When it rains, it pours mud

-
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. Opening potholes and sinkholes all over the place. Here 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, so the mud wouldn't come flowing right back in. We then managed to make a moat on the other side of the house to let the rain and mud from the hillside flow away.  Brazilians are so kind, the woman of the home couldn’t even afford to buy more buckets, but she put together a simple sandwiches and grape soda for lunch to thank us for our work.

I couldn’t help think about firm foundations. and the gratitude to feel anchored to something. To have a firm foundation in my constant striving to follow Jesus Christ.
Ether 12:4 “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.”
Another scripture that came to mind was Luke 21:
26And men's hearts shall fail them...”
My companion is having some heart problems these days and we had to go to two or three doctors. He ran on treadmills and they monitored his heartbeat. The doctor said that he is too sedentary hahah. He didn’t like being called sedentary, but I think he is going to be eating less burgers and street food haha

I love this work. I love growing closer to God and I know you don’t have to be a missionary to have spiritual experiences or to serve and to share the gospel or even to dive yourself into a routine of scripture study. But I love being a missionary.
I know God helps all men if they are humble and I know he has such a great love for us.


Love you family
-Elder Sheffield



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New missionaries are great

-
Image
2/8/20 Hey my familão Transfers this week and here are the Highlights: We got to see some awesome missionaries finish their missions! The new missionaries are great! I actually know one of the sisters from home. Sister Ramirez she's a friend of Jordan and Blake Andersons family, and she went on trek with our ward a couple years back! She's already speaking Portuguese so well!!  There is a 7 foot Brazilian Elder who almost played basketball, but came on a mission instead. Ssooo huge yeah!!! We went to the bus station at 5 in the morning and I got to hang out with the new missionaries catching buses, so that was cool to talk with them more. They speak a few words, but have strong simple testimonies and are so excited to just go out and DO! Elder Pinkston broke his foot and so now will be living with us until he gets his medical exams done and heals up a little. He's from American Fork and is an awesome guy! He works in a hardwoo...
Read more

Opa Oi Alo

-
We worked our butts off this week and it was great. We are in a branch here but it has a lot more members than my last area. And we eat lunch with members every day. This week we spent so much time looking for people. I’m helping my  companion get over his fear to start a conversation with strangers . H e is a great guy. Just quiet. We are trying to visit all of the less active members and updating "The LIST". We visited some people that hadn’t been to church in months. Some haven’t been in almost a year. I said to my companion that I would ask one guy to help us get to know the neighborhood and find some friends here. My companion said, “there is no way that he will want to help us”. But when we gave him a short lesson, shared testimonies and then asked him to come with us for the day, he said: “for sure”. We met a bunch of people and he bore his testimony of the church and the Book of Mormon and prayer. As a missionary, you have to be bold you have to invite with c...
Read more

What have you learned?

-
Image
Feb 29 2020 Dear Family So Elder Eastwood was asking us about what we had learned in District meeting! And I loved hearing about what everyone said they had learned. I LEARNED SO MUCH! So my new go to question is what have you learned lately? So here are some things I learned this week Today was already so great. Presidents wife came over to clean our house with us to show us how a pro does it. So I learned a lot about cleaning today haha Listening to music while scrubbing bathrooms reminded me good ol’ Saturday morning cleaning at home. We have a couple awesome lessons for today, with investigators!!! Aide and also Josemar and his family! Pray for them! Also, other important people that need Gods help: Jose and his adorable family, Nicolas!, Eduardo, actually… just buy a phone book from Juiz de Fora and just go name for name praying for everyone! Do you remember Ginger Ramiez? She is in my mission and is a great missionary I learned abou...
Read more