Family means: "No one is left behind!"

Prepping for a baptism, haven't done that in a while. It's so sweet to
be able to finish off the transfer baptizing. This has been a really
good month for the district and Zone for baptisms. I believe our zone
will be having 17 baptisms this month which is outstanding for a
zone. It doesn't happen to often. Another reason why I'm happy is because we're finishing off the transfer with a baptism! I set a goal to AT LEAST find, teach and baptize one person, before I leave an area, and this is setting us up for the opportunity to make sure that happens. We found Barb, just as Elder Earl was getting into the area. We had a teaching record with the name "Barb", who lives on, let's say, "street way" and no address, no other contact information, just a street and a name. So we started contacting and with a little bit of help from God went straight to her home! The first house was hers! We started talking to her and she said she had some issues with the doctrine of this other church she was investigating and that after 2 years of investigating their church, this doctrine just came up. She wanted to see what we had to share, in hopes that it might finally bring her closer to God. I can stand as a witness today that her hope of coming closer to God has happened. She is preparing for her baptism this Saturday and is so prepared. This last week we taught her about eternal marriage and and temple and family history and she has just loved it! The doctrine is so pure so hopeful so merciful. That for those who have ears to hear rejoice when they know that they can live with their family Forever! I guess she really needed to hear it because Sunday a person from the stake presidency gave a talk on family history. In relief society they were talking about baptisms for the dead and we had family home evening
with her and our branch president and they talked about eternal
families and temples.
   Something to think about: as we were walking in to have our lesson on the temple and eternal families they had the TV on. They were watching Lilo and Stitch and we happened to walk in on the perfect moment when Lilo says "Family means no one is left
behind". How true of a statement that is! Isn't that the goal, to make
sure no one in the family is left behind? We spend hours and hours on
family history and temple ordinances so that no one in the family is left behind.
My family means so much to me. If I have realized anything on my
mission it is that I love my family and would do anything for them. I
love them and will continue to love them for the rest of my life and
eternity.


Elder Herdt

Up, Downs & Turn arounds

Another week in the mission with its ups, downs, & turn arounds. Just a
blast! You don't know when your going to have a trial thrown at you or
an attack from Satan on you or your investigators, but you also don't know when you'll see the next miracle,and if that miracle is a blessing for you or for another. We had a Good week that got eaten up by meetings,

Monday- prep day 10-6 

Tuesday- new missionary training 8-6 

Wednesday- district meeting 10-1, exchanges + service 1-6 Missionary coordinating meeting 6:30-9, 

today was a baptismal interview and exchanging back 10-2 

weekly planning 2-6  

Friday was our first full day of proselyting which we had some good success.
   We got to teach Barb, the investigator getting baptized on the 30th.
She is so solid! She has been doing a lot of personal study in the
scriptures and church books. She has pretty much taught herself with
the spirit testifying of the truth to her. All she needed was the
right tools. That shows a person who will stay active and help out
the church for the rest of her life. She learned most of the lessons
by her self. Prayed about being baptized and told us she was ready,
already invited friends and family to her baptism and the church
events. She is just the best. This Sunday though, was the first time
she had something she had to sacrifice to join the church and that was
shopping on the sabbath. Haha and after teaching her about it she
was so on board for not shopping on Sundays ever again. I wish it was
this easy for every investigator. While preparing for her lesson I
found this way sweet quote from the guide to the scriptures.
"The Sabbath reminds people of their need for spiritual nourishment
and of their duty to obey God. When a nation grows careless in
observing the Sabbath, all aspects of life are affected and its
religious life becomes decayed (Neh. 13:15–18; Jer. 17:21–27)."
I changed it up a little to make it more applicable to the every
day person.
The Sabbath reminds us of the need for spiritual nourishment
and of our duty to obey God. When a person grows careless in observing
the Sabbath, all aspects of their life are affected and their
religious life becomes decayed.
It so important to keep the sabbath day holy!
When we were in her home it may have been the hardest lesson to stay
focused on, the reason why was not because of company, not kids,
not cars but....... Puppies..... Barb houses puppy's for a couple of
weeks for a animal shelter and this week she got brand new baby
puppy's, you can't stop looking at them or at that point hear anything
because all they did was wimper and puppy howl. It was too cute..
At the end of the lesson we got to hold them and get our puppy fix.
    I think it's funny the way God's timing is sometimes when he places us in people's lives. We met this family who just moved in town. They wanted a church to go to and when they heard about the Book of Mormon loved the concept. They said they would try to make it to church. Well Sunday rolled around and no family. We were bummed but we called them later that day and asked if we could meet with them and they said it wasn't a good time. When we asked why, they said, "did you hear about the person thst got hit on the highway today? That was our daughter-in- law that you met a couple of days ago." We were astonished. We had just met that girl and now she's gone. We expressed our condolences and offered our services as representatives of Christ and ordained ministers and they we're very happy.
    I'm glad I know the plan of salvation and the purpose of life. It
makes times like those much easier to handle. I've also learned the
importance of teaching our children about Christ and true principles. 

