12-2-13

Dear Family,

Well I guess the Lord has seen fit for three transfers to be the limit for me and Elder Fajardo. Elder Fajardo has been called else where. He will be transferred as a zone leader out in San Leandro which is next to Oakland. He will be the Senior Zone Leader, and will be speaking Spanish. I am really excited for him, because that is exactly what he wanted. Well he wanted to train in Spanish, but he is still excited about the call. It's going to be crazy to serve with a completely new missionary for the last transfer of my mission. I was hoping that Elder Fajardo would stay for just one more so that we could keep working like we are together, but I guess the Lord has seen fit to call him another way! We will be life long friends, and will see each other soon after, cause we have a recent convert that will be going through the temple right before his mission soon after we get home, and we have promised that we would come back to be there with him!

This week has been a really good one. Probably the biggest news, is that Deniella finally has a baptismal date again! She has started reading the Book of Mormon on her own, and says that she is starting to feel/see the difference. She has picked the date of the 21st of December for herself. We didn't even have to set it for her, she picked it on her own. It was a really cool lesson to see her start to take it seriously and to start to see her make the needed changes to make this happen. I am really praying hard that it will go through, cause that is all she needed to be able to just do great things. She really needs the spirit because Satan hits her hard, and it's hard for her to determine what is ok and not and the spirit will help that! So please keep her in your prayers! She is really starting to do well! 

Thanksgiving was really good. With us being in the YSA ward, we didn't have a ton of options for dinner. But to be completely honest, I liked it. When I was in Brentwood, I think we had four full dinners and like 4 desserts! The members were so loving and kind, that they just wanted to feed us the whole day. Out here we had a nice dinner with the bishop and his family, and then the first counselor and his family invited us over for a little second round of pie which I really enjoyed! The rest of the day we spent with Peter Pu and Harry. We hung out at the institute and played pool and ping pong. Neither of them are Thanksgiving people, so they just enjoyed playing the games with us, and that made it so that we didn't gain a ton of weight hahaha. It was just a very simple Thanksgiving that I was able to take time to ponder on all the things that I am thankful for! One of the biggest things, is my health that I have been blessed with the past few months. Last Thanksgiving half way through the first dinner, I was already having issues and was in pretty bad pain. That was the beginning of all the tests that I went through out there, and so the health that I have this year has been just a blessing to me. I still have the occasional week long flare up, but I will probably have those for the rest of my life. They don't happen as often anymore, and I still pray that one day they will stop completely.  If not though, I can at least look back and say"look at where I was way back then" and know that it has improved! 

Tyler has been doing soooo well. He had a little slip up on Thanksgiving that caused us to have to push his date back to the 28th.. His parents have really been giving him a hard time about it all, and they pressured him to have a small drink that he didn't want to do, but he did fall into that. He has repented, and is really striving to continue to prepare for baptism. We took him to the lighting of the Temple lights, and he really enjoyed it! There was a music and dance recital that same evening that lead in the lighting, and it was very touching and powerful! The spirit was so strong and he felt it- which is great! He is determined to be baptized in December, and so it was great that he is starting to pick up on the spirit so well. 

We found this great new investigator names Anastasia and she is super solid! She called us last week and told us that she wanted to start meeting with us, and she wanted to come to church. Within the first lesson, we had a baptismal date for the 28th of December, and a commitment to come to church! She came with us yesterday, and said that she felt safe and calm there! It was a great experience to have her there, and the ward really did a good job at helping her feel comfortable and have a good time. 

So here is the big news that made my mission feel like it could have been compete at that point! I hope that I have mentioned, but Peter Pu is back full force in the church and has been doing SOOO good!!! Well last night, we were going over there to surprise him, and to have Elder Fajardo say goodbye to him. We actually caught him right as he was pulling into his parking spot. He came out and was super confused why we were there, cause he has told us not to just drop in on him unless we really need him. He asked what was going on, and Elder Fajardo told him that he was leaving. He was a little confused on how things happen, cause he thought that meant that it would just be me in the area now, and that I would be working alone. He wasn't super excited when he found out that there would be a completely new Elder that was here and would be working with him. But as we talked about it he felt much better. We took a few pictures with him, and he was so funny! He wanted to hold up the Book of Mormon and the bible and show that he is a Christian again! He then got really serious, and told us that he had figured out his priorities lately, and it is as follows; God, Studies, Money! This was a huge deal to me and Elder Fajardo, because that has been our goal the entire time teaching him, is to have him put God before money! It finally has happened, and that was such a great opportunity to hear that. But the best thing that happened, was as we were walking him back to his apartment. Right before he walked up the stairs, he pulled us both into a hug, and said, "Thanks, you guys bring God into my life!" I don't know if you will ever fully understand just how that made me feel. There were tears in all three of our eyes as we went our separate ways! Out of all of my days as a missionary, I don't think I have ever truly been thanked for what we do. Members always tell us that we are doing good things, and that they are thankful, but for a convert to hug us, and to say thanks for bringing God into his life changed my mission completely! I could have gone home that night, and felt like my mission was a success! Peter was someone that had no belief in God, and that has struggled with excepting everything that we teach and believe. So to have him tell us that he was thankful for bringing God into his life, it meant the world to us both. It was a great way to end the Sabbath! 

There is always so much that I could type in these Emails, but I need to do a few more things online before we sign off for good today. It still blows my mind that I am now within my last six week transfer of my mission... I am super excited to be able to get to see everyone again, but all the miracles that we have seen the past few days, has just made me realize how addicted I am to being a missionary! I have never been this happy in my life, and I know how hard it is to continue to do missionary work when you go back home. I have set some pretty high goals for myself though, and am really looking forward to being able to share the gospel with those that I come in contact with. It should be a good time! Thank you all for continuing to keep me posted on everything that is happening! It has been a huge blessing to have all the support that I do. I feel like I am one of the most spoiled missionaries in this mission because of the emails and conversations that I have with all of you on Mondays! It has made my mission a very enjoyable one. I am looking forward to the Christmas Skype that will be coming up soon. It's crazy to think that a year ago Kailei was on a mission! I remember all the cousins had a countdown going for her, and I think she came home about the same point in January that I did! That's pretty cool to me!
I am so blessed to be a missionary at this point in the world. I have made a few mistakes the past week with comments that I have made to missionaries that have been pretty offensive.. I still have a lot to learn, and a lot of leadership traits that I need to master. Everything has been cleared up and feelings have been put back together, but it was a really good lesson to me that the things that we say to others can change their lives in either a good way, or a horrible way. It was a good lessons for me to learn, and I am thankful that I learned it early in life! The mission has changed my life completely, and I am thankful for that! I have such a testimony of the Christlike Attributes that we are asked to study, and am striving with all my heart to be able to learn and apply them to my life! I know that the more like Christ I can become, the better off I will be! I am so thankful for the things that I have learned, and know that I will be a much better person because of it all! Thanks again for everything! I have said this every week, but I do truly mean it! 

Much Love,

Elder Shelley