Hey Ya'll-
I cant believe that we are already coming to the end of July! Its
crazy how fast time flies. This week was another fast week, with so
much that happened!
We had a miracle this week, well actually we had a bunch, but one in
particular was on Sunday! Half way through our studies an investigator
that we had dropped a few weeks ago, John, called us and said that he
wanted to come to church!!! He already had contact numbers for people
in our ward and so we said we would love to see him there if he could
get a ride, seeing if he had real intent to come. He GOT A RIDE and
CAME TO CHURCH!! It blew our minds! THEN, he stayed after church and
witnessed a baptism! He is so getting baptized! :-) He loved it! He
was fellowshipped so perfectly, that we had members texting us after
church letting us know how they were staying involved and that they
were willing to continue to help, even before we asked! It was so
amazing! God is so good!
We had three trade off's this past week. Our first was with the SIster
Coordinators, Sister Hutchins and Ashcraft. I had the opportunity of
going with Sister Hutchins on a trade off again, accept we went to her
area. It was a delight to get to know her more and to share with her
some of the experiences that I have had over the past week or so. I
was like a new person with her this exchange. Its been a life changing
couple of weeks. I am so grateful for it! With my letter last week I
think I mentioned how important Service is...at least how important I
have come to understand it to be, especially since my experience last
Saturday while mowing our investigators lawn. I shared my experience
and everything with Sister Hutchins and then guess what?? The whole
next day was FULL of service, its funny how God works. He likes to
help us to keep certain concepts or ideas at the forefront of our
memory for a while, to help us REMEMBER!! Because He knows that we are
so easy to forget! :( I love how much our Heavenly Father loves us and
shows us His love in so many ways, for me He has really been showing
HIs love by continually placing reminders in my path of those things
that I have learned and am striving to become! Its incredible! We had
a wonderful experience during our Golden Hour down in Mandarin that
was unlike anything I have ever done before, Elder Nalley gave me the
idea. Its a huge leap of faith for sure!.....We were talking to this
guy who was walking His dog. He was a bit reluctant, but he listened.
Kevin, is his name. He talked about how he agreed with some things we
were saying, but couldn't see the importance of the things that we
were saying because he was "content" and "comfortable" with where he
was in his religious beliefs....basically dismissing us. We wouldn't
let him though, as we were continuing to share and went into the Book
of Mormon, we told him about how he could find answers and that the
Book of Mormon was scripture just like the Bible and that no matter
what page we opened there was going to be something there that God
wanted him (Kevin) to know and that would apply to his life. To show
him this, we opened the scriptures right then and there. We asked him
to tell us when to stop as we flipped through the Book of Mormon, then
we opened it and we were on 2 Nephi 26....He took the book and said
"Ok, lets read." We stood there on the side of the road and he read
over a page from the Book of Mormon. I was getting kind of nervous
that he wasn't getting anything out of it, and then He said,
"Hmmmm...that is definitely something that i can agree with." He
didn't even have a profound "aha" moment at that time (as far as what
he said), but all of a sudden his countenance was different and before
we walked away from him, we had a commitment for a next appointment
and got all his contact information (and we didn't feel like he was
just "doing it to be nice"). It was amazing! You could tell he wanted
to at least look into this a little more. The Book of Mormon has the
ability to "change mens hearts." It truly is the word of God! I am so
grateful for it and the influence it can have just by merely opening
it up and reading from its pages! :-)
Continuing with Sister Hutchins trade off, the whole next day was us
in our service cloths out helping and serving members and non members
and it was such a joyful experience! I now want to seek even more
service opportunities, because it really softens people's hearts and
creates a spiritual bond that I dont think comes any other way! I love
service and it really helps us with so much in our own lives, when we
are reaching out our hands to help people in their lives! That concept
never truly made sense to me, at least it never "sunk deep into my
heart," as the scriptures would say, until this past week! I love The
Lord and how he teaches us things right when we are ready to learn
them!! :-)
We had a trade off with Sister Shumway and Sister Lambson. We, Sister
Blotter and I, decided it would be best to go down and both of us stay
down and help them in their area. It was perfect. We were able t help
both of them feel successful. I had the opportunity to be with sister
Lambson, again, and she is doing well. She had a miracle on facebook,
she asked this random member for a referral and he said yes, and he
invited her into a conversation that he was having with this non
member woman, and they both taught the lesson online there. Referral
received, contacted, new investigator, and a member present
lesson....bam! Sister Lambson is incredible! I am so grateful that I
had the opportunity to work with her. I love her so much! She is such
an inspiration to me.
