Uneventful Week...

Hey Mom, 

I just sent Matt a short email on my thoughts about the temple, and I will be better at sending pictures, there may be some you can steal from the NCRM facebook page.  With Matt Wilcox coming home that leaves only me who is still out in the mission feild...Crazy how are Spencer and Amy doing? He popping the question soon? This week was pretty uneventful unfortunately weren't able to find any real solid people, and due to a miscommunication Darrel and Derek weren't able to come to church this week.  We will recover and have a great week this week. 

Love ya!

Elder Shields

Elders Shields and Qaio

Matt's Call...

Hey Mom,

Things have been going well!  So excited to hear about Matt's call, so exciting!  I'm so happy for him!  We had a great week this week, our investigators Derek and Darrel came to church, they have a baptismal date for May 13th.  Cameron is the name of the kid in Pembroke.  Speaking of Pembroke, Momma Ang says hey.  haha and with Scott, barfing stories should be expected.  Yes I got the package, by the way, thanks for that, I always love the stroopwaffles.

Love ya and hope things are going well back home!

Elder Shields

Last Sunday in Pembroke...

Hello Sister Shields.  This is a picture I took with Elder Shields the Sunday before he was transferred from Pembroke.  Sure hated to see him leave.  But I know they are to go and share the gospel with others that are seeking a change in their lives.  Your son is a wonderful young man.  I truly miss him. He told me that a good friend of his served here also, Kenyon James, and they were on the wrestling team together.  It was awesome to know that Heavenly Father sent me two amazing young men.  By the way my name is Angila, also known as Mama Ang.  Elder Shields asked me to send this picture to you.  Have an amazing Easter Sunday and weekend.  The Atonement is so amazing, we get to live with our Heavenly Father once again.
-Mama Ang

Elder Jake and Mama Ang

You know how moms are...

That's weird to think Spencer and Amy, you will have to send me his email so I can give him a hard time about it.  And the date got moved back to the 29th, it will still be happening but his mother thought the 8th was too soon, you know how moms are.  It was funny because the conversation we had with our investigator was as follows.  He was nervous about baptism because he didn't fully understand why baptism was necessary and what it meant.  We explained it.  I asked if that all made sense and if he had any questions, and he said, "Yea, when can I get baptized?"  I said, "That is an excellent question, when do you want to get baptized?"  He said, "Hmmm, like two or three weeks."  I said, "We can make that happen."  But then mom.  That's fine, all is well in zion, but I'm excited to hear where Matt gets called.  I will get the outline sent!

Love y'all!

Elder Shields

Elder Shields and Elder Qiao

Sanford and Qiao

Hey Mom,

So Sanford is a wonderful area, haha, nobody else thinks so, but after Pembroke, everywhere is great!  Pembroke is probably the most depressing place I've ever been and I learned to find joy there and appreciate the good things, but there's a lot more good in Sanford.  Elder Qiao is awesome, he is a great missionary, and his English is pretty good.  He has no trouble teaching and getting his point across, the only thing he really struggles with is a limited vocabulary.

That's great to hear that UNC is in the finals, I hope they can pull it off.

There is actually a deaf family that we are teaching, so let Sam hear that, it definitely makes me wish I had stuck with ASL more than I did but we had some good interpreters.  They will get baptized eventually, they just want to know more.  There are a lot of good people we are teaching now, I'm still trying to get to know them better, but the previous Elders did a great work, I'm glad I don't have to clean up another area.

Also, something cool with General Conference; I have to give instruction for a zone meeting, and the subject I was wanting to address people on is receiving power through the grace of Christ, and through living our covenants and especially living the law of consecration, there were so many powerful talks about that subject, receiving power and giving our all.  Overcoming the world.  I will have to send my outline home, it was pretty amazing to see how many things that were included in my outline that were addressed in conference.  Anyways, I love y'all!

Hope everyone is doing well!