4-8-13

Dear friends and family!

Well this has been an absolutely crazy week full of surprises and change! Elder Oba has since been transferred away from me and they have brought in Elder Peralta to be my new companion! He is Filipino and is from the Philippines! haha I love him already! I wish that he spoke Cebuano, but hey he speaks Tagalog and is willing to help me try to learn as much as I can while we are together. We are not sure what the future has in store for us since this was an emergency transfer and that there are only four weeks left. I am sure that we will be together for at least one more after this, but only time can tell. If I stay here one more transfer, I will have hit Elder Makayas mark of nine months in Brentwood! That is so long, but at the same time I can hardly believe that I have been here for so long. Time has flown by and I really don't feel like we have done even close to the work that could be accomplished. There have been so many things changed and surprises that I'm not even sure what is going to happen. We just know that we are going to do our absolute best, and we are going to serve the Lord!

Just on a good news note, we have been given a car for the next week or two so that I can get to my doctors appointments without having to steal a car from the other missionaries. They don't like to put sisters on bikes in this mission and so I would have to take the zone leaders truck and that just really complicates things. I wanted to tell president that my sister spent a few transfers on a bike and that she came out of it ok! =P

We had a really good lesson with Jon this past week and really put it on the line for him! We went through the baptismal interview questions with him so that he would know what he would have to answer if he were to decide to be baptized. He was able to answer and explain everything perfectly other then say that he had a testimony of Joseph Smith and Pres. Monson. We told him that we had been praying about it and we knew that if he would fast with us starting Saturday nightthrough Sunday's conference that he would be able to gain a testimony of modern day prophets, but that he needed to do it with an open heart and an open mind! He said that he would try it and that he would watch the two Sunday sessions of conference. It really didn't seem like his heart was truly in it, but we testified and I felt very prompted to share with him what dad had said about him to me in one of his emails. He said that Jon was going to be a great leader one day in the church because he had tested the gospel and had really put the time in to know it. That actually really meant something to him and he was touch by your kindness and thoughts. That was a very special moment in the lesson. Unfortunately on Sunday he text us and told us when we followed up that President Monson couldn't be a prophet of God because all he did was tell stories and make jokes.. He said that he should be giving prophesies and tell the future so that we could prepare ourselves. He missed completely the reasoning behind his stories. I called him that night and talked for a while about the savior and his teachings. I reminded him that the savior taught in parables and that president Monson was doing the exact same thing! He understood kinda, but still just kinda had a chip on his shoulder. We shared the scripture that talks about by their fruits ye shall know them. We challenged him to study President Monsons life and that we would come over on Saturday again to discuss what he learned. Me and Elder Peralta talked to each other about it, and decided that we think its time to take a few steps back from Jonand let him realize the difference that is going to happen if he walks away from the  church. He is going to miss the spirit and is going to want it back. We are going to go and possibly drop him if he has not made a few changes about his feelings or if he is not willing to change. I am so sad to see him go, but we feel like this is what is needed at this time in his progression.

Conference was truly amazing wasn't it!? We were able to go to the stake center and enjoy the spirit of the times. I absolutely love to see and listen to the men and women called of God at this time of the world that speak to us and give us such great council! I forgot my notes today to talk about what my favorite parts were, but I do remember how powerful President Monson's talk was. I loved the humor that he used, but also the seriousness that he used as the time was needed. HahaMom you stole my thunder! You said that there was hope for me and Spencer! That is exactly the thoughts that went through my mind as I had a vision in my mind of looking through that garage window to a garage full of fire and smoke! Haha what a terrible example I was to my cousin! =P but as I listened to pres.Monson talk about his experience I realized that me and Spencer are going to always be able to look back and laugh at the crazy times when we almost burned down my parents house! The time that we got my truck stuck in the mud hunting, The time we broke Kadons baseball bat, the time that we broke moms window while Jon was over, and all the other times that we will not be mentioning in this email hahaha! (There are too many people that are getting this that think semi highly of me!) But we are going to be able to laugh about all that stuff later in life and be able to have learned hopefully at least a lesson or two from it! I also really enjoyed Elder Perry's talk. The part that really stuck out to me is when he talked about how our Heavenly Father cannot create anything that is not perfect! Heavenly father is the Father of our spirit and so because he created our spirit, our spirit is perfect. Now our bodies on the other hand were created by our parents. Not that my parents aren't perfect, because they are, but our bodies are imperfect because they were created by another imperfect body. To put those two together, we have a perfect spirit inside an imperfect body. That is now our quest to dig down deep and to pull out the perfection of our spirits out of our imperfect bodies! Our brains, being apart of our imperfect bodies, I realized are going to create and come up with imperfect thoughts. We need to open up our souls and to start thinking with that. Trying as best we can to remember and bring back the attributes that we once had in the spirit world and to make those our attributes here on the earth! I thought that that was so key! I also loved the talks on marriage. Talking about having each others pass codes and not having any other relationships onlineor with others that we would not be comfortable with our spouse seeing or knowing about. I thought of Kailei and Brad and how happy they look in their pictures and emails that I have received. How special and important it is to be able to say that you love someone so much that you never have another thought about anyone else. That is so awesome and I am so happy for them!

I have got to get going here in a few and so I wanted to leave you all with my testimony of this gospel! I love it so very much! It has become the one thing in my life that is like gold to me. It is the one thing that I would never allow to be taken from me. I have grown so much in the past year of my life that I look at pictures from the beginning of my mission and don't even recognize myself! (not even because of the weight loss) My testimony of the Savior has become unshaken. I am still tested and given trials every day which scares me, but I know that I can never give into them because we are going to be accountable for the answers that we have received and I know that I know this church to be the true church of our heavenly father. Christ created it, and we are keeping it going. We have such an important job to do at this stage in our lives and we need to do everything in our power to make sure that we are prepared for the final days! Thank you all for the support and prayers. My health has improved quite a bit the past week or so. It's not great but it is workable and that is all I ask. Thanks again and I love you all so much!

Love,

Elder Shelley