Merry Christmas Everyone!

Hey everybody!

I hope everyone had a great week and a super fun Christmas time. Mine went great with a lot of love shown from all of you! So thank you to the following people:

-Brooklyn Hermansen for the card (Stay warm in your new area!)
-The Knighton Family for the card
-The Hermansen Family for the card and cash
-Steve and Kim for the card and cash (Happy birthday to the both of you too this month!)
-Grandma Lorraine for the package (love you!)
-Kyle,Brandi,and the twins Alexis and Colby for the letter
-Aunt Sherrie for the card and giftcards
-Grandma Jeri for the card and again for the packages
-The great relatives from the Stallings family that wrote me cards: Olivia, Laila, Eliana, Holland, William, Emily, Roman, and Brooklyn

Thank you so much everyone for making my last major holiday in the mission wonderful. I look forward to spending the next at home.

First bit of news is that I received notice that this will be my final area and that Elder Knutti will be leaving and coming in to be my last companion will be Elder Leatham. I'm excited to go out with a bang and finish strong. There is a lot of good that can be done here.

Some of the highlights of Christmas time this past week were going to a delicious Christmas eve dinner where the member family served us five different fillets of salmon smoked on different wood planks (soo good), looking at lights around the city in this very warm, winter-time city, and getting to wake up early on Christmas and dress up as santa for a member family to deliver presents. It was super funny at how excited they were and how sad they were when they thought I was leaving. We also were given permission as a mission to watch Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. I don't know if it's just that I haven't been able to see good movies for two years, but it seemed like that was a super good film. I enjoyed it a ton and look forward to getting to see the next one when it releases. We are also getting excited to watch Finding Dory on New Years Eve. Our mission president was super cool to have done that.

Despite all these things, I hope that everyone felt focused on the true meaning of Christmas. I think that this was my most significant Christmas in this regard on the fact that my testimony has grown significantly of the savior and His loving atonement. As well as this will be my final one spent in the full service of Him whom I was called to represent. It has been such an honor and privilege to have been His hands in lifting others and being able to completely focus on Him and others. It will be fun getting to leave the rest I have on the table during these final six weeks.

Thank you so much again everyone and have a happy new year!

Love,

Elder Sheehy

This is what Christmas looks like on the Gulf

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone!

I hope everyone is staying warm wherever they are at and that they are enjoying this terrific holiday season. I love how the world seems to stop at least a little and remember the Savior Jesus Christ. It's been a blast being able to serve as a missionary during this time.

Before I get into the previous week I wanted to express my gratitude to all those who have sent me cards, letters, and/or packages. I am so grateful to have so much love and support out here even when there is so little time left for me as a missionary and it would be easy to forget.

Thank you so much to:

-Grandma Jeri for the wonderful packages and card you sent. The whole apartment has been very appreciative of that and you've made this Christmas better than ever.

-Richard and Eilene Stallings for the great family card.

-Aunt Sherrie for the card with the generous gift cards.

-Aunt Bertha for the card. It's always great to hear that you are doing well.

-and the fam for the package and card. I look forward to opening them soon :)

I don't have a lot of time to write, but I will say this past week has been crazy. We woke up on Thursday with the news that due to a chemical leaking out of the nearby oil refineries, none of the water in Corpus was safe, haha. So we tried to run over to the store to grab some extra water and the line was clear out the door just to grab water, not even purchase it. So luckily we had a good amount already and we had some great members help us out. Over the next couple of days we had to have the South American mission experience of bathing with water from gallon bottles. It was super cold!
Luckily they got it all cleaned out by Sunday so we are back to normal.

Things have been surprisingly cold around here with the windchill and humidity dipping temperatures into the thirties. I know it's no Minnesota (shout out to Brooklyn Hermansen. Hang in there!), but it cuts through the layers we have on, on the bikes pretty good. I wasn't expecting cold like this. We are crossing our fingers that we will be able to see the first snow storm here since 2004. That would be super cool.

Other than that we have just been doing as missionaries do and grinding away, trying to find some receptive people. Corpus is tough, but it's been a fun challenge.

