Hello Everybody-
The weeks are flying by way too fast! MAKE IT
STOP! I just hit my 11 month mark. What? So crazy! Is that even possible!
Apparently it is! :( I don't ever want
to go home, the thought of it (even though I love you so much family) makes me
sick. I just want to be a missionary
forever!
First, just so you know...our area is
incredible. We found 2 new investigators, Sam (a Baptist preacher for 39 years)
and Tiffany (a girl we thought was a less active that turned into an
investigator and a bap date). Their stories are incredible. I already love them
so much
and can't wait to teach them more. Alice and
Victoria (current investigators) are progressing, they came to our relief
society activity and I think they liked it, had a very powerful lesson this
week, specifically with Alice, about the
importance of the Book of Mormon and she committed to praying to know if it's
true. She is just worried about Change. She feels bad, that she has brought all
her children up catholic and then would go off and change religions and leave
them in the dust. We were able to resolve that concern for the most part,
helping her to understand that if it is true, it would be what The Lord would
wanted her to do and that her children would be
blessed because of her example. We will see how
this upcoming week goes with teaching them. Alice truly is amazing; she is
already doing missionary work and has introduced us to her neighbors who live
just above her. We are having an "FHE" in Alice's home next Monday
and she is having her neighbor Rosa and others all come over and we are going
to teach the lesson. It's going to be great! God truly does prepare people! We
were also able to teach Rod, he is so elect. He is very much into the bible. If
its in there he will believe it. We opened his eyes to the fact that the
"dark ages" or the apostasy was foretold, as we opened up to Amos 8
:) I love the bible! Working with Rod has truly built my testimony in the
Bible. I have always had a fairly solid
testimony of the Book of Mormon, but never have
I had quite the same conviction for the bible, now I have learned so much that
I just want to share the restoration using the bible :) that is exactly what we
did with Rod. We navigated through every aspect of the restoration, using the
bible. It was beautiful and so inspired. The Holy Ghost was definitely guiding
that lesson, because I don't know about my companion, but I definitely couldn't
have pulled all those scriptures out or done that on my own! It was phenomenal!
Can't wait to teach him more this upcoming week. He brings the spirit into the
lesson from the very beginning, it's beautiful. We invited him to baptism and
he said yes, but did not set a date just yet. We are also teaching Jonathan, he
is a big burly navy man with a heart of gold. He's like a big teddy bear and
just as chill and laid back like a teddy bear might be ha-ha! He is actually
retired from the navy and on disability because he has really bad narcolepsy
and ends up sleeping a lot! We laughed so hard as he told us stories about it,
especially springs that happened to him when it all first started happened ping
when he was stationed in Japan. LOL:) He is progressing along, just at a slower
pace. He has already been committed to baptism on April 20th and he is praying for that date. Well, now he is, before he was just praying
to know if this was true, he didn't see the significance of having the date out
there when he didn't know that it was true yet. After we read from Enos and
talked about prayer and the importance of setting a goal and taking that step
if faith in a direction, it is then that The Lord can truly lead us. We are excited for him to receive his answer
and will find out about
it on Thursday. :) These people are absolutely
amazing and I just love talking with all the wonderful people we talk with
everyday whether they accept the gospel or not.
We have been asked by our bishop to focus on
less active and part member families and that's what we have been trying to so
this past week and have been struggling with finding people home, but we are
just going to be diligent and seek them out at another time. We have
been working with members a bit this week, to
really build our relationship with the ward, and we know we could be doing even
better, so that is one of our goals with this upcoming week is to focus a major
part of our efforts this week on our members and help them to feel the spirit
of missionary work! I want all of them to feel the amazing joy that comes as
they participate in a Gods great work of salvation!
