ZERO - 0

0. it was 0 degrees yesterday. -20 with wind chill. its supposed to be
-50 today so I'm so excited for that. But since i am in the face of
adversity and I'm gonna push through it, i am hoping one day the lord
will tell me what he told Ether in Ether 12:37. in the ways of
scriptures, Mosiah 3:19, the psalm of Nephi in 2 Nephi 4:17-35, 2
Nephi 31:20, and D&C section 122 all make me feel like a lousy
when i feel like i wanna quit. and also the video "missionary work and
the atonement" from Jeffery R. Holland as well.

I realize i didn't finish a sentence from my last email. i was going to
share a secret, but i couldn't think of one so i just went on. hah well
since none of you answered my pop quiz, the answer was 1 Nephi 11:16
and the reply in verse 17 was "I know that he loveth his children;
nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things."

Well a couple of the Elders i came out with and i do a weekly email
where we report three awards: the space cadet award-someone who spaced
out, the ice cube award-someone who needs to chill out, and the GHA-
golden helmet award for the biggest retard of the week. anyways, i
witnessed something that qualifies for the GHA for the whole year.
this lady drove across two lanes of opposing traffic, over the curb
and over two feet of snow, through two pine trees, and onto a frozen
pond. theres ponds freakin every where here btw. people play hockey on
them and its pretty cool. back to the story, his lady's car was just
stuck in the middle of this frozen pond. total retard.

took some cool pics this week. one i found a street with Alyssa's name
on it. another is the biggest house in Naperville. me and my comp
posting up for a valentines mirror pic. and some district and zone
pics. Dont be alarmed at the bird that hermana lewis is holding.
thats the zone trophy. every week the zone leaders have a
challenge-the joliet jaguar, like who can invite the most people to
church, and whoever wins gets the bird for the week.

I'm gonna be staying in this area, but I'm getting a new companion.
I'm going to be co-senior companion.
i guess thats pretty cool.

I thought I had more funny things to share this week, but I guess not
so sorry about that!

Love,
Elder Scherer

A Witness to a Murder

Dearest friends and family,

I am forever changed after the unfortunate events I've witnessed this past week. An innocent life was taken right before my eyes. There was not a lot we could have done to prevent this tragedy. We were out tracting the neighborhoods as usual when on the way back we saw the poor soul running for his life across the way in front of us. But it was to no avail. He had no chance, he could not escape what was coming for him. I wish there was something I, or my companion, could have done to help. But it was out of our hands.

This poor soul, who we came to know as Peter after the incident, was taken from this life and to my hopes brought to a better place. His body was mangled and left in a terrible, awful sight. I wish I could un-see what I have, the images are burnt into my mind.

Peter was running across the street, when from the sky the villain came. As you might have guessed, yes it was a Golden Eagle who took the life of a youthful Jack Rabbit. The villain, who still at this time has remained nameless, swooped with a mighty swoop  and wrestled with Peter on the ground until his upper half was torn from the bottom half of his body. Up into a nearby tree the villain took the now-half body Peter the Rabbit and began devouring his flesh. 

A very gruesome experience that I hope none of you will ever have to witness. Included in a subsequent electronic mail are photographs of this experience.

Yeah I know what you're all thinking - besides how terrible of an experience I had to endure - does this guy have a creative writing degree? The answer to your question is no, but I totally graduated high school. With the help of Google, blessed be that website, and SparkNotes, and a lot of "sharing answers" with esteemed colleagues (kids I sat by).

In other news, we stopped by this less active a few times, like good missionaries do, and no one answered. We left a sticky note that had our number on it one time, then the next time we saw her neighbors and talked to them about her. They said they "weren't at liberty to give that information". Later that day we got a call from a private number that wanted to talk to someone in charge of the Naperville Missionaries. We gave her the zone leader's number. She never called them, but she called a lot of people and eventually got President Fenn's number. She was on the phone with his for 2 hours! 

So we got a call from President, scariest moment of my life because you never get a call from President unless you've transgressed and are being sent home. Elder Aagard made me answer it! I almost peed, but I  was a man and answered it. He wasn't mad, but he told us to never contact her again.

I learned a good lesson about terrorist jokes. We teach this recent convert that used to be in the army. Anyways, he was teaching us about how to make bombs  out of things you can buy at any grocery store, super cool by the way. He was saying that you could make a bomb out of anything. I made the joke of "Yeah people are even making airplanes into bombs now-a-days". He did not like that.. So just so you're all aware, it's still too early for 9-11 jokes.

They put a Pepsi machine in the club house where we go to do our online proselyting. I can now buy Mountain Dew whenever I want! Tender Mercy of the Lord!! My companion isn't too fond of me drinking it, but anyone who tries to tell me that it's against the word of wisdom is going to get a swift punch to the throat! Because it's totally not :)

I apologize for the length of this e-mail, but I wanted to try to combine my friends and family into one e-mail so I would have more time to play ball with the zone leaders. Totally gonna dunk on someone today ;) Well if you have made it this far into this lengthy e-mail I will reward you with a little secret about myself: I have never

Pop quiz of the week:

Give me the answer back to this question and the reference. The winner gets an e-mail from me next week!!!

Knowest thou the condescension of God?

       A last heads up, the next P-day I will have won't be until the 19th because of something with the transfers being pushed back. So if you don't hear from me next Monday, don't fret.

Love,

Elder Scherer

Naperville 2.2.2015

hello family,

this was a pretty good week. we met a couple families that might be willing to met with us. i really hope so. I'm getting really familiar with the scriptures and that is kinda cool. i finished reading the book of mormon this last week. i am starting to read the whole preach my gospel book. I'm kinda  getting bored with only being able to read church stuff tho.  that's mission life i guess.

i was on exchanges with the zone leader, elder osterhout, and we ran into some guy that was a methodist. he is a comic book writer and he wrote a comic book about like vatican spec ops. he gave us each a copy of it! since i cant read it i will probably just send it home at some point. you'll have to let me know how good it is. i wanna read it when i get home in 92 weeks.

i read a really good talk this last week. it is from this last conference. it is called "which way do you face?" it is really good. one of the members told me that ogden was talked about in the Chicago tribune. it was saying that ogden is the city that has the least difference between lowest income of a family and highest income in the U.S. so that is pretty cool. 

yesterday we were not allowed to go outside again because there was a blizzard. it snowed at least 2 feet yesterday. we spent a lot of the time out shoveling peoples cars who were stuck in the parking lot. it was ridiculous. it wasn't super cold, but it was just a lot of snow. even today we've been getting people unstuck.

also last night when i was on the phone with the district leader reporting our weeks numbers, elder Aagard shot me in the eye with a bottle cap. you know how you can twist up a bottle and shoot off the cap? yeah he did that and it hit me right in the eye. i had to exert all my energy to not cuss him out. especially because we were on the phone with the district leader, and also cause I'm a missionary i guess haha

love you all!!

Love,

Elder Scherer