To be honest I don't really know anything but missionary work now. I don't remember what life is like not on a mission. And I'm a little worried about coming home and adjusting to everything. But it will be okay. I have served the very best I could. I have not drawn back. And I have loved every single minute of it. Even the frustrating moments. I love the Gospel, I love Jesus Christ. I believe with all my heart that he is our Savior. And I love all of you! I'll see you all in a few days! :)

Love,

Elder Sherwood

9/29/14

Good Morning! This week was great! SUPER BUSY! It was awesome. It was actually hard to find time to fit all of our teaching appointments in to the time we had. It was so much fun. And Its still going. We aren't slowing down at all. This week will be even crazier. We have MLC in Tulsa today and tomorrow, we have Zone Training Meeting that we have to plan for on Friday, we have a ton of teaching appointments scheduled for this week, It's going to be really hard to get everything done. But that’s a good problem to have. It's also a great way to end a mission. We picked up two new investigators this week. XXXX and XXXX. XXXX is awesome, she is the niece of a lady in the ward here. We taught her one lesson and set a baptismal date with her! Right now it's set for October 8th. XXXX is the wife of a guy who has been less active for a while. She's from China and on Saturday she made us some authentic Chinese cuisine. It was so good. 

We are still working with XXXX. She is still a non-smoker which is awesome. XXXX has a baptismal date set for October 18th, and XXXX and XXXX came to church this past Sunday and are still working on getting married. Lots of super awesome things are happening around here. I will miss this so much.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity I've had to be a missionary. I love the gospel. I love the Savior. I know that nothing brings more happiness than living the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love all of you! :)

Love,

Elder Sherwood 

Moses 7:13

9/22/14

Good Morning! 

This was a great week! We had a lot of good things happen and we were super busy. This past Saturday was the open house for the new Bella Vista chapel. It was so sweet. We were pretty much at the open house all day. There was a lot of people to talk to there and most of them lived right there by the building. I'm really excited to see what comes from that event. Hopefully lots of people interested in learning more. We went on exchanges with the Assistants on Friday which is always a good time. That’s a hard day to plan because we are split all day so we have to plan two days in one. Which is difficult but it’s really good. A lot of work gets done. This next week will be pretty crazy, we have three exchanges, one with the Grove elders, the Spanish elders on thursday and Bentonville 2nd on Friday which I'm really excited for. That’s my old area! I was there almost a year and a half ago! So that will be really cool. We helped a couple people quit smoking this week. Last night we did the stop smoking workshop with XXX and it was awesome. I love being super bold with people during that lesson. It's so much fun. Today is day one for her, it's a week long program. So we are keeping in close contact with her to help her. Please keep her in your prayers. 

Time is running out (on my mission) and I don't have a whole lot to say. I feel like things are moving at the speed of light and slow motion all at the same time. I have so many thoughts in my head and no words to express them. I'm just going hard for the last stretch. Leaving it all in the pool, so to speak. There is no greater work in the world. Jesus Christ is real. God is real. They have influence in our lives.I believe with all my heart that the scriptures are inspired words from God. I love being a missionary and I love all of you! :)

Love,
Elder Sherwood
 

Elder Sherwood says, "This may seem unique. It really isn't though!"

D & C 138:56

9/15 

Good Morning! This week was great! Thanks for the pumpkin chocolate chip bread! Such a sweet taste of home. And Thanks for the ties. I've gotten a lot of compliments on them so good work :) haha. This week was pretty busy. We went to the Bentonville District Training Meeting on Wednesday and we had exchanges with the Elders in Pea Ridge on Friday. I had Elder Slack here in Bella Vista. It was a good day. It's always fun to work with another missionary for a day. You get to learn new things and it's an awesome opportunity to teach and help other missionaries. Also, Bella Vista is preparing for an Open House of the new chapel they built in Bella Vista recently. We've only been in the building for like 4 weeks. It's so awesome. The evening after the open house, there is a community concert and Elder McReynolds and I are singing in the Choir for that concert! It's awesome. I'll try to record the songs we sing with my camera or something so you can see it someday. 

The work in Bella Vista is still going well. I think I have told you about XXXX. She is an investigator that we started teaching a couple weeks ago. She has a baptismal date for October 4th! She is awesome. Her neighbors, the Daltons, are members of the church here and they invited her over for dinner one night with us. And we've been teaching her ever since. She is so awesome, she wants to share what she's learning with everyone! She's gave us a referral for her daughter who is in prison in Springfield! And she wants us to meet her mother in law and some other family members! It's been so cool to teach her about Jesus Christ and His Gospel. And to see it work in her life. She is changing for the better! 

The next few weeks are going to be crazy! In a couple weeks we have MLC in Tulsa and another Zone Training meeting then it will be general conference! Which I'm really excited for. I'm just going to open my heart and mind and let the revelation flow in! I love being a missionary. I love serving the Lord and the people here in the NWA. I love and miss all of you! :)

Love,
Elder Sherwood
 

We can't tell you how much we appreciate the families in Elder Sherwood's mission!  They take such good care of him!

