Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Naperville Dec 22, 2014


Hi Family and Friends,

This was a pretty exciting week! We were able to share the gospel with a few people and it was awesome! Not everyone received our message as well as I would have hoped, but it gave me an opportunity to share what I know and for me to feel the spirit and share my testimony. My testimony of the Book of Mormon and of the prophet Joseph Smith has increased so much. The more I share it the deeper it gets. I love learning about the stories of the Book of Mormon and I love learning the gospel principles that God reveals through his prophets.

We were able to meet a few people this week who were interested, but we cannot go back until after the holidays. We had a great lesson last night with a man named Dennis that we met last week. He is a Sunday school teacher for an African American Methodist church. He didn't seem that interested in us teaching him last week but we gave him a Book of Mormon because he wanted to know what we believed. But when we came back yesterday he was pretty receptive and willing to read the Book of Mormon. We taught him the restoration last night, and k said that he believes that God could call another prophet. He believes that Joseph Smith could have seen a vision and it's totally possible. He would need a reason to believe that he was a prophet, which is totally understandable. So we told him that the Book of Mormon is that proof that Joseph was a prophet of God. He said he will read. I was able to bear my testimony to him about the truth of the things we taught him and I bore witness that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and indeed another testament of Jesus Christ.

The more things we do, the more the words of President Fenn make sense. He often says, "Missionary work is a series of disappointing moments occasionally (he puts a lot of emphasis on the occasionally) interrupted by small moments of indescribable joy." And that has been so true because a lot of it's hard and frustrating, but when something good happens it makes everything else seem worth it.

I love you and hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

Love, Elder Scherer

Monday, December 15, 2014

Naperville Week 5

Hello family (:

I hope you're all doing well and enjoying this Christmas season! I
just wanna say how much I love my savior, Jesus Christ. He is the
greatest gift that God has given us. Let us all remember him,
especially this season as we celebrate his birth.

This week has a lot of ups and downs. Unfortunately more downs than
ups, but when they come they make up for all the bad times, all the
doors shut and all the people brushing us off are all made up by the
chance to bear witness of this gospel to someone.

We got to meet with a couple of our investigators finally, a lot of
them have been sick or out of town, but we got to meet them and share
some lessons with them. Last night was one of the best nights I've had
so far. We were able to share a Book of Mormon with a guy in his
garage. And we shared the "He is the Gift" video with a lady we met,
it brought her to tears and she wanted us to come back next week. We
also ran into a pastor for some other Christian church, surprisingly
he was willing to listen to what we had to say. We had a good
conversation about Jesus Christ and his importance which led us to
sharing the video with him he enjoyed it and we taught him a little
bit of the restoration and the reason we have a prophet here on the
earth today. We left him a Book of Mormon and shared with him the
introduction and moroni's promise, which is that if we read and Book
of Mormon and pray sincerely, asking God, if the book is true that we
will get an answer. He said he wanted to read it. I'm hoping and
praying that the lord will soften these people's hearts enough for us
to come and teach them about the fullness of the gospel of Jesus
Christ.


We lost our car this last week.. We have had to walk and bike. It
hasn't been that bad except our area is pretty big and it's really
cold here. The weather is pretty weird, it looks like it's going to
rain, but it doesn't actually rain. It just makes like a mist and when
you walk through it you get water droplets on your clothes. So it's
like the rain is just hanging in the air. That was a terrible way to
describe it, but it's not like anything back in the promised land of
Utah. So we lost the car, but I haven't lost my faith that the spirit
will guide us to those in search of the truth (:
I just wanna say that I love you all and I appreciate you. There's
nothing worse than feeling unappreciated and unloved in this world,
but just know that you are all important to me and especially your
Heavenly Father (:

Love,
Elder Scherer

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Naperville Area 12.8.2014

Sounds like you guys are doing great. Congrats on getting the decorations up. Did you get a chance to check out the He is the Gift video yet? The church bought the main header on YouTube so it should be up there by now. Also in the December Ensign there are 9 pass along cards. I would invite you to pass those out and share the gift as much as you can this Christmas season. It's a big push the church is doing and we as members need to help push it along. Share it on Facebook and stuff too. On my new account I have shared it so you can share it from mine if you'd like. 



