Morton IL 9.28.15

Pretty good week this last one was. The biggest challenge was probably just trying to improve our area book. There's a ton of crappy leads that don't go anywhere so we are trying to weed out the tares from the wheat. We have a ton of people who say we can come back and we teach them and set up appointments then they never go through. Our most promising investigators are probably Rebecca Richardson and Rebecca Keim.

I have developed an obsession for goals this week. My head has just been spinning with all the stuff I have been trying to keep track of. Writing it all out and checking your progress really helps a lot. I've been trying to up the level of intensity with each phase of the work. It is exhausting to put forth so much effort. I'm just praying that I will be blessed with an increased capacity to stay at this level and I know I will get it as long as I sustain it the best I can on my own. I'm seeing a lot more miracles with the increase in effort tho. Not that I was lazy before, I just felt like I have been plateauing so I need to push myself harder.

So our ward mission leader, Brother Mehr, got called to be bishop on Sunday! That was crazy I totally wasn't expecting that. He's gonna be an awesome bishop. They didn't call a new WML tho so I don't know how that is going to work out.

We had a weird thing happen this week. The district leader called us and told us that our weekly district meeting was going to be changed from Wednesday to Tuesday and it would be in Bloomington instead of in Morton. We show up and President Griffin and the assistants and the technology specialist elders and some sister training leaders were all there. I got scared and thought I did something... We had a big meeting with the whole zone and President organized like a missionary blitz thing. He split up all the leaders he brought with him with all the missionaries and we made a bunch of trios and just went out and got "on the job training". We were paired up with our zone leader, Elder Pierre, so it didn't feel that special, just like another exchange. But President took turns going around to every companionship and interviewing everyone. It was a pretty cool experience.

That's pretty much my whole week. Hope everyone has a good day, Love you all!

Oh yeah there was also this weird lady who has studied about every different type of religion there is plus all different kinds of mythology and she has joined them all into one "faith" that she has for herself. It was the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had.. I can't describe it, I only hope that in the next life we can watch replays of what happened here and I want you all to watch it with me.

so we came up to this house and there was this dog. It wanted to kill
us I thought. It came up to the left side of the fence, where the car
is at, and jumped up on it. I was like oh man that thing can almost
jump over we are gonna die. then it goes over to the other side. you
can kinda see where its broken off, and the dog jumped over that
because it was a little lower. man i had my knife out so fast, but
then turns out it wasnt mean. it just started licking us and running
around. It was scary, but i made it

then theres the classic Illinois house. (Besides Naperville) A small
little house and then they park their Mustang on the lawn. Like no
joke this is just about every house. Either Mustangs or Camaros,
Chargers or Challengers.

G. Franklin Scherer



1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522

Downers Grove, Illinois 60515

USA

Morton New Companion 9.21.15

So I got my new companion this week. His name is Elder Wells. He's
from Las Vegas, Nevada. He gets some ridiculous jokes from everyone.
At a baptismal service for the sisters investigator, brother Mensinger
found out he was from Vegas and you could tell he really wanted to
make a joke. Elder Wells was wearing an argil tie, so bro. Mensinger
said that little space right there looks like a place for a quarter in
the slot machine. It was ridiculous how hard he tried to force that
joke... hahaha 

 We found a few new people to teach this week. I quoted Katy Perry in
a lesson. It was amazing. We were talking about how sometimes if we
stand up for our faith then we will sometimes have to stand alone. We
showed a video from President Monson's talk when he was saying how in
the Navy he had to stand alone because he was LDS. I said, "A quote
from Sister Perry comes to mind, 'I stood for nothing, so I fell for
everything'. So we need to reverse that and if we stand for something,
we won't fall for anything." They thought it was so profound and
didn't pick up that I quoted her. Speaking of Sister Perry, there used
to be a picture of her in the Walmart here, but they took it down ): 

 So this week I grew a testimony of prayer. I have been feeling pretty
stupid the last couple weeks. So I thought I would buy a Rubik's cube
to prove to myself that I am smart. Well I had forgotten how to solve
the dumb thing and I couldn't figure it out, so I said to myself,
"Self, you should pray." So I did what I counseled myself to do and I
still couldn't figure it out...

