Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Christmas Week in St. Charles


Merry Christmas!

I hope we all can take the time to reflect on the Savior and his birth. I know I have felt the true spirit of Christmas this season as we have talked to countless people about the Savior and his Atonement. 
Alma 7:10-14

This week has proved to be a little better than the last. We are getting more acquainted with the ward. The wards are always so strong and the members are awesome up here in the north part of the mission, but the work is generally a little slower because people are more affluent. Elder Jepsen and I have been impressed upon by the Holy Ghost to seek after the Lost Sheep, namely the less active and inactive members of the church. We taught a host of them this previous week and have seen some success in that effort.

The temperature has begun to drop. The lowest I saw this week was 12*. I had to actually put on my gloves and button my jacket... Elder Jepsen is just shivering his life away. I just love the cold, it separates the weak from the strong. I found a brand new, unopened can of Stephen's candy cane cocoa in the cupboard. No one can tell me God's not watching out for us.

I broke out the bike again. It's been about 10 months since I rode that baby. I've got a sore bottom and sore legs. Shimano needs to sign a deal with LA-Z-BOY and figure out how to make a comfortable seat.

I prayed in sacrament meeting. That was the first time ever. It was weird I felt like everyone was staring at me, but every time I peeked their eyes were closed. It was an odd feeling.

Alma 13:20
The scriptures are before you, if ye will wrest them it shall be to your own destruction.

Study the scriptures and look to Christ for they contain the words of eternal life.  I love Peter's question to the Savior in response to His question will ye also go away?, Lord to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal life. If there's one thing I want everyone to know is that I have a deep love for the words of our God as given by his holy prophets.

Have a very merry Christmas everyone!


Elder Scherer




This is St. Charles. 

Pretty small house...
There was one of our cards taped up on the wall of some apartments so
that's neat.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

St. Charles 12.14.2015

I got transferred to a new area, St. Charles. It's like the richest place in Illinois. It's been a challenge for sure because we white washed and neither of us have any idea whats going on. The sisters didn't leave any investigators really so we're starting from literally the rock bottom. The only place to go is up and I'm super excited for this next week. This ward is really great from what I've seen so far.

We share a ward with elder Pettey and Elder Golling. Elder Pettey was my zone leader for 3 transfers and elder golling was in our zone as well so I know both of them really well. I'm really excited to be sharing a ward with elder Pettey. He's awesome. But he dies at the end of this transfer ):

My companion is fresh out of training. He's got a great drive for missionary work and it's great. I like being around a missionary who is like that. I really miss elder Wells.

On Friday we went to the mission office (finally close enough to where I can do that!) because elder Jepsen had a bike shipped to him. We had to go to a storage shed and I got a blender and a new chair from there. Elder golling was looking through a box of winter stuff and in there he found a pair of gloves and a scarf that I left in naperville 3 last year! That was kinda funny.



Last night there was a Christmas devotional sing-a-long at the stake center. It was great. I wanted to share a great experience I had there. We were singing What Child Is This with the whole stake and it was just so powerful. I teared up a little bit because I've only felt the spirit that strong a few times. It was wonderful.
I like being back up north here in the mission, but I kinda forgot how anal missionaries are about the rules up in Naperville. They're all so close to president that they're all mega fake and brown nosers. They all just need to chill. Still be obedient because that's the first law of heaven, but they need to chill.


Elder Scherer


Me and Margaret last Monday before I left Morton.




Brother Monson's house. Sister Griffin wanted a
picture of us "working" so we took this one of us knocking on his
door.

And this is the lamp that I got!

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Transfer to St Charles

I'm getting transferred to Saint Charles West!

