A super great week!

So this week was awesome. We had a couple miracles

First, we found Jessica. She is the sister of a recent convert who just left on her mission to Mexico. So now Jessica is opening up her heart to the teachings!   She came to church on Sunday and we asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said YES!!  Her baptismal date is set for the 25th.

We also have a family that we are teaching, Family Baez. They are a couple who have three kids and one on the way. Their oldest is a special needs and he is so cute. He is fourteen and while we are teaching he goes up to his mom and says "te quiero" which is I love you, and then kisses her on the cheek. So cute! We have had to push back their date a few times because we are trying to get them married.  There are some problems with their papers. Hopefully we will have it by next Monday so they can be married and baptized on the 25th.

We also have a reference for a little boy who just turned 8.  He is the neighbor of a member. He went to the baptism of the members kid and now he wants to be baptized.   We will go look for him this week and see if we can put a baptism date with him. 

This week we also had a leaders meeting. Of course, they called me to do a little talk thing. So my companion and I talked about the question: How can reactivating and retaining members help us to have more and better baptisms? We, as a mission are working really hard to be able to reactivate and retain and baptize all at once. So this talk was very helpful for me too. We talked about the talk that Elder Utchdorf gave in the conference about Alma and Amulek. It talks about how they were less active but then became great missionaries. We did pretty well I guess!

I learned a lot.

The most exciting announcement I have is that ELDER NEIL L ANDERSON, THE APOSTLE, IS COMING HERE ON TUESDAY AND I AM GOING TO MEET HIM. I am very excited and I will take pictures.

Have a great week!  Love you all!

Hermana Shepherd

Templeee!!

This week was so great we went to the temple! Also I am in the same zone as sister Pelico. I lived with her for three and a half transfers so we are pretty close and now we are together again. She is from Guatemala. She is training a newbie from Brazil!  It's going to be such a fun transfer

We also went to the temple this week which was amazing. I recieved a lot of revelation. I love the temple so much. There is such a peace that you can feel there.

We have gotten a ton of references this week also. More than I ever have in my entire misión. We are wokring so hard with the members!

George got confirmed yesterday! He even got up and shared his testimony about missionary work and how everyone should do it. We have a feeling he is going to help us a lot with the work. I am very surprised that he shared his testimony in front of more than 100 people. We are so proud of the progress that he is making

I love you all and miss you all so much! Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Shepherd

Hammocks and miracles

George was baptized! His story is truly a miracle. He received the missionary lessons through skype with his girlfriend from Texas. The elders taught them the lessons, we just placed the baptismal date. His baptism was the easiest I have ever had, the service was the most organized. He was literally a gift. He has a stutter and doesn't like to read or speak in public, so we had him share his testimony. A cool little miracle happened, as he shared his testimony his stutter disappeared! His girlfriend and six elders watched the service through skype. It was a pretty great moment. After the service, the elders, through George, sent us a message thanking us for our team work and for pushing them to baptism. I was super impressed with their humility, it's amazing how the Lord is doing His work all over the world.

Transfers!!! duh duh duh... Surprise! I'm staying here with Hna Birch. We were surprised that we aren't receiving other sisters, our area now includes three areas, Nuevo Amanecer a, b, and Amalia. Wahoo! With the thousands of people here, that means hundreds have to be prepared to hear the gospel. We are going to have a blast. Our ward switched stakes so we are no longer in Las Americas, now we belong to Almirante. We are still the Hna Leaders, just serving a bigger area now.

To top off the week, last Monday Hna Birch and I went to the Conde and bought... HAMMOCKS. We strung them up in our bedroom. They're great but really cold because we tied them to the bars of our windows. (Here in the DR every window and door is barred, instead of prisons to keep bad people in, everywhere looks like a prison to keep bad people out.)

Our theme of the week has been Ester 4:14-16. I love this scripture. Each of us has divine potential to be the change in the lives of others. Who knows if we have been called at this time? The Lord knows! and He is the one who calls us. He places us in the lives of others in the moments when they most need us, because we have what they are searching for. The truth. The gospel. So share it! Share your testimony this fast Sunday. Share a mormon message online, invite a friend to church. Look for small ways to make a big difference and share the gospel this week. I love you all so much! Thanks for all the prayers! Have a great week!

