"The Antonement", by far my favorite subject.

Hey ho howdy do,
I was thinking about Christ sacrifice he made for us and I
love the atonement. It's by far my favorite subject. To even try to fathom everything the atonement encompasses just shatters all mortal comprehension. The atonement was and is "infinite and intimate".

Because we are not infinite beings yet, we cannot comprehend infinite and the intimacy of the atonement was so very personal that he felt every living thing, every feeling from them birth to death from before his birth and even after his death. How could someone feel an
infinite amount of pain and suffering in a limited amount of time though? Well let's go to some math how many fractions are between the numbers of 1 and 2, it's infinite. Jesus is the son of God, which makes him a God and being a God he could live forever and lay down his
own life and lift it back up again. But being the son of a mortal woman he had the ability to suffer plain and suffer so allowing him the opportunity to be the only one who can atone for the sins of men and still live. Those are all of my thoughts.
Work is been pretty great out here we had some pretty big things
happen. So this last Sunday was the first Sunday we had both sacrament
and Sunday school classes. It went pretty great, I gave a talk too, with
a high councilman and he was so funny. He is a big black guy and
preaches like a baptist preacher, he is hilarious. It was great because
we have an investigator family come and she is a white lady with 3
adopted black kids, I think it really helped them feel comfortable at
church. Now the really big thing is that our area is getting split
tomorrow! There going to put a companionship of sisters in half our
area. It's crazy but I just means the work is hastening and The Lord
sees it fit that Rochelle is going to have a lot of work to do.
Love elder Herdt

First Sunday of Our New Branch!

We had a pretty good week besides all the driving. Tuesday we had to drive all the way up to Freeport about a 60 mile drive one way so I could interview someone to be baptized and then Wednesday we had to drive 25 miles to go to a funeral for a part member less active family.   The 20 year old mom who was the member lost her youngest of 3, who was only 6
months old. It was rough. But I love our plan of salvation. So many sweet truths we know because of revelations that the church has had on the subject. Sadly I enjoy funerals not because of the bitter tears and all but because, oh much death brings us closer to God.  It's such a blessing.
Thursday we had  had to drive down to a town called Sandwich another 60 mile drive, so we could go to the dentist. And finally our last long  trip of the week, on  Friday  we had to drive 80 miles one way to
Schaumburg for an 8 hour zone conference meeting:) Oh the joys of a missionary. Saturday I went on exchanges for the day in Dixon, Illinois. So we didn't get a lot of proselyting in but we had 8 lessons
with investigators which isn't to bad!
The Gem of the week though was the opening of our new branch for its first
sacrament meeting. And, speaking of Sunday, what a Sunday this was! It was the first sacrament
meeting for our new branch! We had 53 attend, 10 being less actives and 7
being nonmembers and 5 being investigators! The less active family who lost
their child even came and the parents of the less active who were also less
actives in my first area even came. I say it was prettying great to see
this happen. And we'll have enough people here pretty soon that we will
have a branch building built out here. The service was pretty interesting
though. No microphones., so it was a little hard for people to hear and the
weird thing was we had a higher than average amount  of little children in the meeting and
almost each one of them cried as one point is the service. The only
person who could attempt at playing the piano was  the branch president's
daughter.  It was hard to listen to because almost every cord struck had
at least one wrong note in it. Everyone just was overwhelmed on how much
this girl was trying that it brought the spirit of love through compassion
even though it was a pretty hymn.
Oh and I have been recently studying about keeping your focus on Christ in
our lives and I found this verse that really touched me. It's found in
Mathew 6:22.  This is the key to spiritual strength. Figure it out for
 Yourself.
Love Elder Herdt

A Week In the Life:)

A week in the life of Elder Earl and Myself. We had a pretty good
week. But weren't able to teach a lot because of the fact that a ton
of lessons that we had planned fell through. Even one day all
of the lesson set fell through. But this must mean something is coming around the bend. That thing I'm guessing is what was announced by
the church this last Sunday, which was that next Sunday they will be
announcing the changes in the ward/wards about Rochelle's up coming
branch.
And as hard as our last week was this week is going to be even crazier
because today's is preparation day, tomorrow is new missionary
training meeting in Naperville from 9-4, Wednesday is district meeting
and Thursday is mission leadership council for 9-4. Friday we'll be in
Sycamore all day for the fourth of July. And Saturday is our window to
proselyte for the week. So were going to make it count.
In closing I do want to share with you what I've been pondering
today. And that is what I have learned most on my mission. On my mission
I have learned how much obedience is important. Think of obedience or
disobedience in this way. Being willfully disobedient is like telling
GOD, who is omniscient, "I know better than you". We can only see veil
to veil, God sees eternity to eternity. We can only theorize on our
own past, that which we can see. But with the word of God, which is our
peep whole into eternity, we can know what we need to do in this life.
All else is secondary and all else that is against what which we see
through that peep whole in to eternity is and should be not even
considered.
I love God, I love this work and I love this gospel!
-Elder Herdt