Ty - AND HE'S OFF!

A large piece of my heart is on a plane on its way to Manila Philippines! He is going to be a great missionary and we are going to miss him so much, but we are so grateful for his willingness to serve the Lord and share his testimony of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to the wonderful people of the Philippines! We couldn't be more proud! Go forth and serve Elder Heckel!! :-) 

Travis - Patience is a virtue!

Well I'm going to start off this week with updates. A lot has changed in the past few weeks. I know I have not written to many of you and I'm sorry I will do better in returning any emails sent to me(or letters). Anyhow I'm still booming and alive, transfers just occurred and The Elder Fa has been transferred up north, I have remained here in Loomis and have been called to train a new missionary. With this calling I have been released from district leader and now called as a tech missionary. So I have spent the first half of the week programming all the iPads for new missionaries with fellow tech missionaries (see picture below) and also receiving calls form many people fixing issues they face. And after completing I went and joined 21 veteran missionary's to receive the new missionaries(greenies as we call them). Oh what a crazy day that was, we where given minimal training on how to do it, met our new greenies. ---Mine is Elder Campbell btw(see picture below, he's from Meridian Idaho and he has quite the story. So he has epilepsy(seizures) and he went to the MTC in December, but on the day he was suppose to leave he had three seizures and they sent him home. They required that he be seizure free for 7 months before coming out again. So he waited and waited; until 7 months had last and is now out here! He's a very shy quirky guy who spent most if not all his life playing video games, he comes from a family who lived a sedimentary life style, and is kinda sheltered to a lot of the things of the world. But he has the drive and dream for missionary work and that's all I ask for. He does have a lot of work ahead of him in learning the skills needed to be able to be a good missionary but he will do it I know it.--- back to the letter, so after getting all our greenies the office elder took us late that night to our apartment where we got settled for the night. The next day was fun as we immediately went out doing service, then district meeting, then more service. After which we went and we taught two lessons to part meme be families. The excitement of that day was pretty good as we accomplished a lot within the short time we had to visit people. We spent a lot of the day also meeting members and introducing him to investigators so he can become familiar with them. The next few days where spent doing similar things except I took him tracting, we had an amazing discussion with many people, PLANTING SEEDS!! Haha finally I let him take the door and it happen to be a very angry bible bashing born again (he also claimed baptist??) he started ripping him a new one and I hopped in quick, oh how happy I would have been to showing the man how wrong he was in accusing us. But I remembered moms words...do you want to be right or at peace? Because you can't have both! So I calmly bore testimony and walked away with my companion. .....ha he was a little shaken up but we knocked a few more doors. Saturday was the one day that triggered a need for change. Missionaries in the past haven't done much work here and all the people we visited where eterna-gators (eternal investigator) so I talked with the ward mission leader and we are revamping our whole Ward plan and thinking outside the box, I'll update you more as things start to look up. But we did see two miracles that where're try awesome. One was during tracting we ran into a less active who let us in to get out of the heat for a moment, while we talked it turns out they haven't had contact with the church in a long time. They felt forgotten and abandoned. So we bore testimony and got a return appointment to go teach a lesson to them!! Super exciting. We also met a small family of four who just moved in, he's an engineer for the city of Roseville. Super outgoing guy and totally interested in hearing why the heck we are walking around in long sleeve shirts and dress slacks in the middle of the day. To quote him "either the message you have is totally insane and you guys are nuts or there is something important and it wouldn't hurt to hear". That is an answer to our prayers! Now why can't everyone be like that? This would be a whole lot easier. Also this time with the greenie has already opened my eyes to how scared and nervous I must have been coming out, fumbling with word and only commenting when absolutely necessary. I have a whole lot of sympathy for him and yes I am being very patient with him, I promised myself what ever companion I got I would do my best with no matter what. So I'm happy I have one with some greenie fire burning. The funny thing is to is sometimes the patience I have is more for him than me. I don't really feel rushed to get things done and sometimes the anxiety builds up for him to get the words out or to go somewhere. It is really a good way to help take a breath, wait a minute for him to do his thing and cheer him on. I'm following a lot of what Jenessa shared with me(my studies lately have been Christ like attributes), he's the greenie does feel he 'knows it all' and yes at first I tried to argue with him. But now I let hi do it to find out for himself. Ive let him learn through mess ups on his own and even for me it's painful not to stop him or try to take over. I look now at all a missionary is and I know I actually still have a long way to go and  it's only his 5th day in the field, he has time and so do I. I love you guys so much, I'm so thankful for all the support I have at home and out here in the mission field. Remember to live everyday like you won't get it back. It's a race and the clocks ticking, so work hard and enjoy your time. Also I believe I'm never eating ice cream again. Being gluten free no one can think of any other desserts. Desserts are turning me into a bowling ball !! Hahahaha love you all; have a fun summer it's almost over for the twerps! Ty's going soon too!!!! 

