Last Week in Bloomingdale!

I have ten minutes to write this so I'll try to make it count.
This last week was a real great one to be my last one in Bloomingdale. 

I've been here just about 6 months, a quarter of my mission and I
don't regret a second of it. We finally have seen success with biking
now that there is more people out and about. We just give some wiggle
room between each appointment and talk to EVERYONE that we see. I have
learned that God truly places people in our paths if we ask him to,
and when you can show that you'll talk to those he puts in your path he
will then entrust you with his elect.
  We had a miracle referral, it was for a man in a nursing home and we
put him in as our 3rd back up plan and 2 of our most solid
appointments fell through so we went to go visit him. When we walked in
we saw a set of scriptures in a case on a table where he was at and he
said " Sit down elders it's good to see you." As we talked we found out
he was a member and hadn't been to church in a half a year,not by
choice but he was moved to this nursing home and no one knew where he
was. It was a true miracle because the person who referred him
didn't know he was a member. He cried as he expressed that he thought he would never see a missionary again and he wanted to go to church more than anything in the world. We called a member up right away and they got him to church the following Sunday.
  Keith also came out with us. It was so cool because he is such a great

missionary and miracles happen when he is with us. Well I'm out of time.

I have been transferred to Rochelle to be a district leader of all sisters again and
I'll follow up training a new missionary. I haven't left the same latitude my whole mission.

God is good, God is great, God please make us warmer in this state.

God is good, God is great, God please make us warmer in this state.

I feel weird not having warm weather and leaves for Easter.....

But I hope now that it's 70° It's will stay that way. The good thing
though out here it doesn't just stay 70° for a week, it stays that way for a good while.

Well this Easter week was a long one..... One of, if not the longest
week I have ever felt. Chicago wind + missionaries + bikes = dog
tired. But I've always looked forward to biking on a mission ever since I was a wee lad going to appointments on my little bmx bike with the
missionaries.

    We had an awesome week I guess the real highlight of the week was our
investigator tom, who likes to call him self "Brother Carr". He is a
great investigator and a great guy. This Good Friday he took us out to
all you can eat fried fish, and felt it to be appropriate for the
occasion. Half of his family worked there so we got through a 30
minute line in five and just enjoyed ourselves. The second thing that
was a highlight with him was we came by for Easter and he was telling
us about his family outing and said that someone asked about "his new
religion" and asked if that was the church who didn't believe in
Jesus. He said he stood up for "his religion" and taught them about
the restoration and how Jesus Christ restored His church through a
living prophet like old. Man our investigator must have really been
listening to conference this year about standing up for your faith. He
is a great guy and he is about as close as a inch away form getting
baptized but he is struggling from quitting smoking. So, what we are
doing as a ward this Sunday is having a fast and prayer for him to give
him the desire and the power to quit smoking. Also if anyone has had an experience of how to quit smoking, shoot me an email. Please.

   This week I really felt close to my Savior. I felt I was walking every
step of the way with him, through this last week as I studied his life. The story
came to life to me and it was so personal I can't even explain. I love
Easter and I praise my Lord and God every day because of the things
that happened that week long ago. Most of all though, what happened Easter morning. I know that Jesus didn't just die for us but he lives for us so that we can be free of the slave master of death. If it wasn't for my faith in Jesus Christ there would be no reason to keep his
commandments, to have good morals and to do good things. If it wasn't
for what he did we all might as well eat drink and be merry for
tomorrow we die. But with Christ if we eat of his flesh, drink of
his blood and remember Him, we shall surely live.

-Keep the faith build His Kingdom.

Elder Herdt

I Want to be a 4th Missionary!

This week wasn't too bad, elder palmer's back rim went out of whack, so
we had to borrow a bike from our investigator which wasn't any much
better because it was a 1960 road bike and the seat on in wrecked my
butt so we're getting a new bike today and hopefully we'll get that up and
going with this week. We had a great time this week and saw miracles
with our mini missionary. We were really able help him understand what
missionary work really should be and how to be a 4th missionary. (4th Missionary is in reference to a talked called the 4th Missionary.)  

A fourth missionary's attributes are:

* Obedient and worthy

* Total surrender

*Consecrates himself

*Charity

*Disciple of Chirst

*Measure of success from within 

* His predominant desire is to do what the Lord wants him to do. 

We were able to talk to a lot of people and it was sad though to see
people's idea of what good is, being this thing of nothingness and
that we are God's puppets and our lives are just a game to him. I love
the gospel so much because I have yet heard of a church that teaches
the kind of hope of a better life than we do. We were able to meet
this sweet lady who didn't know much about religion, proclaimed to be
Catholic but had no doctrinal reason behind her faith. Which worked out
great for us because as we taught her the restoration and a light bulb
clicked in her head and as she just loved the concept of The Book of
Mormon.
I've been recently studying the New Testament, it will be my
first time ever really reading the new testament which is good because
I feel guilty saying I know the bible, even though I most likely do
know more than most Christians. The gospel library has been such a huge
help with the understanding the New Testament. God blesses
missionaries having these iPads. In my studies of the New Testament I found reasons why we study the gospel and why it's so important.
"15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not
to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Timothy 2:15)
P.S. All those who read this please pray for Tom Carr and Brain
Parrish both are wanting to be baptized and can't because of medical
problems and both want to and can't quit smoking but are struggling. They just need that extra boost to get to the waters of baptism.

Love Elder Herdt!

If Every Member Was Like Him, Half the World Would Be Baptized!

   Conference Just Flew by for me this week. I couldn't believe it..... I remember as a kid, oh how GRUELING General Conference was; the only things keeping me going was a pack of red vines and a puzzle box. NOW! I cant get enough of it. I CRAVE doctrine, I HUNGER for the Words of the lord. I SEEK or every little nuance of each word and how it's structured in the sentence to figure out the mysteries of Godliness. I found the Saturday sessions themes where standing up for our faith and Obedience. I didn't quite catch a theme for Sunday's sessions though. I think My Favorite talk was by Elder Dallin H Oaks in Priesthood session, GOSH GOODNESS! Blew my socks of with doctrine, It was great! one of my favorite quotes would be "Danger lurks when we divide ourselves" and it made me wonder, how many people are dividing themselves. Who are "Sunday Saints"?  I want to be the same in the dark as I am in the light. I know the danger that lurks when we are divided. This is what the scriptures say when we are divided; Luke 11:17 "But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth" and so are we if we are divided.

For some reason, Our week was slower than usual but worked out great  because although we couldn't catch a lot of people, we had some really cool miracles this week. We have an investigator Brian. Brian has severe medical problems which is the main reason why he isn't baptized already. Because of his pain he cant go to Church and cancels over half of his appointments. So with this back drop, here comes the miracle. We had an appointment with Brian on Friday and 2 hours before we come by he calls and tries to cancel his appointment. We told him to rest and we would call him in an hour and see how he is doing.  After he hung up we sent out a text to all our members asking if the would pray for him and they did. We gave him a call an hour later and asked how he was doing. He told us that we was feel well enough to meet with us! It was a Miracle!  We then walked there and made a battle plan to get him baptized. 

I also want to share an experience I had Last week.

So the recent convert Keith that I taught drove and hour and a half to come out with us for a day. It was one of the coolest things on my mission to do. He is already a stud of a missionary. If every member was like him half the world would be baptized in 3 weeks. I got to take him out to a restaurant and got to sit down and talk about life. He is one of the greatest men I know. I'm so glad I got to be the one to introduce him to the Gospel. 

-Elder Herdt.