Elder Joshua Sheffield

Jan 18 2020 Querido familia, (dear family) Here in the area of Minas the ground is very clayee? clayful? clayafied? I don’t know what the word is but anyways (lots of clay).   When it rains this little red mud fills the streams and river and the streets turn into a brown and orange lake.  O pening potholes and sinkholes all over the place.  H ere there are a lot of stacked houses  built up against the earthy hill slopes.    When it rains, it pours and when it pours then comes the mudslides.   There have been some pretty hard hit areas of the city and some houses coming down off the hill. So we teamed up with some men from the Elders Quorum and shoveled mud from a woman's house. We went with shovels and hoes and cleared foot deep clay into big tin buckets and a wheelbarrow. Until the wheelbarrow broke haha, then it was just carrying bucket after bucket.  As it started raining again we worked faster, ...

Jan 11 2020 Zone conference was awesome. I did a quick training on how to make a mission budget (trust me it was funnier than it sounds).  But the best part was Presidente. He talked about Presidente Nelsons invitation to be a part of the restoration. Maybe some of you don't know, but 200 years ago in 1820 a boy prayed to God and had received a history changing vision of God and His son Jesus Christ. This has come to be known as the first vision and was the first step in bringing the restored church, that this same Jesus Christ had brought to the earth when he ministered in the holy lands. Now it’s been 200 years and like it says in Ephesians the church of God is for the perfecting of the saints. More and more disciples have come unto Christ and the restoration of his church still continues! The president and prophet of the church in our days, invited us to make this 200 years count! Immersing ourselves in the truth that we have. And as missionaries we a...

Jan 4 2020 The downside of talking with you guys so much on the phone is that I never have anything new to say in the emails! This was a good week. It was very rainy and because of all the parties and new year’s celebrations, it was hard to find anyone home. Everyone was traveling.  But it was still a week full of miracles and full of the Lord guiding us to find people in the middle of the craziness of the new year. President’s sister was in town for New Years and also president’s son Arthur, who will be going on a mission to Recife - State of Pernambuco, Brazil in a few weeks. We got to eat New Year’s dinner with them and then they invited us back to eat lunch the following day. President’s sister, like president, is an official translator for the church and so it was cool to talk to her and her family about her experiences.  Also turns out there is one store that sells imported A&W root beer, so that was amazing I think some of t...

Dec 28 2019 Bringing the Christmas spirit to families It was a busy week and full of miracles. Christmas eve we visited some families and sang Christmas hymns and shared Christmas cookies. We met this amazing family and taught about Jesus Christ the purpose of his life and his sacrifice.  Christmas night we visited some people we are teaching, close by and stopped by President and Sister Loureiro to drop off some Christmas presents for them from the missionaries. A man that the missionaries had taught a few months ago called us asked if we could come by and teach him more about the Book of Mormon. We are also taught his neighbor. She was of another faith and just wanted to talk and criticize us. haha We managed to get a couple of words in and invited her to learn more about the church and really search for her answers. I'm practicing my Spanish with the Colombian elder that lives with us and honestly, I like Portuguese a lot better. If only t...