Oh my goodness! I LOVE CHRISTMAS!! Not just because i got to talk with my family, but because it is THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR...especially to be a missionary!
This week we picked up SEVEN new investigators, that is a lot for us! We picked up the family that i talked to you about last week. We are teaching them and they are loving the Gospel. It is a couple and their (soon to be adopted) granddaughter! The woman, Misty, was SOOOOO excited to receive a Book of Mormon. I pulled it out of my bag and before I could really say anything she said "I need to read that book!" HAHA! It was wonderful! We love them so much!
We learned this week about the power of obedience, even in the small things. We are always constantly striving to be obedient to the rules of the mission and to the commandments of God, but this week we decided we needed to fine tune some things. One of those things was our music. We have been asked by President Craig to only listen to music that would be appropriate to listen to in Sacrament meeting. We realized this past week that we hadn't even made any changes to our music since he asked that of us and although we were listening to very uplifting and great music, a lot of it was more appropriate for firesides and EFY then to be listened to in Sacrament. We made it our goal this week to be obedient to this rule and started sifting through our music. As we did so, you would not believe the difference in our companionship, apartment, and in our teaching. The Spirit of the Lord is so strong....even stronger than before. We are finding that this little, quite simple, act of obedience has brought about wonderful blessings...including SEVEN new investigators! As we are going about doing good and striving to talk with everyone and being as obedient as we possibly can, the Lord can trust us with his children and he does! He has placed seven of his precious spirits into our path this week to teach and a few others that we are going to go back and teach and will hopefully start on their journey towards baptism this week!
I love it!
Christmas was fantastic! We were SOOOO busy all day on Christmas! We ate breakfast at our Relief Society President house, she does this buffet style breakfast for her whole family every year and invited us over....it was a lot of fun! We then had to finish up some studies and then had a little bit of time before lunch to open presents! My family did this really fun 12 days of Christmas thing. We would read a scripture and then open this gift that was connected to the scripture! Super cute! I loved it!
We had lunch with the Cambodian family that we ate with at Thanksgiving....soooo nummy...I never want to eat american food again! We had homemade Pho and Egg Roles....I will never eat another egg role cause I will always be thinking about the ones I had this Christmas! I will probably fly out to Florida just to get Sister Son's egg roles!!! Yum! HAHA!
After Lunch we talked with our families which was WONDERFUL! I love my family so much...they make me laugh! It was crazy trying to get everyone connected, but it was good to see their faces and to see my wonderful Sister, Hermana Heckel, out in Texas...she was just full of tears, but i love her! She is my best friend and I am so happy that i get to serve at the same time as she is. I know that we are both learning and growing so much. Can't wait to be reunited and share all of our wonderful, hard, and crazy experiences from our missions, face to face!
Then we had a wonderful traditional Christmas dinner with this wonderful less active couple. Afterwards we went Caroling and met this wonderful lady named Tresonda who opened the door and started singing with us! She asked us to "put some soul into it" after we were done and started us singing all over again! HAHA! It was fantastic! She is going to be taught by the other Normandy Sisters! :-)
I love this work, have I mentioned that before?? HAHA! Of course i have....cause i do. Sometimes life gets extremely hard out here, but it is so incredibly worth every minute of hardship and trial. Its changing lives, including my own. I am growing in ways that I didn't even know you could grow in! I am coming closer to my Savior everyday as I truly have to rely on him for my strength and my ability to do what i do out here!!! No-one EVER said that it would be easy, but they said it would be worth it! :-) And oh yes it is!!
Oh...I wanted to mention a blog that i am a part of. Its called whenyoubelieveingod.blogspot.
Thank you so much for all your prayers! I have really felt them!
Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Hello to 2014 and all the possibilities!! :-)
Love
Sister Heckel
P.S If you haven't purchased and read The Power of Everyday Missionaries yet...you should!!! Its a MUST READ!!! You can also check out everydaymissionaries.org :-) Its a wonderful resource, along with the book itself! :-)
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