-Elder Heckel (the first son out) 

Travis - Well! Well!

Well this week for us has been a challenge. During the first of the week my companion suffered from heat exhaustion, he had a few days recovery. But it was sad and kinda scary, a member noticed before me that something was wrong and he was super dehydrated. The hike like I said we came back early but the rest of the group went on. The group that continued, when they got back, all where dehydrated and had issues for the week.(only me and one other kid had been smart in staying cool by dipping cloths in streams and staying in shade, and bring water...we never actually drank most of, and not pushing hard) then we had one full day of proselyting in which most people where not home, so we had a few times where we knocked less active doors or random doors. And we got really lucky in meeting a daughter and her husband of a member in our Ward. She was super nice and had us in, we talked for a while and she asked that before we go we share a simple message for her two kids. We shared the shiny bicycle video with them and talked about the importance of listening to council. One little kid told us how much he loved Jesus Christ and showed us a picture he had a long time ago. I gave him a pass along card that he snatched so fast like I just gave him a million dollars. It was the most adorable thing ever, and made the day all worth it. We had plenty of times bearing testimony at doors and planting seeds all throughout the day. And the next day after I spent the entire day in MLC meeting(missionary leaders and the mission presidency meet) we had special invites sent out for all district leaders. Well most the meeting consisted of talking about obedience and how critical it is at a time like this. Especially with the passing of the Same gender marriage, most people have a magnifying glass on us, we must stand forth as a light for he world at this time. Our mission especially is facing some minor persecution, but enough that the mission president addressed it. I myself have had many people ask us our stance and the majority said how amazed and proud they where that we stood up for what traditions this world needs. Anyhow a lot of it was training for leadership, and to my shock I guess some missionaries complained about having leadership and he said if they (missionaries) really felt like they couldn't do it that they can ask and he will replace them. And right after a missionary stood up and bore testimony strongly to what kind of leadership is needed here and that God doesn't make mistakes when he has us called to a calling or office and we should never deny what God has for us to do, for if we do we are telling God he doesn't know us, he doesn't know what's best. This really hit me in the heart. God has many plans for us in our lives. Many times callings in church, changes in work or even disruptions in life happen to each of us. We feel inadequate or inefficient in what has been played before us and the natural man would have us shrink back and choose the easy route. But a true son of God will see this as a challenge, an exciting obstacle that can be overcome to make them better, to be stronger! It helps to humble us to turn to God for the strength we need to overcome what life throws at us and when we do we will reach heights beyond what we can imagine. Well I'm getting carried off, we had a awesome Fourth of July in which we spent time with less active families and a few investigators and we mingled with their family and speaking with many of their relatives. We didn't get to much lessons in but met a lot of new people, and we sadly couldn't enjoyed the fireworks because its banned in this part of California. So sad another crazy law ruins the fun for many. But I'm now in recovery mode from the Fourth of July and a long Sunday spent sharing messages with members and helping out the sisters in our area(forgot to mention one sister was really sick so we have been tending to them every once in a while. Sorry to rush the rest of it, I want to get letters off individually to each of you, I'm trying to prepare a few letters for you all before anything else changes. I'll get them out as soon as their finished.  I love you all, enjoy your summer and at this time next year we will be back!! 

Elder Heckel