I look forward to talking to the family here next week and hope the everyone has a very merry Christmas. Be sure to keep your eyes open to opportunities to help others out. This is a great time of year to reach out a helping hand to those around us.

Love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Sheehy

Just a short one this week

Hey everyone!

I hope you had a wonderful week and took the opportunity to see the fantastic Christmas devotional. The spirit was super strong through the powerful messages that were shared. I invite all to check it out if you haven't already.

Things are really cooling down here and rainy (Hallelujah). I am really enjoying the jacket/sweater weather, as it now is finally feeling like Christmas time around here.

I don't have a lot of time to give details of the past week, but we saw a lot of cool miracles happen in finding new investigators. All I can say for the time being is that the power of prayer and fasting is real as we saw them answered.

I also wish to thank these individuals for the Christmas cards/letters sent to me in the previous weeks. You guys rock! Thank you so much to:

> Grandma Jeri for the letters and giftcard
>Aunt Arva
>Steve and Wynette Ellis
>Dave, Keri, Kendal, and Alyssa Witbeck

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family. Thank you so much again.

Well I will have to end it there for this week, but I hope everyone continues to enjoy the holiday season and participates in the church's #LightTheWorld campaign. I know you will feel closer to the savior by so doing.

Love y'all!

Stay classy,

Elder Sheehy



Hey mom!

I'm so glad to hear from you again. It becomes more and more apparent, every week it seems, how much I miss you and can't wait to give you a hug again. Thank you so much for being such an incredible mother.

I also can't believe how the time continues to fly on by. I am really enjoying the Christmas campaign of the church too and getting to share it with everyone we meet. I know it will be super successful if people choose to really participate. The Christmas devotional was wonderful and a very spiritual experience for me. I received a wonderful quiet assurance again that Christ really was born, died, and lives again for each of us. I would invite you to really pay attention to what the spirit says to you as you watch.

Woah! Crazy cool news on the calling! You are going to do an amazing job! Don't worry at all. I know that our Heavenly Father qualifies all whom he calls. I will be sure to pray for you as you transition into this great opportunity to grow for you.

Things are definitely improving on the relationship with the ward members. I love this area. We are seeing a lot of cool miracles as we continue to try and be better every day.

I would definitely say things are safe to send here because packages are held at the apartment office and need I.D. verification to be released to the owner. However, there will be ample opportunities to get things from the mission office too, if people feel more comfortable doing it that way.

Have a wonderful week mom! Love ya lots!

Love,

Elder Sheehy

Christmas by the Bay

Corpus Pier

Shrimp boats

 City of Corpus Christi

The monument to Selena, the Tejano artist who had a movie made about her played by Jennifer Lopez

Cool yard of one of the members

Thanksgiving Day soccer

We played with Sinton Zone, where Elder Rosaschi is currently serving. I missed him a lot. 

The Thanksgiving Plague

Hey everybody!

I hope you had an awesome Thanksgiving!

Mine was absolutely nuts! We had four back-to-back appointments. I have never felt so stuffed in my life! Poor Elder Gallegos in our zone lost it after two and I had to run to the bathroom to throw-up the first thing the following morning. Of all the thanks expressed during this holiday I would say I am most thankful that this is my last Thanksgiving as a missionary ;P  No seriously though, it was great of the members to be so loving here.

It's been fun to keep getting to know the area here in Corpus. I dig being able to see the ocean every day so much. It's like the ultimate stress reducer for me.

I don't have a lot to report on, but I was able to get some good pictures around town, so I'll just move ahead to that. I hope you have an awesome week everyone!

love y'all so much!

Stay classy,

Elder Sheehy

And then a few minutes later he wrote...

Just kidding on the pictures :( I forgot my camera at the apartment I just realized. >.< Next week for sure though!

Corpus Life

Hey everyone!

So I had some changes the last week. I was transferred here to Corpus Christi with Elder Knutti and I am having a blast. It is super pretty here and the weather is perfect right now. My area butts up against the ocean, so I get to see it basically every day which is really cool. This is definitely my most scenic area I've served in. Elder Knutti is from Virginia and we get along great. I am SOOO grateful I've had such awesome companions in the mission. That has been a huge blessing.

