Canton, IL 3.7.16

Well I'll start with the good news, Jo got endowed on Saturday!! That was an amazing experience. I'm so glad I was able to be a part of that. She was just beaming and was just so happy. It was great to see someone so happy. She is awesome.

We rode to the Nauvoo temple with the the Anthon's, a senior couple serving in Havana. We had to wake up at 4 and be at their house at 5, which was 32:18 minutes away according to the GPS. That was a struggle! But we made sure to visit the gas station the night before
and grab a few Mountain Dew's for the road. We left the Anthon's at 5 and got to Nauvoo about 7.

Jo's session didn't start until 1 pm so we got to hang out in the temple all day!!! We were able to participate in several different ordinances throughout the day while we were waiting for Jo's session. We were just doing whatever the temple workers needed us to do. We were really busy! All the temple workers were telling us what a blessing we were to them that day in helping them get so much done. I didn't feel like I was doing much, but I was doing what I could.

At one point we got to go down to the baptistery and I was able to perform about 60 baptisms for the dead for a couple of young women that came in. That was the weirdest thing ever! I haven't touched a girl for 16 months and now I had to hold her wrist and touch her back! That was just unnerving almost. Such a strange feeling.... But it was still an awesome experience. I have never performed a baptism before then, whether for the dead or living so that was neat.

Then Jo's session came and that was just super awesome. I can't even tell you how much joy I felt seeing her there and feeling the sweet spirit that is there.

Well besides the temple this was a pretty uneventful week. So elder Williford and I are whitewashing this area. I hate whitewashing. This is the third time I've done it. If you don't know what that is, it's when two new missionaries go into an area that they have never been in before. Usually there is one that stays so he can show the new guy what's going on. So whitewashing, plus being a district leader, have been the experience this week.

There's not much to being a district leader other than we just call all the companionships and ask how they're doing and ask what we can do to help. That part is fun, giving some advice to other missionaries. I also liked teaching district meeting. I love to discourse and unfold the scriptures so it was fun for me to get up and instruct. I'm trying to tread lightly on this because of what it says in Doctrine and Covenants 121:39 We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will  immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.

Well as for the new area, I am not a fan. As terrible as that is to say. I've never served in a branch before. Yesterday at church there was only like 25 people, max. The members here are all super nice, but man it's weird. There's two families that feed us every week. Everyone is super poor here, too, which is completely different from my last area. I probably won't see another Mercedes Benz, let alone another Lamborghini, for quite some time :'(


I felt sick this whole week. Not flu sick or cold sick. It was like sea sick. I feel as if I'm on an island. There's this one little city of 14,000 and then just miles and miles of fields. Plus this transfer is 7 weeks long instead of 6 because of the change in the MTC schedule. That throws off all my plans for the week I get back home and going to the temple on my birthday.

Well on a more positive note we taught Rita and Crystal Filker (mother and daughter) this week. That was a great lesson. It was mostly just getting to know them and what the previous missionaries taught them. They are preparing for baptism. We discussed a date of April 16 and
they were a little unsure about it at first, but after we talked more we were able to discover some of their concerns. Crystal's boyfriend was there, too. I asked him if he wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon and he said he was Pentecostal. I was like is that what I asked bro? Haha



We had a lesson with a returning member yesterday, the Goldsmith's. They are trying to get to the temple. I have no authority to make this call, but he is far from the temple. His understanding is all mixed up. We shared with him Alma 12:24 and we're talking about how this life is the time to prepare to meet God. Well he stepped on both of my pet-peeves; he interrupted me and he would not shut up while I was trying to teach. At one point he said that the Holy Ghost was a creator. By this point I was livid after my pet-peeves having been violated, I was about to light him up with the scriptures, but I was striving for humility so I simply said, "Brother Goldsmith, that is not true doctrine and the church does not teach that." Then I excused myself and my companion. He also doesn't believe in Adam and Eve. Yeah, the temple's not gonna be a great experience for him. Haha

Anyways, sorry for this long email. I have nothing else to do here. We are all so far apart from each other in this zone that we can't get together on preparation day. So no ball, or anything really. There's nothing in canton.