We actually went out with a member yesterday to
help her with her visiting teaching and came to this one less active members
home and she is raising a litter of puppies that she wasn't expecting to, but
is loving them. They aren't quite old enough to sell yet, but she will when they are. They are a mixture of a long haired Chihuahua
and a toy poodle. :-) Oh my goodness they are sooooo cute. I have some pictures
attached, she brought a few of them out to say Hi to us! It was so cute! The
Less active member was really nice too and we are hoping to
be able to go back over and teach her later, she
seemed to open up to us. :-) I love my mission!
You should get up and do a few jumping jacks,
wake ya back up for the (next part :)
We went on 3 trade off's this week again. Love
Tradeoff's lol :-) I feel like i never get to see my companion. HAHA! i love
her so much and I am so grateful that I get to be serving with such an
incredible missionary! On our tradeoff's i got to know Sister Kastellar,
Sister Jeromcheck, and Sister Chappel a bit more. They are all incredible
missionaries! I loved it. We also did like a 3 hour trade off with a set of
Sisters who are really struggling with their companionship,
among other things. We didn't know why they had
asked to have an emergency trade off, but it ended up being soooo good for them
(and taught me a lot). First of all, Sister McCleary and I were definitely
inspired by the spirit, because we both discussed with them some of the same
exact things (even though we were separate) and we were on the same page and
didn't even know it! Amazing! Love the Holy Ghost!
We had a wonderful discussion on how to get
along with someone who is so different than you and trying to understand one
another. One of the Sisters just really needs a friend and the other struggles
with a lot and is just trying to figure out how to be a friend in general
(that's
the best way I could sum it up). I Sister that
came with me talked about how she beats herself up because she feels like
everything about the area and the relationship with her companion and
everything is her fault (goodness....sisters are way way way too hard on
themselves).....I shared with her something that i wish I could share with all
the sister (really with everyone) that an institute teacher once shared. [he
was talking about the atonement of Jesus Christ and
how Every time you beat yourself up, tell
yourself your stupid or feel like you have to 'punish yourself' for a wrong
doing.....you are basically telling the Savior that His suffering wasn't good
enough for you!]..... Whoa! Super powerful! I never want to do anything that
would tell my Savior that what he did for me was "not good enough." Anyways....We
also talked about being selfless and serving one another. I shared with this
sweet Sister some of my experiences with Sister Orton that transformed our
relationship into the amazing relationship that it is today, and our
relationship was a lot like their relationship is right now. Haha!! Its amazing
how The Lord
prepares you, through your experiences to know
how to succor others. It makes me think
about how he had to go through all that he did so that he might know how to
help us. What a very powerful lesson for me to have experienced that in little
part. We also talked about sharing
feelings and truly opening up the lines of
communication, a step at a time. COMMUNICATION in ANY relationship is so key!!
If I could teach anyone anything about relationships it would be about
COMMUNICATION!!! Both of them seemed to walk away with a bit more hope in their
hearts that they can do this.....so I hope things start looking up for them!
This week has been a week full of spiritual
journeys! It has been amazing to learn all these wonderful things from the
Sisters that i am serving. They have taught me so much and I am learning new
things about The Lord and about myself every day. I am growing in ways that I
didn't think I needed or had even though about
growing in. It’s been phenomenal. I love this work with all of my heart.
I have some amazing thing I have learned this
week that I would love to share with you, so if you haven't already lost
interest and walked away from the computer....you may want to get up and walk
away from the computer for a minute....haha! Because there is more.....so here
it
comes some little things that I just love from
what I learned this week.
As I was reading about MY PURPOSE as a
missionary in the first chapter of Preach My Gospel, "If you lower
your expectations, your effectiveness will decrease, your desire will weaken, and
you will have greater difficulty following the Spirit." This is exactly
what happened to me while I was with sister Orton. Because of the situation,
instead of just changing my expectations, I lowered them. As I lowered my
expectations, I really did decrease in my effectiveness. My desire was
weakened, and I was having greater and greater difficulty following the spirit.