Had a neat experience while I was with her doing golden hour, and did
something I have never done before. We were knocking doors and we came
to one of he last doors of the night. This man Alex answered the door,
he was very kind and he let us talk to him about family history and
then we talked a bit about God and he said that he used to be
religious, until he went to war. Something stirred within me and I
felt like I needed to share something with him, but didn't know what.
We shared a short message, but he was moving and currently not
interested. We left the door andi felt unsettled. We went to knock on
the next and then we were going to be done for the night cause it was
almost mine and we had a ways to walk back to the car. As we walked to
the next door I felt very impressed that we needed to go back to
Alex's door. I was so nervous, i had never gone back to a door before.
We stopped in front of Alex's house and I felt the impression again,
go talk to him.....mind you, I had no idea what we were going to
share. We took a minute to pray and look something up in the ipad,
HOPING for some inspiration...NOTHING CAME.....so we just went to the
door! oh boy! He came back to the door and as we talked to him this
sweet spirit filled my heart and we bore testimony to him of the
truthfulness of the things that we were sharing. We shared a scripture
with him from the Book of Mormon, got his facebook information and let
him know that we would keep in touch and send missionaries to him once
he made it to Virginia. He seemed confused initially when he opened
the door, but i am certain he felt the spirit as we bore testimony and
he was more then willing to have missionaries come to him and bring
him a Book of Mormon (because we had run out of the ones we were
carrying at the doors before). I am not quite sure what is going to
come of all of that, but i know that i did what The Lord asked me to
do and that in and of itself makes my heart happy and I am at peace!
:-)
We finished off this transfers trade off's with Sister Graham and
SIster Grundberg. LOVE THEM! Sister Graham and I worked in Hendricks.
We were able to have a few RC/LA lessons and they were great. Had this
wonderful lesson with Brothe Zittle (the man who has been less active
for over 40 years) he is doing so great. He has been studying and
praying about all of this and had some good questions. We were able to
teach the 3rd lesson, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Something I love
about Brother Zittle is is honesty, he is so honest about how he feels
and his answers to the questions we ask him. He is not afraid to say
that he doesn't know or cant remember, etc. Its wonderful. He prides
himself on his integrity and that is definitely a trait to emulate.
People of real integrity are harder and harder to find in this world.
