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

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

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

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