We, in unison, testified boldly of the Lord Jesus Christ 2014 08 11

Aug. 11, 2014

Hi there,

     I won't try to summarize everything I missed, but I would like to bring you all up to speed on what has happened recently.  Elder Kerr and I have been busy spreading the Spirit of the Lord all over Cape Cod.  We were teaching many people and preparing them for baptism while they were here for their short summer stay.  We, in unison, testified boldly of the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel that we might bring them to know of the plan the Father has in store for them.  We saw our small Branch grow in the spirit and we became a crucial part of the workings in the Branch even to the point that they were going to give us callings.  But the Lord had a different plan in mind.

     It started with a call from President Packard (our mission President). He said, "Elders it is time for the dream companionship to come to an end.  Elder Kerr, the Lord has called you to be a Zone Leader in the Boston Massachusetts Mission and Elder Erb, the Lord has called you to be a trainer.  We thank you for the work that you have been doing out there on the Cape."  And so the Elder Kerrb team, as the members of the Brewster Branch called us, was put to an end.  Then there were a lot of goodbyes with all of those that we were teaching. The end of all the goodbyes was our own goodbye where we did what all good companionships should do to bond together - make crêpes.

     Enough about Elder Kerr though, my new companion is a very motivated and hardworking missionary fresh out of Utah.  Hopefully, as time goes on I will have some stories to tell you about him but seeing as we have been together for only a couple of weeks there is not much to talk about yet.  He says that as a new missionary, he has been having a lot of firsts.  I try not to think about the fact that all of his firsts are many of my lasts.  It came to my realization how long I had been out when I watched the Elder that trained me go home.  For now, that is all I've got time to write - until next time.

Elder Erb

"I love the work...."

6/23/2014

Dear Friends and Family,

     So I am finally messaging again after a long absence.  We have been so busy lately we haven't had time to even take our full 'P' day.  Although we have not been able to teach B---- very much, we have been able to teach our mini-motorcycle friend and he has made a lot of progress.  He is already telling us how he wants his friend to come down and baptize him when he is ready.  Despite the moves of several of our members out of the branch, our small Branch's chapel is starting to fill up not only with nonmembers but also members that have not been seen for a while.

     In the last three weeks we have been able to be a helping hand of the Lord in bringing back many members into the fold.  I would like to talk about a couple of them.  One is a member that has moved recently from another ward nearby in Rhode Island.  He called us out of nowhere one day and asked us to come over and give him a blessing of healing.  

    Upon arriving the man was so filled with the Spirit that he began telling us how much he has missed the feeling of the Spirit in his life and that he knew he had to come back to church starting the coming Sunday.  He then told us that he needed a blessing so that he could live long enough to be able to make it to the Temple in Boston and re-commit to the covenants he made in the Temple.  

    During our time there, he explained to us that he has never seen the Boston Temple and that he has been away from the church for over 20 years.  Since this initial visit, he has come to church every week, faithfully, with a bright hope and beaming testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel.  In addition, he has been sharing his testimony with all those that he comes in contact with and those that live near him and has invited many people to come with him to church.

     Now if this is not a lesson that it is never too late for anyone I don't know what is.  But, in case you are not convinced yet, there is another person I want to tell you about.  This person, like the last, is also a member that has not been to church for a long time.  

    He may not have lived the most Christian life before he was a member, as a member of the biker gang 'The Hell's Angles', but when he found the church and the effect the Spirit had on the missionaries that taught him, he said to himself "There is something here."  

    Well, he joined the church but then got addicted to smoking again and felt that he did not want to be a hypocrite and not do that which he believed.  So, like so many others, he decided that he would stop coming.  Then, much later, we find him and he tells us about himself and his situation.  Basically to the point of saying that he knows it’s true but that he needs to stop smoking.  We talked about it and he came to the conclusion that now is the time for him to stop, go back to church, and get a calling again in the Branch.  

    We had the opportunity to give him a blessing as well to help him take strength from the Lord in his righteous desires.  Now he too has been coming to church faithfully and even sharing that which he knows to the point where he cannot be silenced in his sharing of the gospel with his friends and neighbors and even those that we bring to church such as our mini-motorcycle friend.

     I am running out of time and this message is already pretty long so I will have to hold off on the other recent opportunities we have been able to have.  I love the work though.  And I know that Christ lives.  And with this knowledge it compels me, my companion, and also those I have talked about and many others to share His gospel with the world.

Elder Erb

2014 06 10 keeping on keeping on

We wanted to let you know Elder Erb is ok.  His emails are typically now brief to his mother just to let us know he's doing ok.  Thank you for your interest.

2014 04 14 -- 31 hours of service--and no ticks!

4/14/2014

Hello everyone,

     Wow how time flies when you are having fun.  I am not even sure if it has been 7 days since the last email.  The weather over here in our little vacation spot was great this last week.  It was sunny every day which was great because we did lots of service and the weather made it easy for us.  

    We recently had training from one of our leaders on how doing service is very important for finding people to teach.  We just laughed at it.  The reason being, that this last week we did a total of 31 hours of service.  To explain how we pulled that off, I have to explain that another set of Elders joined us this week because the Sister Missionaries needed to borrow their car to go to a meeting. 

    So we decided that we should just double up our area for a week until the other Elder's got their car back.  With all this service in this nice weather we are now ready for the summer time with our well- developed tans.  Only one out of the four of us got sun burned after the multiple service projects - the longest lasting 12 hours.  

    More miraculous than the fact we didn't get fried is the fact that none of us got ticks after all the time we spent raking leaves, cutting branches, and landscaping out in the woods this week.

