4/21/14 Alma 37:37

Alma 37:37  Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for ^bgood; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the ^cmorning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.

Good Morning everyone! I hope you enjoy that picture I just sent haha :) There's a funny story there haha.  (picture below)

Oh hey! We got transfer calls this past Saturday! I found out that I will be leaving the Springdale Zone and I'm headed 20 minutes up the road to be a Zone Leader for the Rogers Arkansas Zone with Elder Van Woerkem! haha! I'm so excited! i'm going back to Rogers. That’s the zone that has Bentonville 2nd ward in it. The ward I served in last summer with Elder Koetting. I'm soooo excited. Belle Vista is the area I will be serving in. I know Elder Van Woerkem pretty well already. He's been in Rogers for a couple transfers, and I've served around him a lot on my mission. I'm really excited. Really sad to be leaving the Springdale Zone and the Har-Ber Ward but really excited to be going back to the Rogers Zone. 

Anyways this week was great! Yesterday was a good Easter Sunday. I got to speak in church yesterday. I spoke about Grace and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I love speaking in church. I want to send it to you but I also kind of don't want to because I'm going to use a lot of the material I used in this talk for my homecoming talk. But I don't know. We'll see. 

Anyways, the XXXXs came to church yesterday. A family that wants to investigate the church but the dad is always out at the oil fields for like months at a time. So it's tough. But they are such an awesome family. They are so kind and the love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hopefully we will get to teach them someday soon. XXXXX wasn't able to make it to church yesterday, she was out of town. But we taught her on Wednesday this past week and she is still doing good! 

I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I've been thinking about it ALOT lately. I mean that’s all we teach people so I think about it a lot anyways, but especially with it being Easter. I love Jesus Christ. I'm so grateful for His life and His example. This life is too hard to go through on our own. We all make mistakes that we cannot fix on our own. We might think that we can and we might try, but at the end of the day, we need the Grace that Jesus Christ has to offer us. And He is always there, always willing. We just have to have Faith in him. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and to serve the Lord. I love this work and I love all of you! 

Love,

Elder Sherwood 

Yes, this is Elder Sherwood with Jim Bob Duggar (19 Kids and Counting television show.)   The family lives in Elder Sherwood's area.  He and his companion received a media referral to visit the family.  It so happens that people send made up referrals for the Duggar family often.  Elder Sherwood said Mr. Duggar came out to talk to them and was very nice. 

4/17/14 Romans 5:14

Romans 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s ^atransgression, who is the ^bfigure of him that was to come.

This week was SWEET! Our goal for our zone was for every area to hit the standard of excellence (20 Lessons, 60% member present lessons) this week. We got so close! Out of 13 areas 11 made the standard. And one of the areas that didn't make it taught like 36 lessons haha. They just needed a higher member present percentage. It was a great week. The best quality week this zone has had for a long time. I'm so proud of the missionaries here. They are doing really good work. One thing I have realized since I've become a Zone Leader is how much influence leaders can have on the people they lead. All we do for this zone is encourage them, and have faith in them. When we truly believe they can do something and then we tell them that we believe in them, miracles happen. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve these missionaries here in the Springdale Zone. They are so awesome and I love every single one. 

Remember XXXXX? That lady I told you about last week? The one we OTM'd last Sunday night. We taught her on Wednesday and she is awesome! She came to church yesterday! She said that it was a lot to take in! She hasn't been to church since she was 4. She has had some really tough things happen in her life, things that she's trying really, really hard to overcome. And we are doing our best to help her! I'm so grateful when I get to teach people about Jesus Christ and the Atonement. It's real! He really can heal us. And we are working so hard to help her realize that. PLEASE keep her in your prayers! And please pray that we will know how to help her along this path.

Anyways, last week was amazing. This week will be even better. I love being a missionary. I love serving the Lord and the people here in the OTM. I chose Romans 5:14 because Elder Wadsworth and I have been studying about grace a lot recently. I love this verse because it explains a really important principle. We are under grace. Jesus Christ's grace is sufficient for us to be saved. That is why sin should have no dominion over us. That is why we should do our best to be our best. When we are truly converted to Jesus Christ, when we really have faith in him, like Nephi, we will abhor sin. We will hate to sin! And we will want to have good, righteous works. That is real faith in the Savior. Using his atonement and grace to bless our lives right now. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and I love all of you! 

Love,

Elder Sherwood

4/7/14 Ether 12:6

 Ether 12:6
And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that ^afaith is things which are ^bhoped for and ^cnot seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no ^dwitness until after the ^etrial of your faith.

Good Morning! This week was awesome and terrible all at the same time. Monday and Tuesday we had MLC in Tulsa. Wednesday and Thursday we were planning for Zone Training Meeting and doing weekly planning and our Stake Coordination meeting with the Stake Presidency and all the Ward Mission leaders in the stake. Friday we had Zone Training meeting in the morning and District Leader Training Meeting in the afternoon. Saturday we had both sessions of General Conference, and the Priesthood session, then Sunday we had both sessions of general conference. It was a crazy busy week where we had a lot of meetings and a lot of planning and sadly not enough proselyting :( But it was a fun week! 

