Elder Rhett Aaron Shaw

Happy New Year!!! 

Hope everyone had a wonderful week and are looking forward to an 

incredible year! 

Our New Years Eve and Day were chill. We tried to keep busy by
teaching and finding some new people to teach. We were also able to go
over to the Reed's after dinner and play apples to apples. It was a
nice day...nothing too crazy. Same old, same old...just another day as
a missionary! :)

This past week has been crazy! I have loved it so much. It flew by so
fast...I can't believe that another week has come and gone. :/


I love being companions with Elder Katieli again! He is such a hard
worker and shows and gives service to everyone. He is here to
serve...I love it and love him. I haven't laughed this much in a week
in a while. We already have so many inside jokes and it has only been
a week! I am sure that there will be more to come! So grateful for the
opportunity to work with him in the Canby 1st area.

Had a great week this past week! We were able to teach Casey at the
Poe's. She agreed to come to church again this past Sunday! She is
progressing little by little. We then were able to have lessons with
Fabian, Lucy, and Steven (Fabian's nephew) on Tues and Weds! They were
so good! We taught about the plan of salvation and committed them to
go with us to the temple for a tour of the grounds and the visitors
center. They are coming along...hopefully we can set 3 more dates
soon...Fabian is so close and Lucy is following behind with Steven. I
love them so much! We will be teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ with
them this Weds and going to the temple with them on Sat. I hope and
pray that the spirit will prick their hearts so that they will have a
desire to be baptized. They also agreed to come to church this Sunday.
We are working hard with Lucy to get her comfortable with going to
church since she was raised Catholic and she feels like if she goes to
our church that she would be dis-honoring her family. She is getting
close. We will be going on a church tour soon! :) We were then also
able to teach Darrell this past week. We had in our plans to teach him
the word of wisdom which we were a bit nervous about since he drinks a
lot of coffee. It was so cool. We talked about what we should and
shouldn't do and how our bodies are temples that house our spirits and
when we came up to not drinking coffee and tea he said, "oh no! I need
to stop doing that so I can be ready to be baptized!" We were all
amazed! Then, he being a 74 year old man, grabbed his coffee and
poured it down the sink!!! Right in front of us!!! Talk about being
prepared by the Lord! What an example of faith that he showed! It was
so neat and so cool! He promised us that he would no longer drink
coffee. We are so proud of him!! He is doing incredible! Here we come
Feb 6th!! :)

Now...an update with Drew Talley. We had a couple of lessons with him
this past week and he brought up to us that he would like to get
baptized on Feb 27th!!! YAY!!! We are super excited and proud of him!
We are now making sure that he is getting taught all the lessons so he
can be ready for that date! The ward, his family, and of course us,
are super excited and pumped!!! :)

So the weather here in Canby and in the Portland area has been
cold...IT SNOWED ON SUNDAY!!! I was shocked!!! After studies I looked
out the window and screamed!! I couldn't believe my eyes..was I
actually seeing snow??? Canby was shut down! Since Portland doesn't
have the tools or the capabilities to plow the roads the entire City,
and nearby cities, were closed...(no Oregonians know how to drive in
the snow:) The snow on the roads mixed with the cold and rain caused
the roads to be very slippery and icy. All of the mission cars in the
entire mission was to be "grounded" until further notice. We then
called the Stake President on Sunday to let him know and he told us
that Church has been cancelled...NOOOOOOOOOO! We were so bummed. We
had all of our investigators coming: Casey, Paul, Drew, Darrell,
Fabian and possibly Steven....we then had to call them all and tell
them that because of the snow and the danger of the roads that we had
to cancel church for this week. :( We then took the time (since we had
to stay in our apartments) to set up appointments, clean, organize,
and get things in working condition. It was great to get some extra
things done and to have some extra time for studies and
games=>monopoly deal for days! We then were able to walk over to our
dinner appointment around 5:30. While heading for dinner we ran into
this woman named Rose. She was super nice, but was trying to bible
bash us as nicely as she could...she was crazy. At first I was totally
oblivious to her attacks until my companion told me that she was try
to bash us. We didn't fight with her, but left her with our number and
bore testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and then
helped her empty things from her car. It was a good experience for me
because although she wasn't interested we were able to still be
friends and to to express our love for her.

So a funny for this week...after weekly planning we received a food
drop and with it was a Christmas cake. Elder Katieli and I have been
sugared out so what did we do with a perfectly good cake??? CAKE
WARS!! HAHA! Elder Katieli wanted me to smash it in his face! I did
and of course he got me back! It was so funny!!! I will see if I can
send the video home! It has been an awesome week!

Today our cars are still grounded until further notice so for P-day we
will be taking it easy. Hopefully get a nap in! ;)

I love you all and hope that you have an amazing week! Hopefully you
all were able to make and write down some personal new year
resolutions.

I was reading a talk titled, "Of Regrets and Resolutions," by
President Uchtdorf. I loved what he said:

"It is my testimony that many of the deepest regrets of tomorrow can
be prevented by following the Savior today. If we have sinned or made
mistakes--if we have made choices that we now regret--there is the
precious gift of Christ’s Atonement, through which we can be forgiven.
We cannot go back in time and change the past, but we can repent. The
Savior can wipe away our tears of regret and remove the burden of our
sins. His Atonement allows us to leave the past behind and move
forward with clean hands, a pure heart, and a determination to do
better and especially to become better."

May we set goals and work hard on achieving them. May we move forward
with a steadfastness in Christ!! I know that if there is a will that
there is always a way. Our Heavenly Father wants us to succeed and
gave us his son Jesus Christ so we will succeed. Please take the time
to write down some meaningful goals for 2016 and work hard to achieve
them! I know that we can do all things through Christ for he truly
strengthens us!

Have a wonderful week! Know that you are loved, cared, and appreciated!

Love you!
Elder Shaw