Sister Graham is such a fantastic missionary. She goes home next
transfer and she is very nervous. We had a great trade off, we talked
about setting expectations and how they must be high, but not higher
then Gods expectations. We talked about praying and finding comfort in
that and really enjoying to the end, not just enduring to the end! She
is going to go home and change many peoples lives because of all that
she has learned as a missionary and all she has learned through her
struggles. I know that she will. I shared with her all that i have
been able to do to help people, because of the struggles that I went
through with going home and my back and such, and have come to realize
that the struggle (even though it may have been for me a little) it
was mostly for other so that i could be there and support and know how
to succor those that have or are going through similar situations. It
was so wonderful to be on a trade off with her again. Such a
privilege! Learned so much! :-)
We had an interesting experience with our ONE investigator (at least
in our area), this week. We went over to her house after she had
cancelled her appointment, just to check up on her and see if we could
serve her in any way. When we came she was a little stunned to see us,
but said "well you might as well come in, i've got something i need to
tell you." Those are words that you really dont like to hear as a
missionary, and especially in the tone that she said it. I could feel
a "drop" coming on, but incredibly I felt at peace. In my mind, I just
felt this understanding wash over me that she is just confused and
doesn't realyl know what she is saying, she will come around, be
patient. She is not going anywhere! :-) She began to talk to us about
how she just wasn't "feeling it" at church. How she is used to the
loud churches where they get up and say "Hallelujah, praise The
Lord.....AMEN...." and then listen to loud music. She said that it
was just too quiet in our church. She respects that we like to be
reverent, but she just felt like it wasn't right. (Basically she was
saying it wasn't right because it wasn't fun and full of
adrenalin....at least that was my interpretation). :-) Love it! She
was so great though and I totally respected her honesty, but it wasn't
going to fly with us! We were ok with dropping her baptismal date
(which would have been this next sunday), but we will still be
teaching her because she is still very open to do what The Lord want
her to do and she said "who knows maybe he will lead me back here to
be baptized." HAHA! She is so great! We love her so much! We had
another lesson with her later on in the week with Haylee, who is just
about to go on her mission to Pocatello, ID....she was so perfect,
being a convert to the church she was able to share with Terry how she
came to know that the church was true and how she had been stubborn
and it took a while, but she was able to finally know as she prayed
and asked! It was perfect! It may take some time, but once Terry opens
her heart to a little change, I am sure The Lord will manifest to her
very plainly that this is where she is meant to be.
We have been praying and seeking inspiration from The Lord for what we
need to focus. We have felt that we need to really focus on our member
work, so that is what we are doing. We are getting into every active
members home and sharing the message of the restoration, giving them a
card that has our names on it and asking them to not only pray for
missionary opportunities, but to pray for each missionary by name. We
believe that this will create a sense of unity among the members and
then we hope to go back to each of these members, seeking even more
referrals and helping them to do missionary work beyond praying. There
are a few members where we feel like praying is not all that they can
do, but for some this is a great first step to getting them thinking
about missionary work. Our numbers might be lacking in substance over
the next couple of weeks, but it is only because we know that as we
really focus on the members so that they know us, and can trust us
that there is where the real "magic" happens. When we can truly work
together with member in unity, then the missionary work will explode.
If only I could be here in Hendricks towards the end of this year when
that explosion happens! :-) Its going to be wonderful! I love The Lord
the inspiration he so freely gives! I love the Gospel!
I am so grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary! I just want
to bear my testimony that I know that my Redeemer LIVES. I know that
prayers are answered and that through our faith and prayers, as we
ask, seek, and knock, God can perform miracles in our lives! I know
that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that through its pages
we can find answers to all of life's questions. I know that each and
every single person can find out for themselves that these things are
true, as they sincerely read and pray! Its that simple! By coming to
know that the Book of Mormon is true, I also know that there is a
prophet, once again, upon the earth. That through him, the keys of the
Priesthood have been restored....that gives us the opportunity to be
sealed to our families for all eternity! I am so grateful for temples
and the understanding I have that my family can be together FOREVER! I
know that this is true! I have also come to understand that God wants
us to find the answers and know these things, He wants us to be happy,
and He wants us to return to Him. Heavenly Father wants all these
things more then we do, so any time we give Him the opportunity to
teach us, to lead us, and to shower down blessings by our obedience
and faith....HE WILL! I know that sharing the gospel is the greatest
work we can be doing, bringing this light and salvation to all of Gods
children....whether on this side or the other! I know that these
things are true and I am grateful for the knowledge i have received
from the Holy Ghost, the one who testifies of all truth and I say all
these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen!
:-)
Love Ya'll
Have a wonderful last week of July!
-Sister Heckel
P.S ITS SOOOO HOT! Lots of sweat ALL the time!! :-)
Oh....we enjoyed some time doing service for Sister Kate....working in
their yard at like 7:30am. It was great! Enjoy the pictures of us
helping with some seed stuff....idk what it is called.
Oh....and look at the pretty patriotic tree in the Cano's living
room... LOVE IT!!