So you're now saying to yourself, "Okay Garrett that was a stupid
story, your prayer didn't even get answered?" I'm not finished. So It
was like 5 days and I still couldn't figure it out. Then transfers
came and I got my new companion, Elder Wells. Well turns out he
competed in Rubik's cube tournaments around the U.S. So he taught me
how to solve it. So moral of the story, the same thing that everyone
always says, but you don't ever figure it out til it happens to you:
God does not answer our prayers how we think He will, but He does
answer them!

That's what happened to me this week. Someone go like my baptism
picture on Facebook, I got 99 likes and I need to get 100 to feel
accomplished. haha Love you all! Don't do anything I wouldn't do!(;  

G. Franklin Scherer 
1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522 
Downers Grove, Illinois 60515
USA

I found a ton of old cereal to feed the ducks on our lake

We did a service project at the Morton pumpkin festival. #swag

I held a ball python at the Mickelson's house. It's like 4 feet long.

Morton 9.14.15 - Margaret

So yes everything went according to plan and Sister Margaret got baptized! I've never seen someone so happy. It was an amazing experience. She was just glowing she was so happy. She was excited to be confirmed as well. I had the privilege of leading the music at the baptismal service. It was pretty fun, I tried to make it look all fancy with huge arm motions like I knew what I was doing. I've led singing before! i know how to do all of them 2/2 2/4 3/4 4/4 6/8 you name it! I wish they would have let me have a wand or something! haha 

So I also had great joy this week. I found out that Philip Meyers, the 9 year old I was working with in Galesburg whose baptism fell through twice on me, got baptized a couple weeks ago and I didn't even know. The worst part is, is that I would have been able to go to his baptism since I am still in the stake, but they just never let me know. 

So Jo came up from Galesburg and took us to Cracker Barrel! It was so awesome, but even better being able to see her again. It was a great treat. haha I have never eaten at Cracker Barrel before and then this week I ate there twice! Once with Jo, the other for a district lunch. If you go there, get the Mama's French Toast with black berries. 

Transfers are this week. So I am staying in Morton. I will be getting a pretty new missionary, Elder Wells. I don't know who he is. The assistants said he would need my "leadership abilities" so apparently they think I have some of those.  I don't know anything about him other than he has red hair. So I am going from a black companion to a pale white one... Elder Boulton will be going up to the Naperville Stake in the Prestberry ward. I think I spelled that wrong..

I went on exchanges with the zone leaders this past week. A couple funny things happened when I was with Elder Pierre. On the way back to my area, we both had to pee so we went to McDonald's and I went into the stall and some guy just walked in on me. I was just like stunned and I couldn't think of any words to say besides "uh.. hey..?" We both walked out laughing it was funny. Oh and I ran a red light on accident. I was turning left and I was sitting there for like 30 seconds waiting then I guess I just decided that I had been there too long so I looked left and right and I was clear so I just went. Then when we came to the next light Elder Pierre was just like so you just ran a red light and I was like no I didn't? I don't know where my mind went, but I just decided to go. At least I checked both ways (;









That's pretty much everything that happened this week! love you all!

G. Franklin Scherer
1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522
Downers Grove, Illinois 60515
USA

Morton 9.8.15

I forgot to tell everyone last week, but our preparation day got moved
to today because of Labor Day. Apparently they think it's a good day
to find families because they are all home together. Good logic, yes,
BUT no one wants to talk to missionaries when they're with their
families!

This week was so long. Maybe just because of the extra day..

Margret is going to be baptized on Saturday. So everyone pray that she
will make it! I know she will, she is solid. She wants to bear her
testimony at the baptism so we are so excited for that! We spent about
an hour or two yesterday cleaning out the font because it was so
dirty. This ward hasn't had a baptism since last November. We're
moving the work forward (:

We have had a lot of lessons the past couple weeks so we are getting a
lot of different investigators, but a lot of them don't make it past
the second lesson... But we are picking out the wheat among the tares.

Some Colombian man who was a JW tried to bash with us the other day.
Yeah we made him look dumb.. (; I know bashing isn't good and we try
to avoid it, but me and elder Boulton just completely shut down anyone
who tries to come at us with their incorrect doctrine.

We have a zone activity today so imma show everyone how volleyball gets played.

G. Franklin Scherer

1319 Butterfield Rd Suite 522
Downers Grove, Illinois 60515
USA

The zone and elder Renlund and his wife and president and sister griffin