    Unfortunately all the lessons we had this week cancelled on us so I don't have much more to talk about.  Hopefully next week I will be able to talk about our new investigators after we meet with them on Tuesday.  

    Thank you everyone that remembered my Birthday and I also send my Birthday wishes to all my family members that have had their Birthdays this week and in the week to come.

Elder Erb

2014 04 07 Back to Massachussetts

April 7, 2014

Hello,

     I finally managed to find some time to write.  The work was starting to pick up in Ashford and we were finally able to fill our schedules with appointments instead of tracting.  The entire ward was also beginning to turn their minds to missionary work and what more they could be doing in preparation for the visit from our mission president on the 30th of March.  And then I got transferred on the 26th....

     I guess I get to say that I left Ashford in a good condition.  I am now back in Massachusetts but I guess that our Mission President likes me near the border of the states because he put me about as far south in Massachusetts as possible.  So far so that you can hardly say that we are still connected to Massachusetts.  My new area is the cape of Massachusetts. 

     For those that don't know what the cape looks like it looks like an arm that is flexing out in the ocean.  We cover everything from the bicep to the fist of that arm.  Out of the 3 other sets of missionaries that are in the nearby area, or district, two of those sets are on the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.  I'm starting to get that beach feel again out here seeing the ocean all the time.

     So a lot has happened in the two weeks of me being here.  As the temperature is starting to get warmer again everyone is starting to migrate to their summer homes here, which means we have got a lot of work to do.  My new companion's name is Elder Kerr.  People say that our Mission President has a sense of humor for putting us two together with our names so similar.  It’s always entertaining to have people call us the wrong name.  We both get along really well together.  Some of the things that we have done together so far are make crêpes for companionship inventory, make a giant bed that takes up our entire room to sleep on, and make a dry erase desk.  We have begun to say that we have so much unity that everyone wants to be in our area, since we have had three exchanges with other missionaries since being here.  It’s either that or the fact that we are serving in a widely known tourist attraction.

     Our main goal right now is to increase the amount of active members in the area.  The reason for this is because we have about 46 members that attend services on Sundays in our little branch.  And 6 of them are out on Nantucket.  So we have been going around and meeting all the members that don't come regularly.  We have had a lot of success and have begun to teach quite a few people this way. 

     As we were doing this we were called by our district leader asking if we could help with a crazy task.  He explained that a member's horse had died that morning and that they needed help burying it.  And so we spent the next 4 hours digging a horse sized hole, pushing a 1,000 lb. horse into a hole, and then burying it.  We were pretty sore after that night.

     I am short on time so I have to go but until next week.

Elder Erb

2014 04 06 stick to your task till it sticks to you

2014 04 01, Tues  Elder Erb continues w/the work of the Lord. Since his 2/24 email this is his most recent.  Note that he's been transferred.  He's moved from Connecticut back to MA.  If you get a chance, please send him a note.  His birthday is this coming Saturday.

 

I don't have a lot of time today to email, a lot of stuff has happened that I will explain in the email next week.  Till then I just wanted to let you know that I got transferred and my address has changed.  It is now 355A Main St. Dennis Port, MA 02639.
Love,

Elder Erb

 

2014 03 25, Tues
2014 03 18, Tues
2014 03 11, Tues
2014 03 03, Tues 

I have begun to see missionary work in an entirely new light, 2/24/2014

Feb. 24, 2014

Hello again,

    It has been crazy the last couple of weeks.  We have been hit with snow storm after snow storm.  But finally we are out and about again.  Over the last month or so a lot has changed and happened.  I talked a little about J_____ our promising friend last time I emailed.  He was our friend who we explained we had the perfect lesson with.  We eventually asked him to be baptized on Easter Sunday and he accepted.  That was about three weeks ago, since then he has decided that he does not want anything to do with the church and that everything we believe in is false. 

    I do not bring this up to discourage anyone, but rather to prove a point.  It is a principle that I feel has been stressed greatly in recent by all of the General Authorities.  It is that Satan does not rest.  The only way to combat this influence from him is by our efforts in service to the Lord. 

    I strongly feel that there has been so much of a push towards missionary work, not only for the missionaries, but for the members, because we need the blessings that come from it to fight against the influence of the adversary.  In the last month we have seen many miracles and been led by the hand of the Lord.  But also in this time we have seen people fall away that I never would have thought would have.

     I would give the same advice to prevent against this as we gave to our friend Brother H_____ the other day.  If you want to find truth you have to go to the source of all truth to find it.  Brother H_____ is one of our investigators that I may have talked about in the past.  But that was a long time ago, so I will tell you about him again. 

    He is the husband of a member that has met with the missionaries for a long time.  When we started meeting with Brother Hunt he did not know if there was a God.  He said that there could be a God, but he just didn't know.  He now knows that he has seen influence of a divine being in his life, and because of this he knows there is a God.  The things that led him to this conclusion are things that will lead everyone to the same conclusion.  Prayer, scripture study, and church attendance although it seems so simple, it is the hardest thing in the world to get someone to do.  But that is what is required for a person to build a testimony.

     I have begun to see missionary work in an entirely new light because of recent events.  Before I used to see it as something that has brought me happiness and I wanted to share with the others to bring them happiness.  Although this is still true, I now realize it is more than that. 

    These people that don't have the Gospel are vulnerable to Satan's influence.  They need the promises and blessing that the Gospel has to offer if they are to have a chance to resist the evil influences of the modern day world.  These people need divine help if they plan to remain pure and clean.

Elder Erb