Look for more pictures in another email! :-)
I cant believe that we are already coming to the end of July! Its
crazy how fast time flies. This week was another fast week, with so
much that happened!
We had a miracle this week, well actually we had a bunch, but one in
particular was on Sunday! Half way through our studies an investigator
that we had dropped a few weeks ago, John, called us and said that he
wanted to come to church!!! He already had contact numbers for people
in our ward and so we said we would love to see him there if he could
get a ride, seeing if he had real intent to come. He GOT A RIDE and
CAME TO CHURCH!! It blew our minds! THEN, he stayed after church and
witnessed a baptism! He is so getting baptized! :-) He loved it! He
was fellowshipped so perfectly, that we had members texting us after
church letting us know how they were staying involved and that they
were willing to continue to help, even before we asked! It was so
amazing! God is so good!
We had three trade off's this past week. Our first was with the SIster
Coordinators, Sister Hutchins and Ashcraft. I had the opportunity of
going with Sister Hutchins on a trade off again, accept we went to her
area. It was a delight to get to know her more and to share with her
some of the experiences that I have had over the past week or so. I
was like a new person with her this exchange. Its been a life changing
couple of weeks. I am so grateful for it! With my letter last week I
think I mentioned how important Service is...at least how important I
have come to understand it to be, especially since my experience last
Saturday while mowing our investigators lawn. I shared my experience
and everything with Sister Hutchins and then guess what?? The whole
next day was FULL of service, its funny how God works. He likes to
help us to keep certain concepts or ideas at the forefront of our
memory for a while, to help us REMEMBER!! Because He knows that we are
so easy to forget! :( I love how much our Heavenly Father loves us and
shows us His love in so many ways, for me He has really been showing
HIs love by continually placing reminders in my path of those things
that I have learned and am striving to become! Its incredible! We had
a wonderful experience during our Golden Hour down in Mandarin that
was unlike anything I have ever done before, Elder Nalley gave me the
idea. Its a huge leap of faith for sure!.....We were talking to this
guy who was walking His dog. He was a bit reluctant, but he listened.
Kevin, is his name. He talked about how he agreed with some things we
were saying, but couldn't see the importance of the things that we
were saying because he was "content" and "comfortable" with where he
was in his religious beliefs....basically dismissing us. We wouldn't
let him though, as we were continuing to share and went into the Book
of Mormon, we told him about how he could find answers and that the
Book of Mormon was scripture just like the Bible and that no matter
what page we opened there was going to be something there that God
wanted him (Kevin) to know and that would apply to his life. To show
him this, we opened the scriptures right then and there. We asked him
to tell us when to stop as we flipped through the Book of Mormon, then
we opened it and we were on 2 Nephi 26....He took the book and said
"Ok, lets read." We stood there on the side of the road and he read
over a page from the Book of Mormon. I was getting kind of nervous
that he wasn't getting anything out of it, and then He said,
"Hmmmm...that is definitely something that i can agree with." He
didn't even have a profound "aha" moment at that time (as far as what
he said), but all of a sudden his countenance was different and before
we walked away from him, we had a commitment for a next appointment
and got all his contact information (and we didn't feel like he was
just "doing it to be nice"). It was amazing! You could tell he wanted
to at least look into this a little more. The Book of Mormon has the
ability to "change mens hearts." It truly is the word of God! I am so
grateful for it and the influence it can have just by merely opening
it up and reading from its pages! :-)
Continuing with Sister Hutchins trade off, the whole next day was us
in our service cloths out helping and serving members and non members
and it was such a joyful experience! I now want to seek even more
service opportunities, because it really softens people's hearts and
creates a spiritual bond that I dont think comes any other way! I love
service and it really helps us with so much in our own lives, when we
are reaching out our hands to help people in their lives! That concept
never truly made sense to me, at least it never "sunk deep into my
heart," as the scriptures would say, until this past week! I love The
Lord and how he teaches us things right when we are ready to learn
them!! :-)
We had a trade off with Sister Shumway and Sister Lambson. We, Sister
Blotter and I, decided it would be best to go down and both of us stay
down and help them in their area. It was perfect. We were able t help
both of them feel successful. I had the opportunity to be with sister
Lambson, again, and she is doing well. She had a miracle on facebook,
she asked this random member for a referral and he said yes, and he
invited her into a conversation that he was having with this non
member woman, and they both taught the lesson online there. Referral
received, contacted, new investigator, and a member present
lesson....bam! Sister Lambson is incredible! I am so grateful that I
had the opportunity to work with her. I love her so much! She is such
an inspiration to me.