This was a short week since we went to the temple last Tuesday. Pretty
much everything that happened was in the pictures.
I'm petty sad I am leaving Morton. It's the same feeling as when I
left Naperville. I am really going to miss all the members here. We
are just beginning to get a lot of traction here in Morton south.
We've got a growing teaching pool with a lot of solid people in it.
I'm sad I won't get to see them through. I will be praying hard for
the Grimm's, the Hawkins', Linda, Daniel, Michelle, and Ben. I
probably haven't told you a lot about them, but they are all the
people we have been working with.
This is the most difficult thing about a mission. I don't mind the
slammed doors 300 times a day, the people who try to tell me I'm
wrong, or even the protesters (which by the way I hope you all got
those links I sent!), but leaving an area where you've grown to love
the members and people is so hard. Feels like my heart is being ripped
again and again.

Love you all (: don't do anything I wouldn't do!

Elder Scherer


Brother nance let me do some pottery in his barn! I made a bowl and he
is going to fire it and send it to me! I haven't done this stuff since
high school (:
Here's me and the Nance's!  I promised I would come back and see them and they said they are going to come out to Utah so I can teach Cameron to snowboard! I'll get to show off
on Cheryl (my snowboard) for somebody (;



Jo drove up from Galesburg and took me and elder wells out for lunch
and gave me this monster!








We went into an apartment complex and we saw an apartment that already
had one of our cards on the door so we went back the next day and gave
them the DVD and gave them our phone number! Then the Nance's took my
iPad and took a selfie. I'm going to miss this family




Thursday, December 3, 2015

Nauvoo Temple

"And it came to pass that they did go forth, and began to preach the
word of God unto the people, entering into their synagogues, and into
their houses; yea, and even they did preach the word in their
streets." Alma 32:1
So I was on an exchange with elder Terry and we accomplished some
amazing things. I'll give a little background first. Elder Terry, in a
previous area, had been given a new world translation of the bible by
a Jehovah's Witness. If you haven't seen one of their bibles, they are
pretty cool! Pretty similar to ours, but they are gray leather with
silver pages. I've been talking to him about trying to get me one
since there is a Kingdom Hall in their area, Normal south. We found
out we were going on exchanges together in his area so we both made
plans to visit the Kingdom Hall. Well we went in and I totally played
the innocent card. Meaning I went up to the guy at the desk and I
said, "Ya know I've heard a lot about the Jehovah's Witnesses, and I
also hear a lot of rumors about our church. I wanted to just come
straight to the source. What is it that you guys believe?" He was
stunned. I could just imagine, a Mormon missionary coming onto their
turf, into their church, and asking about what they believe! He'd have
probably thought he died and went to heaven. Him and another guy came
out, they were both "elders" in their church, and they explained all
about their core beliefs and gave us all kinds of pamphlets and junk.
I was trying every angle I could to get a bible. Finally one of them
said something along the lines of lds missionaries giving out copies
of the Book of Mormon like they give out bibles. YES! "So you guys
give out bibles? I would be interested in taking one of you are giving
them out." So they gave me and elder Terry both bibles. They invited
us to come to church with them and I was like unfortunately I live in
Morton so I probably won't be able to go.
Well in the process of all this, we spent about 45 minutes in there, I
taught them the restoration. We left our cards and left. The spirit
was actually pretty strong in there!
We were pretty fired up about that so as we were walking down the
street there was a Lutheran church so did the same thing there. Ended
up walking out with another bible and one of their hymnals! BUT even
better! The Lutheran pastor we talked to committed to come to our
church!
It was an amazing day! Plus it was a bus area so I got to ride around
on buses all day, even got lost a couple times. I hope I serve there
sometime.
That was really the most excitement of the week.
We taught Paul and Elise Grimm last night. We were trying to get them
baptized on December 30. They are really heavily involved in their
church so it is difficult to get them to come to church. If they don't
come to church for the next three weeks they will not make that date.
But we told the Lord that was our goal and we felt good about it so I
am not going to doubt!

I cut my own hair with some clippers I found in the apartment. Looks
okay I guess.
I gave a talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost in sacrament. I'll include
that at the bottom. Well I guess this is the bottom.
Love you all! I'll be sending a lot of pictures of last week and the temple!


The Gift of the Holy Ghost
November 29, 2015

I was asked to speak on the Holy Ghost today. As I pondered on what
I should say, I felt like I should talk about how we are given the
gift of the Holy Ghost.