Love you all,
Hna Shepherd

Playing catch up

We have been so busy that I am behind on posting for a couple of weeks so I am trying to catch up :)

Jan 23-27 Letter

This week was great.  On Saturday we had two baptisms.  The first was Giovanni.  I have been working with him since I got to this area 5 months ago, and finally on Saturday he was baptized.   He was sooo happy and I was surprised because his mom even came to the baptism.  He doesn't have very good circumstances in his home.  His mom works all the time and always seemed very uninterested and his step dad is not nice to him.  Giovanni has wanted to be baptized since the first time we talked to him and his mom finally gave him permission.  She was very happy at the baptism, I know the spirit touched her while she was there.  After the baptism Giovanni, his mom and his little brother were playing basketball together when we walked by.  It was the cutest thing ever!

The other baptism was for Roberta.  She is great, and her mom also is working toward baptism so I am excited for that. 

We received transfers on Saturday night though.  So I will be leaving this area, but not to far.  I will be in an area that borders this one called Nuevo Amanacer.  I will be comps with Hermana Birch.  She is also a sister training leader so it will be nice to be comps with her and not have to make phone calls to each other to get our work done.  I am super excited about this new area.  I have already done intercombios in this area and I love it!

Jan 30 - Feb 6 Letter

My first week in Nuevo Amanacer was awesome.  Things are going well.  We have alot of people to teach here.  We have a goal to find and baptize three families this month.  We found one family already, well the other sisters did before I got here.   The story of how they found them is very cool.  They were looking for an old investigator in an apartment building but he wasn't there, so they decided to contact the entire building.   Nobody wanted to let them in until they got to the fourth floor last door (just like in Elder Uchtdorfs talk)  and they found the S. family.  They are a wonderful young couple.  They have a baptismal date for the 25th and we are working on their papers to get them married before then.  They are so ready and already have such big testimonies of this gospel.  

We have also found a few other families who have potential.  Things are going good. I am so happy to be in the service of my heavenly father!

Have a wonderful week everyone.

Love Hermana Shepherd

Miracles great and small

This week was so good!  We have been working really hard.  We received our transfers and my companion and I are staying together until February 1st, and then we will have some sort of emergency transfer for the sisters.  President received a revelation that we should all stay put until February.   I am not sure why, but I am good with this because I have some baptisms that I don't want to miss.

Two really cool things happened this week:

Miracle #1 - 
We went to teach Sylvia.  She is a less active due to her health.  She has some sort of disease in her lungs which make it hard for her to get alot of oxygen.  She is very strong though.  We visit her once or twice a week.  We went this past Saturday and I told her that we were having transfers and it was very likely that I would be leaving the area.  She got really sad and said "they always take them when we get really close."  Then she thanked me for everything and reminded me of a time when she was really sick and hooked up to her oxygen tank and we showed up.  She said she hadn't slept for days due to coughing and pain, but that night we showed up and shared a scripture with her.  Lucas 22, when Christ was atoning for our sins.  In that scripture in says that an angel appeared to strengthen him. Then we told her that she had angels around her and she looked hard enough she could see them. She explained that we were her angels who had appeared to strengthen her in her time of need.  She said that after we left she was able to sleep peacefully for the first time in days. I left her house crying.  I was the answer to her prayer.  I am so glad I was able to be a tender mercy in someones life.

Miracle #2 of this week -
I went to the doctor and got an ultrasound to see if the nodule on my thyroid had grown.  At the end of the ultrasound the tech asked me why I was there and I told her that I needed to know if the nodule on my thyroid had grown and she said she could not find a nodule!!  So, in the course of time my nodule has reabsorbed into my thyroid and it's gone!!!  YAASSS!!  On top of that I have been feeling great.

On Wednesday I will complete 14 months in the mission.  Can you believe it!!

Love you all, 
Hermana Shepherd

This is Tammi, I just wanted to share a special email that Brittin received from her mission president.