Had a neat experience while I was with her doing golden hour, and did
something I have never done before. We were knocking doors and we came
to one of he last doors of the night. This man Alex answered the door,
he was very kind and he let us talk to him about family history and
then we talked a bit about God and he said that he used to be
religious, until he went to war. Something stirred within me and I
felt like I needed to share something with him, but didn't know what.
We shared a short message, but he was moving and currently not
interested. We left the door andi felt unsettled. We went to knock on
the next and then we were going to be done for the night cause it was
almost mine and we had a ways to walk back to the car. As we walked to
the next door I felt very impressed that we needed to go back to
Alex's door. I was so nervous, i had never gone back to a door before.
We stopped in front of Alex's house and I felt the impression again,
go talk to him.....mind you, I had no idea what we were going to
share. We took a minute to pray and look something up in the ipad,
HOPING for some inspiration...NOTHING CAME.....so we just went to the
door! oh boy! He came back to the door and as we talked to him this
sweet spirit filled my heart and we bore testimony to him of the
truthfulness of the things that we were sharing. We shared a scripture
with him from the Book of Mormon, got his facebook information and let
him know that we would keep in touch and send missionaries to him once
he made it to Virginia. He seemed confused initially when he opened
the door, but i am certain he felt the spirit as we bore testimony and
he was more then willing to have missionaries come to him and bring
him a Book of Mormon (because we had run out of the ones we were
carrying at the doors before). I am not quite sure what is going to
come of all of that, but i know that i did what The Lord asked me to
do and that in and of itself makes my heart happy and I am at peace!
:-)
We finished off this transfers trade off's with Sister Graham and
SIster Grundberg. LOVE THEM! Sister Graham and I worked in Hendricks.
We were able to have a few RC/LA lessons and they were great. Had this
wonderful lesson with Brothe Zittle (the man who has been less active
for over 40 years) he is doing so great. He has been studying and
praying about all of this and had some good questions. We were able to
teach the 3rd lesson, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Something I love
about Brother Zittle is is honesty, he is so honest about how he feels
and his answers to the questions we ask him. He is not afraid to say
that he doesn't know or cant remember, etc. Its wonderful. He prides
himself on his integrity and that is definitely a trait to emulate.
People of real integrity are harder and harder to find in this world.