Story: Holy Ghost warning me of coyotes
When I was about ten years old I had some friends over and we wanted
to go play with my rabbits. It was getting dark outside, but we wanted
to go out anyway. The rabbit pen was on the north side of my house. As
we were walking out to where the rabbits were, I felt a prompting that
we should not go out there. I told my friends that I didn't want to go
see the rabbits anymore, so we did something else.

The next morning I was going out to feed the rabbits. I opened the
garage door and my rabbit came running in under the door and went
behind the garbage can. I wondered how he got out. I carried him back
to his pen and when I got there I saw the doors all mangled and little
tufts of fur floating around. Something had attacked my rabbits.
I found out later that day that some of the neighbors had heard some
coyotes that night. If it had not been for the Holy Ghost warning me
not to go out there, who knows what could have happened to me or my
friends.

Fourth Article of Faith
Our fourth Article of Faith states: "We believe that the first
principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the
remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy
Ghost."

The laying on of hands, and the authority to do so, was one of the
"plain and precious truths" that was lost during the great apostasy as
spoken of by Nephi. (1 Nephi 13:26)

Book of Mormon references
I would like to illustrate how the Book of Mormon brings these truths to light:

In 3 Nephi 26:17 it says that the disciples began "to baptize and to
teach as many as did come unto them; and as many as were baptized in
the name of Jesus were filled with the Holy Ghost."

If we turn back a few chapters we find out where they got their
authority to perform these ordinances.

In 3 Nephi 18:36-37 it says that Jesus "touched with his hand the
disciples whom he had chosen" and spoke unto them. And "the disciples
bare record that he gave them power to give the Holy Ghost."

I looked at the footnotes to see what else I could learn about Jesus
"touching" the disciples. Moroni tells us more about that in Moroni
2:2. He tells us:

"And he called them by name, saying: Ye shall call on the Father in my
name, in mighty prayer; and after ye have done this ye shall have
power that to him upon whom ye shall lay your hands, ye shall give the
Holy Ghost; and in my name shall ye give it, for thus do mine
apostles."

We learn that it is by the laying on of hands by someone who has the
authority given to them that the gift of the Holy Ghost is given.

Testimony
I know that the Book of Mormon and what we learn from it is true. I
know that Jesus Christ has restored his church and his authority back
to the earth through his chosen servant, Joseph Smith. I know that the
Holy Ghost is there to keep us safe and warn us of danger as he did
the story I shared. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Elder Scherer

f














Tuesday, November 24, 2015

snow

Well there's nothing new that really happened this week. This last one
went fast. It's starting to get a little cold! It snowed all day
Saturday. We shoveled off the church sidewalks twice. Elder Wells has
been asking me all kinds of questions about snow and snowy conditions.
He is from Vegas so he doesn't know anything about it. He complains
about the cold like non stop. I'm getting pretty annoyed with that.
But some of his questions are really funny.

We taught Paul and Elise Grimm again this week. We invited them to be
baptized and they accepted. We didn't give them a specific date. I
need to be better with inviting people to do things like coming to
church and being baptized. We don't get to teach people very often so
I don't ever want to ruin it. I will just work on it I guess. There's
no growth in the comfort zone, and there's no comfort in a growth
zone. President Fenn used to have that hanging on his fridge. I don't
know if it is still there because I've been in Peoria for 9 months
now.

I forgot my camera back in Morton so I will send more pictures next
week. I do have some on my iPad that I will send. That's really all
the things I can remember from this week. Make sure to have a good
thanksgiving. Alma 37:37 "...and when thou risest in the morning, let
thy faith be full of thanks unto God..."

Mark 8:35 is my scripture for the week. Don't waste your time not
serving God for personal comfort. Jesus says this same statement in
all four of the gospels.

35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall
lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.