It was quite frustrating. If I had just kept my expectations high and just
changed them around a
little bit based off of the circumstances, not
lowering them....my time with sister Orton could have been much more effective
then it was. Although I feel like I learned a lot and we were still able to do some
good things, now I see how I could have approached that situation differently
and will now do better in the future. I can't go back and change the pat, but
indefinitely can change my future. I think this will happen in any situation,
if you lower your expectations your
effectiveness will decrease and things will
become more difficult to "endure to the end." I love the lessons that
we can learn from simple lines that will just jump out on the page. Speaking of
another line that just jumped out at me this week during my scripture study was
in Omni:
26. And now, my beloved brethren, I would that
ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his
salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and OFFER YOUR WHOLE
SOULs as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and
praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord
liveth ye will be saved. (Omni:26)
That has had me pondering all week long what it
means to "offer your whole soul as an offering unto him?" How do you
offer your whole soul??
As I have been pondering this I have come across
some gems that have helped me to find the answers that I have been seeking. It
all has to do with aligning your will with The Lord. Here are some talks and things
that i would encourage anyone and EVERYONE to read.....they are
amazing.....
I was led to read I WILL GIVE MYSELF TO HIM (CES
Devotional from 2013) [You can find this on your LDS Gospel Library
App....under Institute.....go all the way to the bottom and download the 2013
CES Devotionals.....you can also find this on www.lds.org....just search
by the title]
Its incredible. Here are some things from my
study journal that I learned........ Things in Quotes are from the
talks......things in Brackets are my words.
"No matter how high your hopes, I'm here to
tell you they can be even higher. You can accomplish more in this life than you
know. With the Lord at your side, you can experience miracles. You can do the
thing that you first thought impossible. You can overcome any problem. You can
rise above anything that would pull you down. You can reject evil
and embrace everything that is good. You came to
earth for a purpose, and with the Lord's help you will achieve that
purpose." [If you could only see
what you could achieve, you would be blown away! Remember the quote...."if
we did everything we were capable of doing, we would astound ourselves!"
Nothing is impossible with The Lord, as long as our will is aligned with
his!]
"Elder Russell M. Nelson "I bless you
... that [God's] will may be done by you and through you."3 Consider the
power of these words. If God's will is to be done by us and through us, then
our will needs to be the same as God's. We need to want what He wants."
"Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said: "As
you submit your wills to God, you are giving Him the only thing you can
actually give Him that is really yours to give. Don't wait too long to find the
altar or to begin to place the gift of your wills upon it!" [I desire to give my will over to God. I know
that it will be a process, but I know that it is possible]
"Elder Russell M. Nelson, in the most
recent general conference, said: "We can change our behavior. Our very
desires can change. How? ... Permanent change ... can come only through the
healing, cleansing, and enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ."
[The atonement of Jesus Christ is what brings
lasting change. The change that my heart truly desires can only come in and
through his beautiful atonement!] "Meaning of the word WILL:
Male 3: Being "willing to submit to all
things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [them], even as a child doth
submit to his father." So that's talking about yielding and submitting and
being
willing. Then we kind of got talking about it,
and it led us to this other scripture in Helaman 3.
Male 1: Helaman 3:35--"Yea,
even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification
cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God." ["be sanctified by that which ye have
received, and ye shall bind yourselves to act in all holiness before me"
(D&C 43:9)We are sanctified as we submit our will to The Lord and hand over
our hearts to Him, as we are grateful for those things that we receive and find
great joy in him. We must also have the right motives in our doings. If we do well,
but our motives are not pure....it will be counted as
evil. If we are attracted to the world, our
hearts are not right, and our will is not being strengthened! We must be
patient and submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of The Lord!]
"Giving your heart and your will to God ...
the first thing He does with it is He sanctifies it. It's not like we're all
just giving our hearts to God and He just puts them in a big vault and says,
"Yes, one more heart for me to enjoy." He takes it and sanctifies it
and proves it
and gives it back to us and says, "Now go
use this and do great things." I just never really thought about what
happened after you gave it to Him. I thought that was kind of the end, but
that's just the beginning."
