Semana 13! Baptism of Tim and Javier!

Well, don't have a lot of time to write, but this week has been really great! Definitely the highlight was the baptism of Tim and Javier. They were just beaming with happiness after the baptism and I am so excited to see them progress down the path to happiness. The night before we had an amazing confirmation from the spirit that Tim and Javier were ready to go, through an amazing prayer from Tim. He has come such a long way and I have seen what a great change the gospel has made in his life.

I also went on my first tie dive! It was super fun and we got some really nice Italian ties out of the Dig.

I also helped an investigator named Anabele build a fence. It was super funny how stupidly happy it was making me to move some cut branches from a black locust tree out of the way for the fence when building it. Totally was taking me back to all the work on the Missouri farm.

As you can tell I am still here with Elder Berger here in La Joya! I am way glad to be able to continue to work for the people here in this area.

Sorry for the lack of details this time. It's been kind of a crazy week so far.

Love y'all

Stay Classy,
Elder Sheehy

Berger, Tim, Javier, and Me!

The Rio! Mexico on the right, U.S. on the left

Semana 12!

Hola y'all!

So first off I finally got my packages from the mission home!  Thanks so much family for the Trader Joe's stuff (totally was craving some cookie butter before I got that for some reason so it was divine, haha) as well as the slacks and such, Thanks so much Grandma Jeri for more heavenly Hawaiian stuff, thanks so much to the Sullivan's for the awesome tie and letter, and thank you Brooklyn for the letter! Wow, you guys spoil me so much! Thank you all so much for the love and support you are showing me.
 So transfers are being announced some time today so I will be letting you know next week if I am still in La Joya or somewhere else. That's been a hot topic lately guessing where everyone is going. It's not too big of a deal for all the other missionaries that have been around awhile, but as it is my first transfer it is exciting for me.
  This week has been a bit slow, but I'll see if I can remember a bit to write about.

So this week we met this super chill guy named Guadalupe that has read the whole Book of Mormon and is almost done reading the whole topical guide! It was just a random contact and he comes out with his Book of Mormon and shows us all the notes he has all over it. It was so cool. That is like way better than even our full time members do in this area. So hopefully some good comes out of that. Only problem is that he believes that anything that talks about God is true so we have to get him a testimony that this is the only true church.
  We have been mostly doing a ton of member work lately. The Toscano family has been running into some tough times so we have been running around trying to help them all out. It's super sad how there is always something that seems to be going wrong there.
  I also had my first beer dumping party! We helped a member that was having word of wisdom issues pour out sixty eight cans of beer in his yard! For something so simple and dumb, it was seriously a blast.
  While serving the Toscanos I had my first opportunity to give a blessing in Spanish for Eloy who has been really struggling. I was super nervous, but the spirit really helped guide me and it was a powerful experience.
  We had the opportunity on Friday to make and give a cake to our most boss member in the La Joya ward. Isidro Lopez is this little Mexican guy that turned 87 and is always out working on his farm by hand every day in the hot sun. He has an incredible testimony and has gone out for hours helping the missionaries proselyte. He is one of the best examples of Celestial living I have ever met. It has been so cool to get to know him.
  We have been teaching a hilarious investigator named Anabelle that is a single mother in La Joya. She has a ton of potential and she has a member boyfriend that is helping us out a lot. She takes everything super literally and surprisingly doesn't have a christian background. According to Elder Berger that is super rare down here and it's a new experience for him. One of the funny things that happened during one of our lessons was Elder Berger was talking about how the Holy Ghost will help us feel answers to our prayers. He says "The Holy Ghost will touch your heart" using figurative speech. So she takes it literal and was like "what the crap! Don't say that! I thought you were meaning he would actually do that!" haha, so stuff like that.

Well that's pretty much it for now. Sorry if it's hard to understand, I typed it out quickly and don't have time to go back and check it. Hope you guys have a wonderful week! I am so grateful for all of you! I will try my best to get return letters out to those who wrote to me.

Love you all,

Elder Sheehy

Semana 11

We had a great Skype call with Austin yesterday! It was so nice to see him, and see how happy he seems. He spoke Spanish to us a few times, including bearing his testimony. He says he still messes up a lot, but of course we wouldn't have known :) He was at a member’s house that seemed to have a lot of people there from the sounds in the background. There were quite a few people popping into the room he was in to say "Hi" to us. At one point these two darling kids came in and started dancing in front of the screen and waving at us, they loved seeing themselves on the TV. I wish I could have gotten some better pictures of everyone. There were some teenage looking boys that were especially interested in seeing our family, and came into the room a few times. I finally decided I think they were checking out Elder Sheehy's little sister. :)

Blurry pictures, but this is one of the cute kids that loved joining in on our Skype.