I'll send some pictures of the temple. Oh and I got some Nauvoo fudge, that was good. Still not as good as Mother Ressa's tho.

Elder Scherer
:Long Live the 3 er's:

.:Tranfers:. 2.29.16

I'm getting transferred to Canton, IL. Third time going down to the
Peoria stake of Zion. I'm really sad to be leaving St. Charles because
the ward here is really great. But good news! Since I'll be in the
Peoria stake again I will get to go to Jo's endowment at the Nauvoo
temple! She was baptized February 28 last year in Galesburg. I'm super
pumped for that!

Well we just started finding people to teach this last week and now
I'm getting transferred, what a bummer! It seems like that happens to
me a lot. Haha we started teaching 3 part-member families and a few
other people.

We had a miracle on Saturday night. It was 8:45, so we were just
getting into the car to drive home for the night. We were pulling out
of the parking lot and there was a guy walking out of the grocery
store. I was in the process of opening my mouth yo tell elder Hadlock
to roll down the window and give the guy a card when he said, "stop
lemme give this man a card." So I stopped so he could give it to him
and he said do you want to know how your family can be together
forever? The guy said, with an interested tone, "I've got 15 minutes."
So I pulled into the next open parking spot and we ran back to where
we left him. His name was Ethan and he said he was thinking about
religion and faith just earlier that day. I felt prompted to ask him
if his religious life is satisfying to him to which he replied, "no".
He was really interested it seemed and he was even saying that it was
no coincidence that we met him that night. We said he would come to
church the next day, but we didn't see him. I'm still pretty hopeful
for him.

Speaking of church we had two investigators there this week, Natalie
and Matthew. It was amazing to have both of them there. We talked to
Natalie for a little bit before sacrament started and then left her in
the hands of sister Monson and sister Hobbs. They took care of her. We
had to focus on Matthew the whole time because he was in and out
making phone calls to his girlfriend, he was really stressed. He just
found out she was pregnant so he was freaking out. After sacrament
meeting ended she, Kanisha, came in for gospel principles. She didn't
want to come, but we convinced her!

WARNING: The next paragraph may seem racist! (But it's not) we'll play
the Tosh.0 game, "Is it racist?"

So Matthew is a mixed child. But Kanisha is full black. Not that that
matters in the slightest degree, but he was freaking out because there
are only like 2 black families in the ward, and while we were walking
out to get her from the car he was like, "wait before we get her I
need to tell you something. She's black as night." I knew he was
genuinely concerned with this so I kept a straight face and said that
that was completely fine. Later I had to excuse myself to the restroom
for a good laugh.

That was pretty much my week.

Ps HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT JODI!!! (:

Pps Mom, you're gonna be mad, but I just realized there was a Coke
bottling company here in St. Charles and I could have gone and got you
some stuff... Oops (: love ya anyways.

Elder Scherer













Playing dodgeball with the stake president last week.



 Went to a car museum. That Mach 1 tho...



















 1906 Cadillac













The Smith family

Sacrament: Attended 2.22.16

Well you read it. We had an investigator come to church! First one in
five months! (:

I was reading this morning in Alma 8. Alma was teaching in melek and
there were people literally coming to him to get baptized (like all my
friends in South America who have had as many baptisms as lessons I've
taught lol). Then Alma goes to Amonihah and is rejected and thrown out
and spit upon (not too different from here). So what I pulled from
this was it doesn't necessarily matter where you serve, but how you
serve. Different areas have different levels of success. The same guy,
Alma, served with the exact same level of diligence in different
places, but had different amounts of success.