[NOW is the moment that matters. We must work on
the here and now, not worry about the past or even the future, but turn our
hearts to The Lord now. Go out and do the will of the father! Start now! :) let
it go! And you will find more joy then you ever thought possible as you
are sanctified and made holy, purified, in the
process!!] THIS IS THE END OF THAT TALK AND STUDY NOTES
Bored yet?? No? GOOD! I thought so.....you should go get an ice cream
though (or a popsicle that works too) ...then come back. :-)
Did that taste good?? Good! Ok.....here is some
more..... Right after I read that talk I moved into the Scriptures and started reading
from the Words of Mormon and guess what....The Lord talked even more about
following His will by using Mormon and his words...."wherefore, he worketh
in me to do according to his will. (Words
of Mormon:7) The Lord works through the spirit and helps Mormon to do his
will. This must mean that Mormon had already submitted his will over to the
Father! Oh to be like Mormon and submit my will to the Father!
Oh....and side note....I am currently reading
the words of King Benjamin..... I want to marry a King Benjamin!! :-) Seriously
though, he is incredible!
Now back to other things I have learned this
week......
Also along the lines of offering my whole soul
unto The Lord and turning my will over to him I was reading "That We Might
"Not ... Shrink" (D&C 19:18)" This talk by Elder Bednar is incredible. Its also
a CES Devotional from 2013. We must turn our will over to The Lord and
have the faith that all things will happen for
our good. When we have things that we want to be freed from or healed
from......we must have the faith that The Lord CAN heal/free us, but also have
the faith that He may NOT heal/free you. When you can have this type of faith
and not
shrink, completely turning your will over to The
Lord, then The Lord can truly work many mighty miracles in your life!! Read the
talk and see what i mean.
I also read the talk this morning from this past
conference: Here are my study notes from that...... (again stuff in brackets is
me....the stuff in quotes is from the talk)
Studying: conference talk October 2013 Wilt Thou
Be Made Whole?
"The Savior counsels us on how to be made
whole--to be complete or become healed: "Come unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. "Take my yoke upon you, and
learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your
souls."For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
{How must I take upon his yoke? I want to be
equally yoked with Christ. I want his perfection to overcome my imperfection. I
want to be made whole!] [BUSY= Bound Under Satan's Yoke.]
"Come, follow me" (Luke 18:22) invites
us to leave behind the old life and worldly desires and become a new creature
for whom "old things are passed away [and] all things are become new"
(2 Corinthians 5:17),
even with a new, faithful heart. And we are made whole again."
[Letting go of our old ways and becoming anew is
not always easy, but it is is worth it. I want to leave behind the old impatient,
annoyed, prideful, stubborn, and slightly rebellious me. I want to want to so what
the Savior and my Heavenly Father would have me do. I want to
always put His will before my own. To truly be a
disciplined disciple of Jesus Christ!]
"Draw near unto me and I will draw near
unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you" (D&C 88:63)."
[I have never been so close to my Savior and I
know that I can be closer! I am so excited for the road ahead. Understanding
that all things won't come together at once is kind of a hard concept for me to
fully wrap my mind round, but I know that things will work out for my good. I
know that there is even greater depth of love and devotion that I can feel for
and from my Heavenly Father and Savior! I must be ever diligent in my efforts
to come unto my Savior, to pour my whole
soul out and let him erase my sins, to purify
and sanctify me. I have gone through and will yet go through my own refiners
fire as The Lord knows my capacities and he will take me to them. He will help
me magnify my callings and my life as I yield my heart unto him. He will help
me fulfill my potential, something I truly desire. I know my greatest calling
will come as a mother and I want my children (and all my family) to know how
much I love my Savior by the way that I live my life! I want others to see his
light shine through me and most of all feel of His Love through me! Love is the
greatest thing in this world. We are all
seeking to find the love for others and the love we want to feel from others,
and so many fall short as they look for this love in places that will never
satisfy! Only through The Lord can this need within our souls be satisfied! :)
I feel like I am coming closer and closer to The Lord everyday and still yearn
for more love, but there
are times where I feel incredibly satisfied
(even though I desire more) I definitely know that my father in Heaven loves me
with all of his heart and is just waiting to pour out that love from his heart
to mine as I follow him and keep his commandments. I will be set free!]