To understand what I mean I would invite you to read 2 Nephi 22:23 then
read Enos 1:3-5 and Alma 36:16-20 and see how they link together and
how even when people aren't listening at the time that they need
it most the spirit can recall those teaching to the remembrance of
those people.
I love my family and most importantly my parents and want to thank
them for all that they do and have done for me God be with you till me
meet again.

-Elder Herdt

Sent from The Lord's iPad

What is a "Wonderful Bad Week?

What a wonderful week to have a bad week. To answer the the question
of what is a wonderful bad week? Well bad as in the only lessons we
were able to do were just inspired stop bys. For some reason no one
likes to set appointments in this town. Also we didn't have the best
week ever due to the fact that we had to drive a bajillion miles and that didn't help much ether. But, this week it contrasted the miracles
pretty nicely, just as a diamond is more brilliant in front of a black
velvet backing.
I got the chance to go to Dixon for exchanges with my MTC companion
Elder Bezzant and then from Dixon to to Sterling for zone leader's,
Elder Brown (my former companion) and Elder Scott, (the elder I replaced in my first area in Dekalb, for a baptismal interview with our recent
convert brother Sanchez to translate for us. The zone leaders
had been teaching this miracle family whose mother spoke Spanish.
The reason why they were a miracle family was because the mother of
the family had a dream a week before she meet the missionaries about
these 2 angels trying to find her and she was hiding from them and a
week later had the same dream. While she was dreaming this dream she
awoke from a knock on her door to these 2 missionaries inviting her
to come to the gospel. She said she felt like her dream became a
reality. She knew the elders came from God for her. She and her
daughter were baptized last Saturday and this Saturday her son and
friend will baptized.
The next miracle I want to share is about our investigator Barb. So
like I was saying we had almost no appointments this week. One of the
appointments was with a excommunicated man's daughter, so we went over
to their home and no one was home. We had an investigator who lived
3 blocks down who we hadn't had the chance to see in about 2 weeks
because her father broke his knee cap and she was taking care of him.
So we decided to just drop by and give her a new triple and bible and
when we got up to her door she was so excited to see us and let us in.
She said while she had been taking care of her dad she has been doing
her own studies in the Book of Mormon and the gospel principles book
and other church materials and told us while she had been studying
about the doctrines she had an overwhelming feeling that she needed to
be baptized and she was studying it more and realized she wasn't going
to get the feelings from the spirit that she was going to need without
first baptized. So we didn't hesitate a moment and invited her to be
baptized on the 30th of August and she gladly accepted. She felt like
she was on air. She told us through her studies that she found she
needed to meet with us and take more discussions, also that she need
to be interviewed and so on. She just prepared herself so much by her
studies and by the spirit. The spirit has just worked within her so
much she is truly coming closer to Christ.
It's moments like these that make a mission so worth it. I just can't
help myself and be happy. Through all the pains and misery these
moments of pure joy last longer than any pains do. I love The Lord
and I love this work!
-Elder Herdt

PS: We got a 100% on our Apartment cleaning check!

I Like Barns:)

I want to apologize for not writing last week we had to go do exchanges
and had to drive all they way to Stirling, which is about and hour. A
trip which we have to make again today for another exchange/ baptismal
interview. But I made sure this week I write y'all.
So we split our area, lucky for me I wasn't required to leave my
trainee. But the other area became a sisters area, which is good and
bad in some regards but it's crazy how they split our little town of
10,000 between us 2 sets of missionaries. God must be really working
with our leaders and they must be inspired to have them do this.
Because it's nutso!
Were doing pretty well though, it's hard when all your appointments
either fall through or your investigators drop you when your member is
there. Almost all our lessons we had were not set appointments, it was
really hard. But we made sure we were working and serving The Lord,
helping others come unto Christ.
We had this cool experience where we were out biking and we had to
bike through this part of town were there are 4 train tracks right
after another. So we come up to the first track and we get spotted by
a train and a kid pulls up behind us and after that train the 3rd
track has a train on it and then it stops. And on the 4th track
ANOTHER Train stopped. I'm thinking to my self at this time. Okay I
think God is trying to give us time to talk to this kid. So I roll
back and start talking to him about his religious life and his belief
in God and so on and so forth. Posing him religious questions here and
there that really made him think about things he has never thought
about. Taught him about Joseph Smith's experience and his search for a
right religion. Then we told him how Jesus was a perfect example and
was baptized and how Jesus told us, unless a man is baptized you can
not enter into the kingdom of heaven. So I looked him in the eye and
said "Larry, when you know this is true, will you be baptized by
someone holding the priesthood authority of God?" And he accepted. The
hardest thing about that was when we got his contact information we
found out that he was in the sisters area. That's how missionary work
is often done. One sows while another reaps.
I love The Lord and I Love this work. Best thing I have ever done.
Also the hardest but I would trade it for anything. " a mission is a
series of disappointing evens PIERCED with moments of PURE joys" -
President J. Fenn

-Elder Herdt