This morning I studied thanks and thankful in the index to the triple
combination. There were a lot of good scriptures contained therein.
I've also been reading the power of everyday missionaries that bishop
Binks gave me before I left. I encourage everyone to read it. The
reason the church has plateued in its growth isnt because of the
missionaries, it is because the members have stopped sharing the
gospel. President Hinckley said that the growth of the church is going
to come through the members, not by tracting. I'll get off my soapbox
here in a minute, but really not having anyone to teach is the worst
feeling in missionary work, a feeling I've had way too often. Okay i'm
done, but bear your testimony to someone today and you will feel the
spirit.

Love everyone (:

Elder Scherer








Wednesday, November 18, 2015

birthday week

well to be honest my birthday, last Tuesday, was like the worst birthday I've ever had compared to previous ones, BUT it was a really good day in terms of missionary work so I was happy about that. 
We went and did service for brother and sister nance, the one that elder wells made cry. we just stopped by because we were in the area and bro nance was out raking leaves so we helped him for about an hour. then he took us out to pizza ranch! its a pizza buffet,  not as good as pizza pie cafe, but still pretty okay. then we went creve coeur and stopped by the allen family. i had never met them, they gave us pumpkin cake. we got fed like 6 times that day. when it came time for dinner neither of us ate because we were so full.. 
Then the best part! We went over to the Grimm's and they gave us brownies and ice cream for my birthday, more eating.. They are awesome, they are coming along pretty slowly, but they are coming. They have read parts of the Book of Mormon that we left for them to read. Friday is really going to be the deciding lesson i think. We're going to try to put them on date for baptism. We're gonna find out exactly how interested they are. We've talked about baptism before, but they have been kind of passive about it. So everyone please pray for Paul and Alice Grimm.
Other than that lesson there wasn't really a whole lot that happened. well there was this guy we taught last week that said we could come back this last Friday. we show up and there are three of his friends there. they did exactly what i thought they'd do, they just wanted to bash. i was getting excited, but elder wells really came in and was like no were not gonna do this anymore, if you want to learn about our church then great, but lets stop fighting and all be happy for each other that we have Christ in our lives. i was really impressed with the little guy. even tho i really am not a big fan of the little red headed, home-schooled, choir dorky little kid, he really impressed me there that night. they ended up listening to us and we did a little QandA about our beliefs about certain things. ended up they want to do a scripture study with us and we invited them to our scripture study at the church on Tuesday nights and the volleyball thing the ward does on Saturday mornings. one guy, Caleb actually had a lot of great questions and he accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. he also took our number so maybe something good will come of it.
That's pretty much the highlights of the week i guess. love you all!


Elder Scherer




Wednesday, November 11, 2015

year.

Exactly 1 year from today: November 9, 2016 I will be stepping off the plane. Kinda crazy. I never thought this day would come at the beginning of my mission. its a time of great reflection as i come to the close of my first 12 months and as i also turn another year old. 366 days left. im gonna make it the best i can.

Well there wasn't really a whole lot that happened this week. Nothing really exciting. Well actually I did get offered a job! It's for a life insurance company. We were knocking on some doors and a guy stopped his car and waited for us. It was kinda creepy. As soon as we finished talking to the person at the door we turned to go to the next and he motioned for us to come over.
Well we walked over to his car. I had one hand on my Book of Mormon, the other on my knife, my testimony ready to be borne, I mean I was ready for whatever this guy had in store for us. He got out of his car when we got close and he said, "Latter-day Saints, right?"
"Yeah, that's us." I said.
Well the conversation continued and he said that he works for this company and his boss loves Latter-day Saint missionaries for a host of reasons. We told him that neither of us were from around this area. He said it was a national company and that he knew we probably had a little time left, but the offer was still good when we got finished with our missions! Worth checking out I guess.
Well the conversation continued and he said that he works for this company and his boss loves Latter-day Saint missionaries for a host of reasons. We told him that neither of us were from around this area. He said it was a national company and that he knew we probably had a little time left, but the offer was still good when we got finished with our missions! Worth checking out I guess.
Well in process of of the conversation after the job offer had been made and some particulars discussed, he wanted to ask a few questions about our faith. Turns out he is a born again baptist. He teaches an anti-mormon Sunday school class for his church. DING DING DING right there! If your church actively preaches against another church during your meetings then there's probably something wrong with your church! hahah anyways we had what the scriptures refer to as a "wonderful contention" with him.
I am trying not to bash with people, but in the [summarized] words of Elder Holland when it comes time to defend your beliefs, be humble and polite, but DEFEND THEM. (He also said we don't look for bible bashes, but when one comes upon us, we win). I try to take that advice. haha
Anyways we didn't make any progress with him. He had this awesome little white King James Version bible. It was leather and had the gold pages and it was super compact. I want to find one like it. Hopefully that's not coveting.
That was pretty much the excitement for the week. My scripture for the week is Alma 38:12: "Use boldness, but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness."
Love all, Elder Scherer