"As we draw near to Him, we realize that
mortality is meant to be difficult and that "opposition in all
things" (2 Nephi 2:11) is not a flaw in the plan of salvation. Opposition,
rather, is the indispensable element of mortality and strengthens our will and refines
our choices. The vicissitudes of life help us fashion an eternal relationship
with God--and engrave His image upon our countenance as we yield our hearts to
Him (see Alma 5:19)."
[This is the desire of my heart, that my heart
may be His. The only thing I can really give my Heavenly Father and my Savior
is my will. As I turn it over to them, I
know they will take care of it, refine it and give it back to me that I may go
forward and build the kingdom and
do great things. We all must go through our own
personal Gethsemane. And I can't say
that I have passed through mine and there will be no more, but the years of
2012 to 2013 certainly felt like mine. I know there are more trials ahead, but
I know that is part of Gods plan. I don't ever want to forget him or lay him
aside for 'childish' and selfish things. He is my Savior, counselor and friend.
I always want Him by my side. The battle is raging all around, I cannot do this
on
my own. Without him I am nothing!]
"This do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19) is what
our Savior asked when He instituted what we call the sacrament. This ordinance
with bread and water renews sacred covenants we have made with God and invites
the power of the Atonement into our lives. We are healed by
abandoning the habits and lifestyles that harden
hearts and stiffen necks. When we lay down "the weapons of [our]
rebellion" (Alma 23:7), we become "agents unto [ourselves]"
(D&C 58:28), no longer blinded by the sophistry of Satan or deafened by the
discordant noise of the
secular world.
[What are your weapons of rebellion? Well I
definitely know that one of my 'weapons of rebellion' is food and the word of
wisdom! I definitely rebel against eating healthy and being disciplined in that
aspect of my life! It's really sad. I am sure there are other weapons,
which would most likely be revolved around my
pride. If I could just live without pride in my heart, life would be so much
better. I want to be fully healed by the atonement. I don't want to be bound by
the noise of the secular world. I don't want that noise to be so loud in my
head that I miss those tender whisperings of the spirit of The Lord.]
"When He tells us to love our enemies, He
gives, along with the command, the love itself."
[We do not have to dig down deep within
ourselves and find the strength to forgive, be healed, to love, to follow the
word of wisdom, to etc....truly....along with ANY commandment he gives, along
with the commandment, the strength to do it or overcome whatever it may be!]
"I know that we are all His children and
that He loves us for whom we are and for who we can become. I know that He sent
His Son to the world to be the atoning sacrifice for all mankind and that those
who embrace His gospel and follow Him will be made whole and complete--"in
his own time, and in his own way, and according
to his own will" (D&C 88:68)"
[Everything is in his timing! He loves us and
will never forsake us. Be patient and
you will be made whole!]
You made it to the end and you are still alive.
:-) Isn't that just great! i think it is. I love this gospel with all of my
heart!!! I love the word of The Lord, whether it be from the Scriptures or from
the modern day prophets and apostles. I know that we can find great treasures
of knowledge as we study it all! I Love this gospel with all my heart and I
want everyone else to feel the great joy that comes from the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, coming closer to Jesus Christ!!
I love my mission and have such a short period
of time here to serve The Lord fully and completely with no distractions! I am
so grateful for this opportunity and am going to make the next 7 (and a half) months
the BEST EVER!!!
Love you all!
Write me!
Love,
Sister Heckel
P.S Hope you enjoyed my really long letter! i
enjoyed writing it! LOVE
YOU ALL!! :-)
