My Half Way Mark!

It's crazy I'll be half way this Thursday. One of the cool things about being half way is everyone that I helped get baptized throughout my mission up
to this point, I will now get to see go through the temple in the following year. Jen Tomas who was my first baptism, is going to
the temple hopefully in early august, while I'm still in Rochelle. I get to see her every Sunday and I think it's really good for her to
have me her to get through this first year of membership. Well let's
make this analogy a bike analogy. You could think that hump day is the
peak of a mountain and the difference between a consecrated missionary
and a regular missionary, or a committed missionary and just active
missionary, is a consecrated mission would pedal to the end when a
regular missionary would just coast because he can. I don't plan on
being a coaster. I want to crescendo till the end of my mission. Our
mission president talks 2 kinds of missionaries who will at the end of
their mission do ether of 2 things the get trunky or crescendo till
the end and it's funny out of my 2 companions who are home. The
companion who was a zone leader just coasted till the end of his
mission and the the missionary that was my hardest companion
crescendo-ed till the end of his mission.

Well Elder Earl and I are having a blast! I really enjoy having him as

a companion. It makes training really easy when you get along so well.
He reminds me a lot of Jorge Velazquez but white haha. He has Jorge's
laugh and everything.
We have had a lot of miracles this week. First of all we backed into the mission's truck and left a hug dent in our car but the truck had no damage. Later went to a lesson and when we got out, the dent was gone. (Whew! Dodged a bullet) We have found a lot of new investigators and have been teaching a lot. We got a referral from a member and because of that referral we are now teaching the referral, the mother, the sister and the brother of the referral.
We have an investigator right now who is really progressing, she is a
really sweet lady who has 3 adopted black children. She is a Jehovah
witness investigator that goes to their church but won't get baptized
in their church because she doesn't agree with all their doctrine. But
everything we teach her she loves and makes so much sense to her. We
had a young man come to a lesson with her and the daughter of the lady
was friends with our young man. Last but not least we have an investigator who isn't progressing but has been investigating for a while, because her husband is less active and she is still kinda progressing we go still go see her.  We brought
our recent covert with us and they knew our new member and it feel we are going to make some ground now with her.

I have to go another busy week but love you all!

-Elder Herdt.

Father Again!

  What a week to end transfers on. We had preparation day, then exchanges with the zone leaders which we got to see a few Miracles. We went tracting and we both had the impression to go to the other side of the street to start. We went all the way down to the end of the street with only a few people answering their door.  On the way back we saw a young man pull up and go into his home. His sister was outside and we started to talk to her, she expressed she wasn't religious but her brother was. We met him and told him that we were representatives if Jesus Christ and we had a message to share with him. He let us in and we taught him the restoration. He accepted a return appointment and a soft baptismal invite. Wednesday we had a wonderful district meeting and felt the spirit strong as we discussed about our purpose in life. We felt impressed by the spirit and realized how selfish we are to deny someone the opportunity to access the atonement by not inviting them to be baptized. Thursday was weekly planning. Friday because of the meeting and other hiccups we didn't get back home until after 9 pm. Saturday was a blast with the mini missionary and a shock to the system with transfer calls. This has been the fastest transfer cycle I have ever gone through and tomorrow will be the End. A whole lot of missionaries already guessed who the new AP was going to be and they were right, Elder Ward. Some major changes are going on in my neck of the woods too. Elder Engler called Saturday night and told us elder Wilson (my companion) will be going to Bloomington normal with Elder Stoking as a co senior companion. And then elder Engler said " Elder Herdt your pregnant...." I was extremely confused but then realized that he meant I was going to be training again!!!! I could not believe it! I felt really surprised because I didn't see it coming. I pray every night now that God will help me through training again. I'm going to need it. Next mind blowing event is The Zone leader's area is splitting. Elder Allgood is going to be taking over the area, the splitting and training and the most Mind blowing thing is Elder Brown  is going to be my Zone Leader!!!!! Next I not going to be district leader of the Sycamore sisters, Sycamore Hermanas and Belvidere sisters any more.  Now I'm going to be district leader over the Zone Leaders and the old assistant and Byron sisters and Freeport sisters.

       Earth shattering news in Rochelle! A member showed us the Thursday newspaper and we saw that The Church is requesting a special building permit to acquire the 2 year vacant bank building on 1010 7th st. , for a house of worship.  This means a miracle for missionary work! Many less actives, investigators and even former investigators will be able to attend church here in their own town. This town has needed this is a long time and this will bless the lives of hundreds to come. The church hasn't even said anything yet about it though.   A member said the is the first time in years that Rochelle paper actually broke some news.

  There are some good Mexican Eats around here but I need to look for some more. (miss Pepe’s)

That's about it I love serving The Lord and will be doing it for the rest of my life.

 -Elder Herdt 

Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam!

This week was a great one in my eyes with a few disappointments in between. We had an investigator who planned on being baptized Saturday but because she will be moving to a neighboring ward this week we thought it would be best to have her baptized in the ward that she will be moving into. The Lord did bless me with the chance to go see an
investigator I taught for 6 months in my last area. He finally gave up
is "man pacifier", aka 'cigar', and was baptized. He said the reason he
was changed was because of his testimony of the Book of Mormon. He is almost done reading it now and he is a totally different person from the first time I saw him. The gospel has changed this man from a grumpy
old drug dealer to a sweet kind loving man. After the baptism his wife
said that she guesses it's her turn and his mom's as well. Truly
salvation is a family affair.



We have found a lot of success with trying to find people. Even though
our investigator pool is still pretty low, it's been going great!  I have found some sincere seekers of truth. One was an investigator of the Jehovah witness' church. She said she liked a lot about their
church but she said she didn't agree with a few things; one of which was that you shouldn't go to war to protect your country and family.  She believed that it was right to fight to protect your family, so we showed her Alma 48, the chapter
about Captain Moroni and what type of man he was and what God's stance
was. She said we could come back.  We can't wait to go back! We also
found this man who was in gang but is the sweetest guy ever. He said
he would be willing to do anything to get that peace of the spirit in his life. We told him baptism is the way and he said he wanted to be 100% committed first. I have been working pretty hard and been feeling the spirit. 

Elder Herdt