General Conference was awesome! I loved the talks that were given. My favorite was Elder Holland’s in the Saturday morning session. I also like Elder Uchtdorf's where he talked about having gratitude in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. We should be grateful for everything, even our trials. And not just after our trials are over. We should be grateful for our trials while they are happening! It takes some serious faith to do that. But I believe that if we can do that, the healing process will begin much faster and we will be made much stronger. 

Here is an awesome experience that just happened to us last night. We were at this apartment complex contacting a potential investigator that we met last week. They weren't available (it was pretty late last night, like 8:45). So we began walking back to our car. Walking through the parking lot, we passed a car with a lady sitting in the drivers seat, I smiled and waved but didn't think much about it until a few steps later when I felt a prompting to go back and talk to her. I justified not going back with reasons like it's late, it's dark, she might be freaked out if two strangers walk up to her car in a dark parking lot. So we got in our car and started to drive away when I told Elder Wadsworth I had seen her. He said we should go back and talk to her, half kidding. After thinking for a moment and after feeling the intense impression to go back and talk to her, we parked the car and walked back to hers. "Coincidentally" (although I believe there were no coincidences in the story) when we got back to her car she was getting out. We said hello and introduced ourselves. I simply told her that we were missionaries and that we felt like we needed to come back and talk to her. She looked at us and said "It's funny that you mention that...". She then went on to explain how she's going through some real challenges in her life right now, and she has seen signs of God appearing everywhere in her life recently. One thing that she said to us really struck me. Through eyes that were welling up with tears, she said "God doesn't want us to feel uncomfortable in our own skin right?" I was able to testify to her that no matter what she's done, or where she has been, Jesus Christ loves her. Heavenly Father loves her. And the message that we have can help heal her and help her to find the peace she needs. It was an awesome experience. 

I'm So grateful for the Gospel. I'm grateful for the Holy Ghost, who prompts us and shows "unto us all things whatesoever [we] should do". I love being a missionary so much. And I love all of you.

Love,
Elder Sherwood
 

 

We enjoyed a nice plate of scones Sunday morning before general conference :) I'm glad I've been able to keep that tradition up on my mission :) I think my companions have enjoyed it too :)

Mosiah 2:20-25

Mosiah 2:20-25 20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the ^athanks and ^bpraise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and ^cpreserved you, and has caused that ye should ^drejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—

 21 I say unto you that if ye should ^aserve him who has created you from the beginning, and is ^bpreserving you from day to day, by lending you ^cbreath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own ^dwill, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your ^ewhole souls yet ye would be ^funprofitable servants.

 22 And behold, all that he ^arequires of you is to ^bkeep his commandments; and he has ^cpromised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth ^dvary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do ^ekeep his ^fcommandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

 23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.

 24 And secondly, he doth ^arequire that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately ^bbless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?

 25 And now I ask, can ye say aught of yourselves? I answer you, Nay. Ye cannot say that ye are even as much as the dust of the earth; yet ye were ^acreated of the ^bdust of the earth; but behold, it ^cbelongeth to him who created you.

Good Morning! This week was a great week! We found 6 new investigators this week!! And we have two baptismal dates set for the end of April. Great things are happening here in Springdale. Today we are headed down to Tulsa for MLC which is going to be SWEET! President Shumway decided to have MLC in Tulsa once a quarter. So this time we are headed down to Tulsa for a couple days. It should be awesome. I will update you on the things we learn. I always learn so much from President Shumway. And now that I have my voice recorder you'll get to hear him speak one day haha! 

We went on two exchanges this week. Because we're zone leaders we go on exchanges with every district leader area and any areas that have a new missionary. So on Tuesday we exchanged with Praire Grove. I was working with Elder Hunsaker in my area and Elder Wadsworth was with Elder Wilson in Prairie Grove. It was a crazy because Elder Hunsaker and I were in the MTC together! It was just weird to think all the way back to almost 18 months ago in the MTC when none of us new what the heck we were doing. And then to be working together for a day in the field was awesome. Then on friday we went on an exchange with the Huntsville Elders. Elder McReynolds is training Elder Tompson. They are both awesome. This time I was in Huntsville with Elder McReynolds. Isn't it crazy that I'm just traveling around Northwest Arkansas teaching people about Jesus? It sounds crazy but it's so awesome. I have witnessed the Atonement of Jesus Christ actually work for people. I have seen it work in my own life. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that he really does help us and heal us. 

Here's a cool story, we were working on contacting former investigators this past week and we found this one old record for someone named XXXX. We decided to contact him. We knocked on his door and he immediately let us in. We asked him if he had met with missionaries before and he said yes and that he thought that he should get back in to it. He also said that he wanted to come back to church. He also said later that he wants to be baptized! Haha it was crazy! So in that first lesson we told him that we are here to help him learn and progress and we set a baptismal date with him. People are prepared everywhere. We just have to open our mouths and find them! I love the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love the peace that it brings to our lives. I love all of you! 

Love,

Elder Sherwood