We met an investigator named Matthew this week. He is crazy! He has
two degrees, one in English and another in science. He started talking
to us about some deep stuff. It was crazy. He came to church and had
to leave about halfway through gospel principles. We walked him out
and he asked us what the 7 deadly sins are. He just asks random
questions all the time to test us to see if we know what we're talking
about. He texted us this morning and was all po'd about some stuff he
found on the Internet..

I went on exchanges with elder golling. He's from Ukraine. I love this
elder. We've been in the same zone for his whole mission. He's never
had a preparation day without me for the past 7 1/2 months. We were
going to stop by a less active member, the pye's, and we heard someone
yell for us to come over. It was bro. Versace, a guy who got baptized
a month ago. He lives across the street from the Pye's. He needed help
with his parrot because it was bleeding and he needed someone to help
him fast. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! So I
got to perform surgery on a parrot (:

So we've only been getting fed like once a week, if that, and bishop
got up on Sunday and said people need to feed the missionaries. Well
we've got a full calendar this week (:

Love you All!!

Elder Scherer

Biking in the snow.

I made some mini scriptures

Performed a little surgery on Bro. Versace's parrot. His dog bit it
and we had to hold it down while he cut its feathers off and put some
powder stuff to stop the bleeding

Shut the front door 2.15.16

Last night we had one of the best lessons I've ever had. It was with
sister Merced. We've been working with her a lot. She is on her way
back to activity and preparing to go to the temple this year. We went
over to her house last night to teach her about the law of tithing; we
took James Minerly, a recent convert. Well just as with the most of
the best lessons I've had, we didn't even say one thing about tithing.
The spirit had something else in mind, but the Lord saw our
preparation in making a lesson plan so he helped us. She didn't come
to church yesterday because she was sick. We came in and she said,
"Before yous guys starts, I wanna tell you what I was reading before
you came in." She was reading chapter 3 of Howard W. Hunter, which was
what the relief society and priesthood lessons were on in church. She
said she just opened the gospel library app and that is what came up.
We said, "hey that's what the lessons were on today" and in the most
serious face I've ever seen she said, "Shut the front door." I almost
laughed, it was hilarious! Then she started bawling because she wasn't
able to come to church, but then she read the lesson. It was an
awesome, and her son was there!!! 

 (About halfway through the lesson she was saying how sometimes things
get you mad and she was like, "I can 0 to 100, real quick." I almost
buttered laughing, again!)

 I love when lessons completely go off of what we were going to talk
about and we follow the Holy Ghost in what to say. It helps me feel
like we're really connecting with them because it's what they need to
hear.*

It was really cold this week. But that turned out great because two
people let us in because it was cold! That never happens. We ended up
teaching this guy named Ron about the atonement. He has struggled in
the past with addiction and things and he thinks God helped him
through it, but he doesn't know how or who God is. It was a great
experience to help someone understand these things that we know about
how the atonement carries us.
A few minutes later, we met a lady who let us come in for some hot
chocolate. Bless that woman.

 *It's like lacrosse: if someone needs help shooting, but you were
going to coach on how to ground ball, it's better to help them with
what they need. (I wasn't sure if I wanted to include this because
this is a dumb analogy) 

 Elder Scherer


Fox River Bridge











Elders on Ducatis

It snowed this morning 2.8.16

Tired is what I was this week. I fell asleep after the closing prayer
of nightly planning.

I introduced Elder Hadlock to Beef Shack this week. Best Italian beef
in Chicago! Their combo (Italian beef and Italian sausage on the same
sandwich) isn't as good as Buona's, but it's still pretty good. Beef
Shack's cheezy beef is top notch tho. I need to go to Buona this week
and get a red, baptized, combo. Let me explain: at Buona Beef you can
get it red, which is covered in marinara sauce. You can also get it
baptized, where they dunk the whole sandwich in the extra juice from
the beef.

On to more important things.
The food pantry we volunteer at gave us a whole bottle of Muscle Pharm
protein!! #Blessingsfromabove it's the same kind that Brother Harman
gave me a few weeks ago. we made a tower of all the protein we have.

