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

Semana 9!?... I think, haha (I am losing track of time)‏

Sup everybody!

Well I can't believe that another month has passed on the mission. How is everyone doing?

So, unfortunately I forgot to bring my journal with me today, so I am probably forgetting a bunch of things that happened this week. It is a weird anomaly here, but if I don't write it down or it was a super crazy experience, or something really funny, I will forget it almost immediately the next day. So I have been trying my best to record things in my journal so I can remember them after the Mish. If I forgot anything of note I will include it in the next letter.

Well first off, the baptism of Tim and Javier fell through, but it is for the best. The situation is that we are serving in an all Spanish ward and they speak and understand very little Spanish. So the bishop here wants them to go to an English ward outside of our area (which I agree will be the best thing for them so they can understand and build their testimony after baptism). So they will be baptized in a couple of weeks hopefully, but I am hoping and praying that the extra time Satan has to stop them from being baptized they will be able to overcome. They have grown and progressed so much since we first started visiting them that I am confident that they will be able to overcome the trials if they are clinging to the faith that they have in God and Jesus Christ. Hopefully we will be able to attend the baptism over at the new ward. So it will be all good.

Let's see... 

We got a new investigator named Juan that is the most prepared guy I have met here yet. We met him just mowing his lawn in his yard and invited us in to talk to him for a minute (another English speaker, no idea why we always teach them, when it is like 90% Spanish speakers around here, but I think he can speak Spanish as well). Well we taught him the restoration and the whole time the spirit was just so strong and he completely agreed with everything we taught him and his responses to the questions we asked showed just how much incredible faith he has in Christ and Heavenly father. He just doesn't have the whole truth yet, and that is what we are here for :) haha. But it was almost like teaching a member his knowledge was so good already. We found out that he has been having difficulty with his wife getting pregnant, and has been for a very long time, and so badly wants a family. Elder Berger was impressed to tell him that if he is baptized that God will give him that opportunity to be a father, and I absolutely believe it with my whole heart that God will provide this miracle if he does his part as the spirit testified to all of us. He committed to baptism whole heartedly before Elder Berger said this to him. His faith is so strong. After the lesson he gave one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard in my life. I was literally tearing up from the love I could feel that he has for the Savior and our Father in Heaven. He was bearing his whole soul and I really wish that I can learn to pray like that. It was like a spiritual overload up in there haha. So I am praying hard that he keeps this faith and determination and that Satan doesn't throw him off this path to eternal happiness. He has so much incredible potential.

Well I can't thing of anything major besides that other than I got to feed some members goats some bananas, and I saw my first roadkill armadillo, and a sister missionary in our district caught a wild cottontail rabbit with her bare hands that got trapped in a members greenhouse (unfortunately didn't have my camera on me in this instance :(  haha. 

It was kind of an off week to be honest with all the stress we were having trying to figure out the situation with Tim and Javier. But I am quite content now and know that they are now on the path God has for them. 

Love y'all and really appreciate all that you have done and continue to do for me! It's so great to have such a wonderful support system for me back at home. Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Sheehy

Y'all stay classy



And here is a letter he wrote to me separately, talking about how bad he feels about not having time to write to each of us individually, I told him not to stress about it, he has much more important things to focus on. :) 

Hey Mom,
Sorry I don't have a lot of time to respond to stuff and that I missed replying to you last week. When I get to the library here to write, I get so stressed out trying to get to everything because I really do want to reply to everyone, but they time doesn't always allow.
I am doing well, just would kill for an hour more every day where I could settle and write in my journal more and write some hand written letters to those who have written (wrote a letter to Brooklyn, and am currently working on sending one to the Grandmas since I got some from them as well).
I'm glad Emilee's ankle is doing well. I was praying for her and have seen the power of prayer already here in the mission.
I'm glad your talk went well in Sacrament meeting, I'm sure you did a great job!
It's super cool to hear about all these kids from our ward going on missions (I guess they are adults now, but they still seem like kids to me) I can remember them all just being little when they first moved into the neighborhood.
You will have a great time at Women's conference and will learn some great things. Be sure to go with a question in your mind that you want answered, and I promise you will receive an answer.
Say "Hola" to Boo and Molly for me as well!

Love ya Madre, have a great week!





 

Semana 8! Of Ice Cream Trucks and Lightning Bolts

What is up y'all?!

This has been a great week!

First off I want to thank Brooklyn and Grandma Jeri for sending those letters! I really appreciate it. I will do my best to write back with time permitting. Unfortunately there isn't much time around here, but I will see what I can do.

So last Monday we got to play some soccer with the district. Well it was fun, but with it being like ninety eight degrees with extremely high humidity from the previous monsoon rain evaporation, we absolutely melted. It seriously looked like I had jumped in a pool. It was super gross, haha. Well at the end I said "Oh my goodness Texas why do you have to be so hot?!!" and Sister Thompson who we did not expect at all responds "How many times do I have to tell you, my name is not Texas!" It was super funny we were all laughing really hard. It caught me so off guard. That night there was some amazing lightning storms. Like seriously the biggest bolts I have ever seen! I wish I could have gotten some video or pictures of those things.