This is Paco, he was super friendly :) Austin told us later that he was asking about Emilee and Austin told him "she is totally too young for you, bro." 

Here is the letter we got today...

Hola y'all!

So, sorry I didn't get a letter out last week it was a very hectic Pday and I had very little time on the computer.  First off thank you so much for the letters Aunt Kim, Aunt Bertha, and  both Grandmas! Thank you so much for all that you do. Also thanks to all that have sent me emails as well. I love hearing how everyone is doing back at home. I really enjoyed our Skype call yesterday, it was great to see my family and pets.

So it's been kind of rocky (not going to go into details) with Tim and Javier and we are now hoping to get them baptized on the 17th. Not sure if we won't have to push it back a week though so we will see. Satan is throwing a lot at them for sure.

Otherwise I am having difficulty on thinking of things that went on in the past couple of weeks, so I apologize for that. We did have a fun day cooking chicken and ribs for the ward in a way sweet decked out barbecuing rig that a member has for Mothers day.  We also found a scorpion in our apartment! We were super freaked out the rest of the night that there were more of them around so it was hard to sleep that night. Anyways we named him Abram after the tank that the marines have because he looks like a little tank haha.

We also got dropped by the guy that we met late at night after being guided to his house and the Elote truck was passing by :(  We are still praying that his family will have their hearts softened and let him talk to us again. He needs help so badly and has such amazing faith. So its been kind of a tough last couple of weeks but I know that it will all end up good. 

There was also a cool experience last Pday at the Pep Boys mechanic shop in McAllen while our car was being serviced. Our car wasn't being touched for a super long time and we were wondering what was up. Meanwhile a guy that was also there in the lobby waiting for his truck to be finished started asking us about being a missionary and about our church. We came to find out that he was from the other Elders area and they got a way sweet referral from him. So that is why our car took so long is because we needed to talk to him. I can testify that God truly puts people in our path that are prepared and need to hear the gospel. It's super cool to see little things like that as a missionary.

Anyways, sorry for the short letter. Hope you all have a wonderful week, and if I remember anything cool that happened the past couple of weeks that I forgot, I will write them in my next letter.

Love and appreciate all of you!

-Elder Sheehy

Abram the scorpion on our floor when we walked in.

The barbecue rig at the church (Grandpa Don would have loved this)

Playing with Sister Thompson's bug zapper since the fly's were swarming us while we were cooking. (Elder Olsen being cool in the background)

Feeding Eloy's goats. The face this one is making cracked me up.

Cactus blossom

These bushes are growing all over here. Takes me back to Hawaii.

Semana 10

We received a package from Austin on Sat.with some fun souvenirs from the Mexico MTC. That was a great surprise! He also included a hand written letter, so there was only a short email this week with responses to some questions I had. He will get to Skype or Facetime this Sunday, so we're all looking forward to that! :)

This is the email he wrote to Grandma Lorraine that I loved...


Hello Grandma!

Haha, You may be a bit prejudice, but that's your job as a Grandma. That gave me great laugh to read that though. (in response to her saying he was her favorite Elder in the whole Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.)

I am glad that you are enjoying my letters and that they are helping you. By the way, thank you so much for the letter you sent to me. I am currently working on writing one to return to you, so sorry for the time that it is taking. I hope that Heavenly Father is blessing all of you back home as that is what I am here for, to bless others around me and forget about myself for a couple of years. I am glad that that is what is happening.

I have so greatly learned to love and appreciate going to church on Sunday more out on the mission. I can't tell you how much joy we get when one of our investigators or less active members makes it to church (now I can understand why you and my mom wanted me to go so much). I am so glad that you are staying busy and enjoying the great social aspects that the church provides as well as most importantly the spiritual.

Thank you so much for the love and support as always. The prayers you send my way are always returned by mine twice over, as I think and pray about the whole family a lot. Hope you are having a wonderful week! Be sure to get Emilee to stop by once in a while and take you out to Rumbi Island Grill.

Love,
Elder Sheehy