I wanted to be sure to thank my Grandma Jeri before I get too far as well. Thanks for the awesome Thanksgiving package, we have been enjoying the good treats.

So getting here to Corpus was pretty nuts. It was only Elder Buzan and I in a van and we both have never been away from the border and had no idea where we were going. We left the transfer meeting with a GPS in the car and just set a course for Corpus assuming that we could call the Zone Leaders when we got close. Well about halfway there We both realized that no one had given us a cell phone and that there wasn't any numbers in the car for missionaries. We figured we were too far to turn back so we kept on going. We made it to Corpus itself with good time but started wandering around looking for missionaries. Usually you will be met at the stake chapel, but when we arrived there, there wasn't anyone to pick us up. We resorted to talking to a worker that was working on the roof and asked him where the other chapels were located. So we wandered around all over Corpus to the different chapels, but not finding anyone around. Well this went on until about seven at night going to places and looking for members (we found a ward directory luckily).This finally ended up with us knocking on a less-active woman's home who pointed us in the right direction and fed us some food since we hadn't eaten anything all day. Thank goodness haha. Elder Buzan and I thought we were going to have to go back to an area where we knew people as late as it was getting. That was a super crazy experience, but it ended up alright.

Well I'm loving it here and looking forward to spending the holidays on the coast. We are looking at probably 5+ Thanksgiving dinner appointments so that's going to be insane. Pray that I can make it through that day lol.

Well I love y'all a ton and hope you have a great Thanksgiving! I don't have any photos yet, but I'll take a bunch this week.

Stay Classy,

Elder Sheehy

(p.s If you would like to send me some mail or packages ;) my new address is:

5757 S. Staples #1507
Corpus Christi, Texas
78413

The mail should be safe here so feel free to send things straight here as opposed to sending them to the mission home and taking a long time to be brought up here to me).

Bye Bye Weslaco!

Hey ev'r budy!

So first thing first, I'm getting transferred! Definitely bittersweet for me. I am excited to see somewhere new and meet new people, but it will be hard to leave Weslaco a second time. So many great people and missionaries here. Also kind of a scary moment was realizing that this very well could be my final area i serve in. I heard (not confirmed yet) that I will be going to Corpus Christi. Super cool if that's true.

This last week was awesome. We saw a ton of success and things were just falling into place. We really saw the hand of the lord a lot blessing our investigator and our personal lives. We had a lot of fun meal appointments with our favorite members that were worried and now sad to hear of Elder Gonzales and I leaving the branch. We definitely went out with a bang, so I am very thankful to the awesome Weslaco branch members.

So the big highlight of the week was a baptism! Our investigator Juan that we have been working with was cleared by the mission president last Wednesday, so we got him prepped to go yesterday. He was super excited as he has been waiting for a couple of years to join the rest of his family in baptism. It was a seriously awesome moment. He was all smiles and seemed very very relieved to finally get there. I know he is going to be a very strong convert and will eventually become a great priesthood leader here. What a huge blessing to have been able to help him reach that desire and to have gotten to become so close with his family.

I hope you have an awesome week! Love ya guys!

Stay classy,

Elder Sheehy

Juan and his family :)

November...Where is my mission going?

Hello everyone!

 I can't believe that November is already here. I won't lie I had a couple of moments last week kind of freaking out that the mission is nearly over and I feel that there is still soooo much more I need to do and learn. Luckily there is still some time and I will use it to the best of my ability.

Before I get too far I want to thank my Grandma Jeri for a great Halloween card and I hope you had a very happy birthday.