So something really exciting that has been going on is that Elder Berger and I have been teaching two brothers a little younger than us named Tim and Javier. They speak English and don't speak Spanish really well so that has been a relief that I have been able to teach in English. Anyways, they have been progressing really well and we have had some amazing lessons with them. They are set to be baptized this Saturday!! So we are praying super hard right now and will be visiting them everyday this week so nothing bad happens since Satan will be working hard on them not to be. They are great guys though and I am so excited to see them make this next step and the happiness that it will bring them. It's amazing the love you feel that God has for all his children when you are a missionary. Like I love these people down here so much and want to help them any way that I can. I have seen miracles with these guys and I know how badly our father in heaven wants them to return to his presence. Last night since Javier is under the age of 18 has to get a signature from a parent to be baptized. So we talked with his mom for a long time trying to dissuade any doubts or issues she had with it. It was a spiritual battle and at first you could tell the adversary was working really hard on her. As she felt the spirit though she eventually softened and agreed with it! I absolutely know without the Holy Ghost present that absolutely wouldn't have happened. It was super funny too as at first she was shutting down what we had to say but at the end Javier had some doubts come up as Satan was totally working on them like "Would it be bad if I went to another church? Like my moms?" and we were about to answer and his mom cut in "Oh you wouldn't want to go anyways, it's all in Spanish." and he was like ""Oh yeah I guess you are right, never mind" haha so she totally became our ally. That is the power of the Holy Ghost right there for sure. So hopefully I will have some good news next week!

Another crazy cool experience that happened this week is we were out contacting and absolutely no one wanted to hear what we had to say and just a ton of people weren't home or not answering their doors and we were badly in need of a new investigator. So we stopped and said a prayer that we would be led to someone that was prepared to receive the gospel. After that we felt like we should go down a street that the other Elders had contacted on and we weren't planning on going to that night. We stopped at the first house and Elder Berger says "how do you feel about that one?' and I responded "pretty good". So we try that house and meanwhile I hear someone talking from a yard across the street and it kind of catches my attention. A lady answers that door and doesn't want to hear our message. So we cross the street and try the house next to the one I heard the person talking from. As we are sitting on the doorstep I look over at the house where the noise was coming from and the spirit just hits me "that's totally the one" So the house we are at doesn't answer, but we go over to the house that I was feeling prompted about. As we are sitting on the doorstep no one is answering there. So I was thinking "that's strange, I totally thought it was this house." Then we hear from behind us "Can I help you?" It's the guy who lives there who was just out back. So that just goes to show you that God will try our faith sometimes before he gives us miracles. So we found out that his name is Miguel and he is super prepared. It tells us that he wants to be closer to God and make some changes in his life so he can be more clean. He has an amazing testimony already of God and Jesus Christ, we just need to help him get over some word of wisdom issues. So we sat there in his front yard in the dark and had a very spiritual lesson with him. I feel like he has some amazing potential and that he is absolutely ready to accept the gospel according to his agency. Funny story during that though. So Elder Berger had told me about the infamous icecream/Elotes trucks (de Satanas haha) that are everywhere in South Texas and how without fail they will drive by with their loud music and megaphones during really spiritual lessons and I have seen it three times now. So here comes one by while we are testifying about Christ and baptism and Elder Berger just gives me this look like "of course..." haha well we got the last laugh because as it was in front of us driving by we heard a pop and a hiss as he got a hole in his tire haha, Take that Satan! Honestly though i'm sure those people mean well and I feel bad he got a flat, but the work will not be frustrated bro, so take your truck elsewhere.

Well hope everyone has a wonderful week! I love it so much down here. I will be super sad when I eventually get transferred because the members and people here in general are so great! It's totally like little Mexico down here and sometimes I forget I am in the U.S. Greatest mission location ever if you got called to the states, but want a foreign experience. Oh man I still can't get over how amazing the food is here. I wish I could let you all taste just how amazing it is. I am going to keep going hard on my bike or i'm afraid I will be coming back forty pounds heavier! It's delicious but boy do they pack the food here with lard, haha.

Love you all!
-Elder Sheehy

( Oh p.s Elder Berger and I saw a cat on a roof just chilling there sitting like a person and it totally looked like some kind of monkey. We were like "What in the world?" haha the animals are nuts down here)

My trainer (mission dad) in front of our apartment

Bored in the car with Elder Olsen

My really cool scripture cases I got in Mexico

I forgot to put these pictures on from Austin's first day in the McAllen Mission home with President and Sister Maluenda, and the other new missionaries.

The Maluenda's are originally from Chile, but have most recently lived in Sandy, UT.  I have heard wonderful things about them.  I actually sat by a lady on an airplane recently who had met Pres. Maluenda right before he was assigned to McAllen, and she said he was an amazing man.