Monday, November 2, 2015

Spooky Halloween in Morton 11.2.15

Dear Family and Friends -

We had a miracle week! We taught five lessons, which may not seem like a lot, but it is more than I have ever taught in a single week so far in my mission! We got 4 new investigators, one of which we dropped. I will talk about him in a little bit. We even got a couple referrals from members and we have appointments with those people in the next weeks!
So I'll start with the best one, the Grimm family, Alice (Alees) and Paul. They are the people I talked about last week who offered to feed us while we were on their doorstep. We went for lunch on Saturday and she made us pulled pork sandwiches and there was pumpkin cake, it was just awesome! They have four kids all under the age of 6. Judah, Elijah, Shiloh, and Silas. Shiloh is the only girl. We taught them the restoration, they had lots of questions. They are both pretty strong in their faith in Jesus Christ. He has translated the bible from Hebrew and Greek by himself, apparently you get a better perspective that way?
Despite all their questions, they agreed to have us come back and they want to learn more! Best of all they invited us back on my birthday, next Tuesday! I was so happy when they wanted us to come back I was just like, "That will be such a great birthday gift to come back to see you guys!" (Probably shouldn't have said anything, excuse my self centeredness...) Alice was like what kind of cake do you want? without even thinking! I told them I liked brownies and ice cream and they said no problem! EVERYONE PRAY THAT WE CAN KEEP TEACHING THEM AND THAT THEY WILL GET BAPTIZED!!!
Turns out he already had a copy of the Book of Mormon given to him by a member here in the ward! It was given him like 10 years ago. He showed it to us and it was one of those that has the pictures like in the middle of the writing not in the front or the back. It said right in the front cover: Andrew Valencic! Paul does heating and air conditioning and I guess brother Valencic was a customer a while back. You never know how your missionary efforts turn out, it took 10 years with who knows what else happened in the middle, for Paul to meet with missionaries even tho he had a Book of Mormon. Share the gospel no matter what you see comes of it, because it all leads to the right place!
That took a while to explain that part. Well the guy I said I was going to talk about next is Greg Gettys. Man this guy wanted to fight (bible bash) I am trying to kill that habit because that's not how you get people to join the church it only makes them mad. I shut him down with everything he said. He was amazed that I knew all the plagues of Egypt. He wanted to know about all the different instances of apostasy and such in the Old Testament. I started to explain about how Israel fell into apostasy after Joshua died and... that's about how far I got then he cut me off. He just interrupted me a lot so I said we are not here to argue. If you won't listen to us we will go to someone who will. I was very polite, but I told him we are not here to be taught and no matter how much I like it, I am not there to Bible bash with him. I was just about to destroy him so maybe it was a good thing that he kept interrupting me. 
So on Halloween President didn't want us out proselyting and interfering with people trick or treating so we had to go inside and stay inside from 4 to the end of the night. He basically put us on lock down... He wanted us to read, as a companionship, Mosiah 23 through Alma 40. He gave us from 4 to the end of the night on Saturday and he told us to set apart a four hour block on Sunday to read it together. So we had a little read-a-thon. It wasn't as good as the ones we had in elementary school where we would make forts and stuff... But we got lots of candy so that was nice.

That's it for this week. Kind of a lot, but it was a really good week!


Elder Scherer