This past week was awesome. Elder Peake with the rest of the district and I had a great time at meal appointments visiting and joking with the members. It's been a blessing to have so much time here in Weslaco. I love the members here in all the units to death. They are terrific people. Yesterday during fast and testimony meeting we heard so many powerful testimonies of the temple from these great people. I also felt impressed to stand and bear my testimony of eternal families and the incredible experience my mother and I had of taking my brother and sister Tyler and Tara's names through the temple before I came out here. I know without a doubt that they are in spirit paradise doing extremely well and helping out and working hard there. The whole purpose and joy of God's grand design is to see us all together as families in his presence again. I implore all that haven't been to the temple in awhile to bring a family ancestors name through and feel of the joy that comes from such an experience. I also implore those that haven't gone or unable to currently go, to work with your church leaders who love you to get a recommend and go. I miss the temple so much. The work there is real and you will feel no closer to God in any other place but His house.

We are seeing much growth and success with our investigator Juan currently and if all goes well with the final interview with our mission president (which i'm certain it will because of how golden of a man he is) he should be baptized very soon! I love this man and his family to death and I want nothing more than to see him join the rest of the family in baptism and go on to the sealing powers only available in the temple.
Sometimes he adds different details in his personal letters to me. Here's a part that made me sad...
Things are going great with Juan. He is an awesome guy that has a terrific family in some of the poorest conditions I've seen out here. Very very humble people. I wish so bad that I had money to buy them a new house that didn't have holes all over and cockroaches and mice running in and out. It's super sad.

I love you all so much and hope that you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Sheehy

Some older pics that I got from Elder Peake's camera...

Elder Peake and I got to eat here a few weeks ago for a members birthday for all you can eat shrimp. Yes, we're spoiled :P

​Pirate birthday party with Elder Gonzalez and Barnett

​I thought this christian church sign was clever

​Yep, we found it... the Party spot. "Oh this is the party spot?... I guess I've been looking in the wrong place?"

Apparently the brother of Jared is marketing his glowing rocks now...

Yes, a real live snake got stuck in my companions tie... don't ask lol.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

I hope everyone has a super fun night. Be sure to stay safe from all the crazies out there!

Well I apologize for not being more consistent with these group emails. I am planning on being much better at it from here on out.

Well I've just been informed by my sister that I only have 100 days left! That's a crazy/scary thought for me. I love it here and feel like there is still so much left I need to do and learn. I hope I can get as much done as I can before I head back.

So these last couple of weeks have been really good, despite some trials. I have been struggling with some stomach issues where basically everything I eat makes me sick, but it seems to be getting better little by little every day. I am blessed to be getting good eating habits from it though as I now watch my portions and stick to really light things like grilled chicken, soups, and salads.

We have a super golden investigator named Juan who seriously is the most converted person I have ever taught. The rest of his family was baptized a year ago, but he has been having to wait because of probation. I want nothing more than to see him join his family in baptism and go to the temple someday. He is the rock of his family and the main force that gets his family to church every week. He still has probation for awhile, but based on our prayers and thoughts from Elder Peake, our district leader Elder Gonzalez, and I, we are quite confident that from his upcoming interview with our mission president that he will be approved to go ahead and be baptized. So please keep him in your prayers!

We have been having a lot of Halloween fun the past week. Saturday was our trunk or treat combined with the three units here. It was very well attended and very fun. Elder Peake and I dressed up and enjoyed the food and seeing the kids walk around and get candy. We also had Juan there too with his family, which is so great to see how integrated he is into the branch now.

Last night we went over to a super cool member named Cindy who made a Halloween party/dinner for a bunch of the missionaries. The food was super good and they had made some cool Halloween themed cupcakes with gummy worms and stuff. Elder Stone my MTC companion was there too since he is now my Zone leader. It's been great to catch up on how his mission has been going so far. I'm glad that this Halloween is much better than my last.

Well we are off to a combined Zone Halloween party, but i'll send a few pictures before.

Love y'all and hope you have a great Halloween and week!

Stay classy,

Elder Sheehy

At the Trunk or Treat Our costumes with Cindy;s daughter.

(I had no idea what he was, and he told me it was a character from the video game Assassins Creed ?)

Elder Stone and I rockin' the onesies. I am super glad that he's my zone leader. I haven't really seen him since we were companions in the MTC.

My favorite costume of our missionary Halloween party lol. (Elder Peake as a Pokemon trainer off to the side)

I'm Alive

Hey everyone!