Sister Graham is such a fantastic missionary. She goes home next
transfer and she is very nervous. We had a great trade off, we talked
about setting expectations and how they must be high, but not higher
then Gods expectations. We talked about praying and finding comfort in
that and really enjoying to the end, not just enduring to the end! She
is going to go home and change many peoples lives because of all that
she has learned as a missionary and all she has learned through her
struggles. I know that she will. I shared with her all that i have
been able to do to help people, because of the struggles that I went
through with going home and my back and such, and have come to realize
that the struggle (even though it may have been for me a little) it
was mostly for other so that i could be there and support and know how
to succor those that have or are going through similar situations. It
was so wonderful to be on a trade off with her again. Such a
privilege! Learned so much! :-)
We had an interesting experience with our ONE investigator (at least
in our area), this week. We went over to her house after she had
cancelled her appointment, just to check up on her and see if we could
serve her in any way. When we came she was a little stunned to see us,
but said "well you might as well come in, i've got something i need to
tell you." Those are words that you really dont like to hear as a
missionary, and especially in the tone that she said it. I could feel
a "drop" coming on, but incredibly I felt at peace. In my mind, I just
felt this understanding wash over me that she is just confused and
doesn't realyl know what she is saying, she will come around, be
patient. She is not going anywhere! :-) She began to talk to us about
how she just wasn't "feeling it" at church. How she is used to the
loud churches where they get up and say "Hallelujah, praise The
Lord.....AMEN...." and then listen to loud music. She said that it
was just too quiet in our church. She respects that we like to be
reverent, but she just felt like it wasn't right. (Basically she was
saying it wasn't right because it wasn't fun and full of
adrenalin....at least that was my interpretation). :-) Love it! She
was so great though and I totally respected her honesty, but it wasn't
going to fly with us! We were ok with dropping her baptismal date
(which would have been this next sunday), but we will still be
teaching her because she is still very open to do what The Lord want
her to do and she said "who knows maybe he will lead me back here to
be baptized." HAHA! She is so great! We love her so much! We had
another lesson with her later on in the week with Haylee, who is just
about to go on her mission to Pocatello, ID....she was so perfect,
being a convert to the church she was able to share with Terry how she
came to know that the church was true and how she had been stubborn
and it took a while, but she was able to finally know as she prayed
and asked! It was perfect! It may take some time, but once Terry opens
her heart to a little change, I am sure The Lord will manifest to her
very plainly that this is where she is meant to be.
We have been praying and seeking inspiration from The Lord for what we
need to focus. We have felt that we need to really focus on our member
work, so that is what we are doing. We are getting into every active
members home and sharing the message of the restoration, giving them a
card that has our names on it and asking them to not only pray for
missionary opportunities, but to pray for each missionary by name. We
believe that this will create a sense of unity among the members and
then we hope to go back to each of these members, seeking even more
referrals and helping them to do missionary work beyond praying. There
are a few members where we feel like praying is not all that they can
do, but for some this is a great first step to getting them thinking
about missionary work. Our numbers might be lacking in substance over
the next couple of weeks, but it is only because we know that as we
really focus on the members so that they know us, and can trust us
that there is where the real "magic" happens. When we can truly work
together with member in unity, then the missionary work will explode.
If only I could be here in Hendricks towards the end of this year when
that explosion happens! :-) Its going to be wonderful! I love The Lord
the inspiration he so freely gives! I love the Gospel!
I am so grateful for this opportunity to be a missionary! I just want
to bear my testimony that I know that my Redeemer LIVES. I know that
prayers are answered and that through our faith and prayers, as we
ask, seek, and knock, God can perform miracles in our lives! I know
that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that through its pages
we can find answers to all of life's questions. I know that each and
every single person can find out for themselves that these things are
true, as they sincerely read and pray! Its that simple! By coming to
know that the Book of Mormon is true, I also know that there is a
prophet, once again, upon the earth. That through him, the keys of the
Priesthood have been restored....that gives us the opportunity to be
sealed to our families for all eternity! I am so grateful for temples
and the understanding I have that my family can be together FOREVER! I
know that this is true! I have also come to understand that God wants
us to find the answers and know these things, He wants us to be happy,
and He wants us to return to Him. Heavenly Father wants all these
things more then we do, so any time we give Him the opportunity to
teach us, to lead us, and to shower down blessings by our obedience
and faith....HE WILL! I know that sharing the gospel is the greatest
work we can be doing, bringing this light and salvation to all of Gods
children....whether on this side or the other! I know that these
things are true and I am grateful for the knowledge i have received
from the Holy Ghost, the one who testifies of all truth and I say all
these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen!
:-)
Love Ya'll
Have a wonderful last week of July!
-Sister Heckel
P.S ITS SOOOO HOT! Lots of sweat ALL the time!! :-)
Oh....we enjoyed some time doing service for Sister Kate....working in
their yard at like 7:30am. It was great! Enjoy the pictures of us
helping with some seed stuff....idk what it is called.
Oh....and look at the pretty patriotic tree in the Cano's living
room... LOVE IT!!
Look for more pictures in another email! :-)
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