Now on to the important things.
Chakita didn't show for sacrament meeting, again... We have to drop
her date of March 5. ): we went by her house after church to see what
the deal was. She said she won't be able to come to church til the
second week of March. She's still willing to meet with us, she just
can't come to church.
Natalie is still meeting with us, but on Tuesday when we meet next we
are just going to be flat with her and if she's not willing to
progress, then we'll have to let her go.

On a more positive note, we met a guy named Olijuwon last night. He is
a professional BMX racer! He was super sweet. He showed us some of his
videos on his phone. He's big into religion. His family met with
missionaries when he was 8. We're going to start teaching him this
week.
Not one minute after we got Olijuwon's info and walked away, we ran
into a former investigator that has been investigating on and off for
the last two years! Her two daughters have both been baptized, but she
hasn't yet. I've been trying to get in contact with her since I got in
this area, and we found her!
Right after we met her, we went and knocked on a flaky investigator's
house down the street and met her boyfriend and he wants to meet with
us!

I can't remember much else of what happened this week. The time is
going by fast and I can't remember what goes on anymore. It's all kind
of a blur really. It's all the same thing, every day, but it's
awesome.

Hopefully we will get SOMEONE to COME TO CHURCH this week!

Elder Scherer

St Charles 2.1.16

I've been pondering the meaning of 2 Nephi 28:30. 30 For behold, thus
saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon
line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and
blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto
my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I
will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from
them shall be taken away even that which they have.
I've put some thought into what is meant by the last portion. If we do
not use or apply or exercise the knowledge that has been given to us,
it will be taken away from us. When we learn a principle or a
doctrine, and don't apply it, we lose it. Just as with math I suppose;
when we learn a new mathematical principle and then take the test and
never use it again, we lose it. The Lord will bless us with knowledge
line upon line, precept upon precept. We have to lay down the
foundation and build upon that each time the Holy Ghost reveals
something new to us, or it will fade away. 

 We did some service for the food pantry in West Chicago again on
Saturday. I love helping the people that come there. Mosiah 2:17

We had great lessons with Chakita and Angel. Chakita didn't come to
church, again... No one did this week. Bummer! Haha
The spirit was very strong in both of these lessons. We had members
help us teach both of them and both the members afterward thanked us
for bringing them along. If you want to feel the spirit in your life,
go out with the missionaries! Or even better, do your own missionary
work and give the missionaries referrals (;

I've spend a considerable amount of time studying about the apostasy
and the restoration of the gospel through Joseph Smith this week. I
feel like the more you study the apostasy, the greater the light of
the restoration becomes. I spent a lot of time in 1 Nephi 13, 2 Nephi
3, and Jesus the Christ ch. 40-41.

One of the days this week I stepped in a puddle and it drenched my
entire foot. It was also 15 degrees outside. But we kept on tracting
for the next 3 hours(: gotta love it!

It rained last Monday and then froze by Tuesday morning. It was like
walking on an ice rink all day. We probably fell like 8 times each.

The gospel is true.

Elder Scherer

 Elder Hadlock and our awesome bean bag.

Flashback to the first day at the MTC with Elder Frehner. My suit is not that loose on me anymore... On a good day I can get the button closed.

1.25.16

This has been a super great week. Elder Hadlock and I make a great
team. We found 7 new investigators this week! We put 4 people on date
for March 5! They are a family of 5 or 6 and there's a few other
people that live there, but the other ones were in and out of the
lesson.

We had potential to have 11 people come to church this week and not a
single one came! The struggle is so real. We are going to get someone
there this week!!

We've been working really hard and we've seen a lot of miracles this
week. This is going to be a great transfer.

I really can't think of much else to write about. I saw this meme and
I thought it was funny. This is exactly how most of my areas have
been. Corn fields for days.

Elder Scherer