Just wanted to drop a quick note to tell you all that I'm still alive and doing well haha. I know I haven't been able to get out a good mass email in a while, but I have been overcoming a stomach bug that didn't want to go away. Thankfully everything is getting better and I am able to go out and work harder. I can't begin to explain how awful it is to be sick on the mission. It definitely tried my patience because I wanted so badly to go out and help people, but my body was like nope. So thank goodness i'm getting over that.

The weather is starting to change here and getting to a comfortable temperature which is awesome. I'm finally through the nasty heat of the mission. I hope it will be smooth sailing from here, but knowing the mission it will probably have some craziness still. Which makes it exciting.

I'm still enjoying my companion Elder Peake and the awesome people in Weslaco, I would write more and post some pictures, but a members car just broke down and we are going to go help her. Duty calls, so have a great week everyone and hopefully I'll have some pictures to share here next week.

Stay classy,

Elder Sheehy

A ward member posted these pictures the next day thanking the missionaries for coming to the rescue of her friend who ran out of gas. :)

I love how Elder Peake is giving Austin support :)

Austin hasn't written a general email for a few weeks, so I thought I would put some of his responses to my letters lately. He said he has been sick and has also had some difficult and discouraging times lately. He says he can really tell Satan is working extra hard on him at times. I know this is all part of the mission experience, and that it is never totally easy, but it sure is hard on this Mom's heart to hear that he is struggling, so any extra prayers on his behalf would be greatly appreciated.



I did get the primary letters and Grandma Lorraine's gift card. Thanks so much for sending the primary letters. I thought they were super funny. Let Grandma and the ward know how much I appreciate them.

Haha, yeah singing with the choir in Stake conference was definitely not my idea.. but I enjoyed it.

Crazy that people are popping out kids and getting married left and right. It's like I leave the state for a little over a year and a half and this is what happens to the world?! haha just kidding. Good for them.

I look forward to seeing the women's conference talks later this week during my mormon.org study time. I heard great things about the talks. Especially President Uchtdorf's like you mentioned.

That's nuts that let alone there was a tornado in Utah, let alone two! Did they do much damage?

I did get to read a lot of Jesus the Christ while I was sick though, which is SUPER good. I love the spirit you feel when you read that book. I really recommend it if you haven't read it before.

Well I love ya lots and hope you enjoy conference. It's kind of bitter-sweet that it will be my last one as a missionary.




We did get to watch all the conference sessions at the church, but no one had set up the t.v or projector and there weren't any connectors there so on Saturday all we could do was listen to a members phone broadcast it next to the microphone in the chapel (it was the most ghetto thing, haha). So that was pretty tough. I didn't catch a ton of it, so I will basically be re-watching Saturdays during my mormon.org time for the next couple of months. I also really enjoyed Elder Nelson's talk too.

Thanks for sending the pictures of the mission reunion. So many missionaries I know and love there. I miss them a lot and the Maluenda's especially.


I love you a lot, I miss you like crazy

Love,

Elder Sheehy

I didn't choose the Edcouch life. The Edcouch life chose me.

What's up everybody?

I hope everyone had a great labor day. I heard my football team had a good week (How 'bout them Utes?!).

My week was super fun.

We have been having a blast getting to know our members. One of my favorites is an old lady that lives alone in a trailer park that has super bad arthritis and can't go out very far. We call her "Two Canes" because that's what she uses instead of a walker. She is like the hippest grandma I have ever met. She loves to play computer games and her Sega Genesis lol XD. She has also had a very crazy life and lived a year in Tonga just because. It's been a blast to go over twice a week to give her the sacrament and then get her mail. She has some super funny stories that she tells and a terrific testimony.

The highlights of the week were definitely the past two days. Our stake had conference and got a new stake president (A really cool guy that I visited once a week back in Alamo that is a former area seventy) and we had two seventies come down. Elders Joseph W. Sitati originally from Kenya, Africa and Daniel W. Jones from Texas were great and had very spiritual talks. I loved hearing from Elder Sitati especially because of how interactive he was with the stake. During the adult session on Saturday night he asked for five gospel questions that people had been asking. He answered them with great insight and I learned quite a bit about topics I am pretty familiar with previously. So that is always cool.