1 Timothy 1:19

9/8/14

Good Morning! This was a good week. On Monday last week we had MLC. And on Wednesday we had what was possibly my last Zone Training Meeting. It was an awesome meeting. But It made me really sad. I'm experiencing so many different emotions right now. The work here in Bella Vista is going crazy! It's so awesome to be a part of it. On Friday we got to do something pretty cool. The first Friday of every month here in Bentonville they have an event on the town square called First Friday. It’s an event where a lot of different businesses, artists, artisans, crafty people, farmers market people, food truck people come and set up a booth. They have live music and lots of fun things to do. So we were able to get a spot at First Friday and it was awesome. Our theme was Strengthening Families. We talked with people about their families and how important family is and how the gospel can strengthen their families. We also had a sweet activity for people. I drew a house and put it on a board and we had people write down their answer to the question "Why do you love your family?". We had them write it on little circular post it notes. Then we drew a string from the post it to the house. It looked like a bunch of little balloons lifting up the house. It was pretty sweet. We were using the "Up" theme to demonstrate that all of the answers to that question are things that will "lift" your family up. Or strengthen your family and bring you closer together. It was an awesome day, we got to talk to a TON of people. I always love doing that. 

Surprisingly  I don't have a whole ton of stuff to talk about this week. I'll just talk about what I've learned more about recently. I've been learning a lot about repentance. The Greek word for repentance is Metanoeo. Which literally translated means: Change your mind, knowledge, spirit, breath or air. Repentance is not a scary or difficult process. It's a process of change. Of improving. Of becoming better. It's changing your mind, and your spirit. It's realizing that you need to change and then making the necessary changes! I'm so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary so much. And I love all of you! 

Love,

Elder Sherwood

9/2/14

Good Morning! This week was a great week! It was super busy. We had transfers last Thursday which is always exciting. I don't know if I've explained how transfers work. There are 6 "stops" or transfer points around the mission and there is two transfer vans and a few cars that drive from stop to stop in a big loop around the mission. One loop leaves from Tulsa and goes north and the other goes south. And they cross each other's paths in Bentonville. So it's a pretty crazy transfer point. Zone Leaders are in charge of making sure everything is organized and people get where they need to go. So it's pretty hectic but it's really fun to see a lot of missionaries from around the zone.

We had another baptism this week. XXXXX was baptized last Tuesday. It was so awesome. She's been waiting years for that day. It was so cool. Baptism is a miracle to me. Seeing someone make that choice to be so committed to a Christlike life. It's a miracle every time that happens. And I'm so grateful I get to see people make that commitment!

Yesterday we had MLC or Mission Leadership Council. It was a great meeting. President Shumway instructed on the Doctrine of Christ. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. It's amazing how often we live these principles. Every day we go through this process. Or we should be going through this process. If we're not they we've got a problem. But every day we should be exercising faith in the Savior and repenting or changing. We should be enduring to every end. To the end of every day, wherever we are we should be living the Gospel. Things are going great in Bella Vista. I'm so happy with where I am and with the things that are happening. I love my companion, I love this area, I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I love all of you! 

Love, 
Elder Sherwood

This is me with President and Sister Shumway. I love them.

Alma 40:11-12

Alma 40:11-12

11 Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection—Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel, that the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body, yea, the spirits of all men, whether they be good or evil, are taken home to that God who gave them life.

 12 And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of those who are righteous are received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow.

This week was very eventful. A weeks of spiritual highs a lows. We had Zone Conference this week. My last zone conference of my mission. That was sad. I gave my departing testimony. I wrote a poem for it, which I will most likely use in my homecoming talk so you will all hear it then. It was an amazing conference. President Shumway is an amazing leader. I'm so grateful to have him as my mission president. I wish I could relate everything that we learned! I also had an amazing exchange with a new missionary in the Little Flock area. His name is Elder Ewart and he is a champion. I love him, he's so awesome. We had such an awesome day. He is so sincere and real. And he loves EVERYONE. I wish I could be more like him! He is and will be an awesome missionary and he will change A LOT of lives. 

We also had a baptism on Saturday! Judy and George XXXXX got baptized! It was so awesome. I will attach a picture. It was a great baptism. I gave a talk on Baptism and they also asked me to confirm them! For those reading this who don't know what that means, Confirmation is an ordinance where several priesthood holders lay their hands on the head of the person being confirmed and give them a blessing wherein they receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I was the one who said the words during the blessings. It was so awesome. They are an older couple and it has been so awesome so see them accept the gospel and start to live it more fully in their lives! I'm super excited for them. 

We also had a tragic accident in the mission this week. As most of you probably know, Sister Nancy Vea was killed in a car accident on Friday. As you can imagine that came as a shock to the whole mission. This is why I chose Alma 40:11-12 for the scripture in the subject line this week. I'm so grateful for the knowledge we have of the afterlife. Death is not the end of life. We can mourn but not for Sister Vea. We can feel sorrow for her family and for ourselves but she is absolutely in a more joyful place, resting from all care and sorrow. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is so much power in living the principles that He teaches. I love all of you! 

Love

Elder Sherwood