Bishop Fisher said he knows someone in the Naperville 2nd ward whose brother in law is Kevin Ross, dad! Also a member in the ward, Brother Horn, said he knows Theron from high school! Another sister in the ward is from Blackfoot Idaho so she might know Laurie or Jill. Her father is a seminary teacher so he may know Wade. We lose the car tomorrow and will then be on bikes and walking. I have a loaner bike for now but I should go buy one soon. If you could make sure there's enough money in my account to get a bike that would be great. It was snowing this morning but has been changing back and forth between rain and snow.




We had our ward Christmas party on Friday night. That was fun to go to. We've been trying to track down as many of the potentials as we can while we still have the car. We've made some really good progress this week. We've given out several Books of Mormon. On Tuesday I went on an exchange with a zone leader, Elder Osterhout from Rupert, Idaho. We taught a lady and we committed her to baptism on the 24th! I was so happy! But it was in their area so unfortunately I won't be there to see it go through. We have a couple investigators that we have been teaching, one we got a soft commitment to baptism. She said she would, but she still drinks wine occasionally and doesn't want to give that up unless she knows 100% that she wants to join. She's been taught pretty much everything and she's been to church, so she's really close. It's just more of the social aspect now, she doesn't want to give up her friends from her current church. So that's where we need the members help, we need them to reach out and fellowship her. I never realized how much of an impact the members had on missionary work. Mom and dad I want you to read "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Clayton M. Christensen. It's the book bishop Binks gave me before I left. It helps members know how they can be involved with missionary work. I've learned that Utah missions are not allowed to tract so they are solely dependent on member referrals. Things are good, elder Aagard and I are getting along and the work is starting to get rolling. He played baseball and football, but he's really tall and skinny. He's pretty funny. We are having a good time. He's only been out for five months.




Tell Alyssa I love her and I miss her. I'm happy to hear about her cheerleading. I know she did great. I love you Alyssa, thanks for being such a good friend to me. 



Love you all, Elder Scherer

Monday, December 1, 2014

First week in the field

Hello family! 

Sounds like you guys have had a great week! It was sure weird not having thanksgiving with the family, but it's a small price to pay for bringing others the way to eternal salvation. We ate at the Crenski home. That's probably not even close to how you spell it. The father is from Croatia and the mother is from Denmark. They have four little kids and they were really loud. They were so nice.

This first week has been pretty good. Kinda slow. We are white washing the area so neither of us have any idea about anything. My companion, elder aagard, is from kaysville and went to Davis high. He's only been out for 4 1/2 months! So we are both really new out here. The elders and sister switched areas this last transfer. We are in Naperville 3rd ward, and the sisters used to have the north half and the elders had the south half, but now they've switched it. The sisters left us with over 150 names in the online area book app we have. Some of these people date back to being contacted in 2008. So it's a big mess, but we are working on trying to go around and visit all of them so we can find out if they are serious or not. We've hardly made a dent, but we are trying our best. We have also done some tracking of our own and have added a couple names to that list as potential investigators.

 We have a car,  but we could lose it any day. I guess it's passed its miles and as soon as salt lake finds out they will take it away. We are one of only 10 missions to be online proselyting and have iPads is what I've been told. Within the next year though, all United States missions will have iPads. It's pretty cool. We get to use Facebook as a means to contact people, so if you would like to add me then my name is Elder Garrett Scherer. I have deactivated my other account so that's all I have right now. I gave away my first Book of Mormon on Saturday! That was awesome.

I have learned so much already, even though I have a long way to go. I've never studied the scriptures so much before. President Fenn really wants us to focus on the Book of Mormon so I have been reading intently on that. Some really great scriptures I'd like you to take a look at are 2 Nephi chapters 2,9,29,31,32, and 33. We taught a Book of Mormon class on Saturday morning about 2 Nephi 32, to a couple of recent converts.

The church is putting forth a new Christmas video this holiday season. It's called He is the Gift. There's a link to it on my new Facebook. Please share that with as many people as you can! Tell them to visit Christmas.mormon.org

I love you all so much! Have a great week.



Love,

Elder Scherer