Dear Hermana Shepherd,

I just have to tell you what a wonderful, bright light I see and feel shining from you these days! Congratulations! You are so positive and powerful and confident and full of faith, and it is amazing to see. Hermana Corbitt told me how you exercised faith to be healed through a priesthood blessing and you were! Of course you were! You have tapped into (and are tapping into) that exceptional, exceedingly great faith you also possessed in the premortal world and you are bringing it to bear here and now - for your own health and happiness, for your investigators.

Thank you, thank you. I'm so glad you are in that zone where there are so many sisters who can benefit from your goodness and your faith. Keep up the good work.

The Lord continue to keep you and bless you, dear friend!

Pte Corbitt

Amazing week

Holy cow this week was amazing. On Tuesday I had exchanges with Hermana Jovel.  She is so cute and sweet.  In our mission they made a rule that we cannot wear backpacks now so I decided to wear my hip bag to be obedient.  I couldn't walk that night because my hips hurt so bad and they still hurt the next day.  The struggles!

Anyway, we had a meeting with the Stake President and President Corbitt.  It was a great meeting.  After the meeting President Corbitt gave us a ride home.  On the way home I asked for his permission to let us baptize Fany even though she had only attended church 2 times and they are supposed to attend 3 before baptism.  He was thrilled that she was wanting to be baptized and gave his blessing.  He had met her the week before when we took her to the temple and he knew she was ready.  So on Saturday we baptized Fany, her daughter Shantel and her son Emmanuel.  I have never in my life felt the spirit more strongly than at that baptism.  Everything went perfectly.  Hermana Castillo (my old companion) even got to come.  Fany was so prepared and has such a strong testimony already it is amazing.
They were confirmed on Sunday.  In Shantals blessing she was told that she would help many people come into the gospel, and Emmanuals said that he will prepare to go on a mission.  I feel so grateful to be part of this chain, and for the knowledge that just from my mission  generations can come unto the knowledge of the truth.  We have already received  a few references from people who have baptism dates.   I am so happy, my joy is full!   When we met with them after church on Sunday Shantal was already talking about how excited she is to go to seminary.  This family is so converted to the gospel and so ready. 
I am so blessed to see the miracles and the changes that these people go through to be an instrument in the hands of the lord.  I love this work and the happiness it brings to me.  I recommend to everyone to serve a mission.  There are things that I have learned here that I never could at home.  I would not trade this experience for anything.

D&C 88:77 - "and I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom."

Fany and her children

Change in assignment

Dear Hermana Shepherd, You have been called to be a Sister Training Leader. This calling will permit you to more fully serve the Lord while you guide the other missionaries in their proselytizing efforts. I am sure you will do your best to magnify this position to serve the Lord during the period of this temporary assignment. Please re-read the leadership section of the Missionary Handbook (pg.63-65). As a Sister Training Leader you are responsible to minister to the sisters in your stewardship and help them achieve success as missionaries and official representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are also responsible to plan and carry-out companionship exchanges with the other sisters and serve as a contributing and valued member of the mission leadership council. In addition, a Sister Training Leader: You should continue to be an exemplary missionary who is very familiar with Preach My Gospel and the prophetic priorities that guide our mission. You are responsible for the training and well-being of the sister missionaries assigned to you, and will serve as a member of the Sisters Security Committee. Maintain your proselytizing area active while you work with the other sisters in their respective areas. Participate in exchanges for 24 hours every six weeks with every companionship assigned to you. You are assigned to a zone or various zones according to the needs of the mission. You will act as a member of a district and zone, and help the mission president, assistants and other leaders in training meetings and zone conferences. Report once a week to President Corbitt and to the assistants. The report is to include any issues, problems or concerns of the sisters. The Sisters of the zone look up to you as a role model of appropriate behavior and demeanor. A missionary who breaks the rules of the mission cannot serve effectively in a position of leadership. Every month the Mission Leadership Council will meet and review the goals and accomplishments of the past month. We will council about the condition of the mission and how we can improve. You should teach the sisters in your area the things that were taught in this meeting. This is a crucial element in the functionality of the mission. You have my full confidence. If you serve with humility, having love for the sisters of your zone while seeking direction from the Lord and his prophets, you will have success. May the Lord bless you as you serve in this assignment. Sincerely, Ahmad S. Corbitt President Santo Domingo East Mission
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