Something else I did was sing in the choir at the conference. Crazy right? I am working on pushing myself out of my comfort zone. It was pretty cool.

Well I hope everyone has a great week and I look forward to hearing from Y'all!

Con amor,

Elder Sheehy

No worries, he did send me a very sweet Birthday card and note today also! ;) 
I wasn't sure what "Edcouch" was, so I googled it, and it's a town in Texas..I guess one of the areas he is in now.

You need to click on some of these pictures to enlarge them to see the notes on them...

We've been having fun hiding this giant superman action figure around our apartment.

Yeah, the weird things missionaries do to entertain ourselves...

It's crazy how popular this game has gotten.

And people wonder why my Spanish is so bad...LOL: yarda is not a real word in Spanish, it is the Tex-Mex equivalent of yard and sale is English. That is not uncommon to see this butchering of the languages, haha. One of the fun things of the TMM.  

What I feel like at the end of the day

Back in Weslaco!!!

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a great week!

Things are finally starting to cool down here a bit which is super great! It gets way to hot here in the summer.

So the news is that I was transferred back to Weslaco! It's awesome to be able to come back here since there are so many people that I love. I am in the branch side of the city so I get to meet even more people. I still get to see people in the ward too. I got to stop and talk to Sister Jess (the wife of the bishop in the ward) at church again and that was great. I love that family a lot and they showed me a ton of love when I was here. All three of their sons are up in Logan now at Utah State. I will have to talk to them when I get back.

My new companion is Elder Peake. He is a super fun guy from South Carolina. We have actually shared a lot of the same companions in the past like Elder Chacin and Elder Montgomery. So I have heard a lot about him. We are already really good friends.

There isn't a lot to talk about beyond that. We are reopening this area so we are just grinding along looking for people to talk to since we were left with very little information about it. It's good I am at least a little familiar with the people here, so it hasn't been all that bad to get acclimated.

Oh one more thing, Our new address is this, in case you want to send me something :) ;)

1602 S Airport Apt #82
Weslaco, Texas 78596

Have a great week everyone! I love y'all mucho!

Stay Classy,

Elder Sheehy

Last in La Feria

Well everyone transfers came around, and I am headed somewhere else! It's a bittersweet change for sure since I have been with my "greenie" Elder Rosaschi for three transfers now and I have grown a deep love for the members here. But it's just part of it.

Before I get too far thanks so much Grandma Jeri for the card. I always appreciate and love to hear from you.

So this last week was a lot of fun spending time with Elder Madsen our district leader when we could. He is heading home this week so we tried to send his mission out with a bang. He was super fun to have around.

To help celebrate his end of mission we went up to the northernmost town of the area they are covering called Port Mansfield. The water wasn't the prettiest on the ocean, but it was still pretty cool. The highlight for me was the neighborhood deer that are basically like pets and will come up and eat popcorn out of your hand. They had some surprisingly nice bucks that would come right up to you. It was interesting how little the whitetails are down here compared to the ones i'm used to up in Iowa and Missouri. They are cool little guys down here.

Our ward also had a chili cook off that was super good. The funny thing was that Elder Madsen had his dad send him a recipe and the one that he made actually one first prize in the competition! We also had our good friend Zuri who is a recent convert of Madsen's make an amazing completely homemade banana cream pie. She won the dessert portion of it.

Well that's about all I have to say for now. Elder Rosaschi and I didn't end up baptizing together, but there are a handful of people that are super close. I know that if he and his new companion work hard they will have success. Despite all that, I feel that I learned a ton in this area and I made a great life long friend with Elder Rosaschi. I am very excited to see where and who I go with for my new area. It's going to be great!

Stay Classy,

Elder Sheehy

Saving a tortoise on the way to Port Mansfield

Port Mansfield

Windy district picture

Elder Stanley reminiscing about the times he could go into the water 

Port Mansfield deer

And some pictures off of Facebook....