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

"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

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