Jenessa - Week 51 - Agency!!

​Hey Ya’ll-

ALISA CAME TO CHURCH!!!  Such a beautiful and wonderful thing! Mrs. Alisa called us this past week and we found out that she is being evicted, for absolutely no logical reason. Her neighbors are crazy and have been telling the landlord things that are completely false!  She has a hearing this Tuesday that will hopefully be in her favor to be able to get a 30 day extension....please pray for that! It was so amazing and heart stopping when she called us this week. We were able to realize why she had said "no more visits"....she was just overwhelmed by everything that she had to do in such a short period of time. They are really struggling financially right now and she realized that she had a month to not only quite smoking (which she has a lot of anxiety and it helps her right now)....but she also needed to get married and they have no money for a marriage license and then on top of all of that they were being evicted! WHOA!! Talk about everything feeling like it is hitting you all at once. She called us in tears though and said that she didn't mean what she said; she was just so overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. We were able to comfort her and go over and teach her this weekend a bit, just how she would be blessed by being obedient and coming to church...and she did!!! It was so great! By coming to church she has been able to receive so much help too! O my goodness! My heart is so full of gratitude for how the Lords church is set up and that we are able to help those who stand in need! Its magnificent! We think she might still keep to her baptismal date of October 25th if all goes well with the hearing and all. Her husband Buddy is still encouraging her to come to church, even though his disability doesn’t seem to allow him to at this time. WOW!! I love God! I love that Alisa has felt the spirit and knows that this is right and where she needs to be! HAPPY DAY!! :-) She is the sweetest and most selfless person I have ever met. It’s incredible the things she is willing to sacrifice for those that she loves, especially her "husband." She just loves with all her heart and wears that heart right on her sleeve. I love her with all my heart and it breaks my heart that I will have to leave her in just two and half very short weeks!! :(

We did LOTS of service this week, but we were blessed so incredibly for it! We had a very interesting experience when we went over the see a less active woman. Her daughter had this big bandage all over her arm. Apparently she had to have a skin graft on a finger or two because she had stuck it into something that the only way to get it out was to pull and it ripped all the skin off of it. It was so sad....because she was crying because this huge wrapped bandage had fallen off and they had just tried to slide it back on and so there was all this pressure on her very sensitive fingers. We went on the hunt for some medical tape to be able to take the bandage off and wrap it back on....we tried to find someone to come and wrap it, but no one was available and this little girl was in a lot of pain. Not that I am an expert, but having gone through a CNA course and all, I was confident I could help this little one and get her out of at least some of the pain. It was quite the experience and you would have thought that I was beating the child with how much she screamed.....you probably could hear her all the way out there in Utah....but we were able to get that bandage off and as soon as it came off and she saw how her fingers looked she stopped crying and just stared at them. Then she just turned to me with tears in her eyes and asked "you put band aid"  on it?" I said, "Yes, a very big band aide." She is only 3 years old and so very sweet and soft spoken. It just crushed me and I know her momma, knowing that she was in so much pain…and unintentional because the bandaging just slipped right off her little arm. L It was so sad. Anyways, we were glad we could help and she was so much happier after that! J

We set a baptismal date ONLINE!! We were able to talk with Isabelle and committed her to be baptized on December 6^th. We are getting the nearest church house to her now and she said she will attend. She is planning on meeting with missionaries there as well, really soon! Her friend, who introduced us to her is also going to be a part of that. It’s so exciting! I love online missionary work. You can really change people’s lives by your example and sharing the gospel online! J It’s wonderful!

Life is good as a missionary. It has definitely been a challenge to stay focused, especially through discouragement, but it has been a wonderful challenge to work through with the Lord! I know that with Him I can do ALL things! J

We have so many appointment for this upcoming week which means this week is just going to FLY by as we stay busy. That is so sad to me, because I only have two and a half weeks left! Oh my goodness, how did this even happen?? I can’t believe it. J There is a time and season for everything and my time and season for being a full time missionary (at least for this time of my life) is coming to a close. But we always know that as doors close, others open….and who knows what might be through the next door. J Life is so great!

I am so grateful for General Conference, as I have been reviewing my notes it’s been amazing to see how much personal discipleship and personal responsibility, using our agency wisely, was talked about. Everything we do is our choice, good or bad. We make the decision to “stay in the boat.” We make the decision to become “really really good at repenting or really really good at forgiving.” We make the decision to “have Christ-like love.” We make the decision to “boldly defend the temple standards (or not).” We make the decision and must take personal responsibility for “our physical and spiritual well-being.” We make the decision and are personally responsible for listening to and “sustaining the prophet,” and trusting the Lord. We make the decision to accept the grace of our Savior and forgive, understanding that “someone has already paid.” We make the decision for “which way [we] face.” We are responsible for allowing the sacrament to be “a truly spiritual experience, a holy communion, and a renewal for [our] souls.” We make the decision to reach out, as Christ did, and “love the impoverished and the disadvantaged in a powerful way.”

We make the decision to pay attention “to the powerful currents in our lives” or to ignore them. Then finally, President Monson sums all of this up so nicely saying “Decisions determine destiny.” We must turn to our savior Jesus Christ, follow his example and as we do, our decisions will be easier to make. We will choose the right. J Our decision to follow the Savior will truly determine our destiny!

 I loved that President Monson mentioned that “walking where Jesus walked is far less important than walking AS Jesus walked.” That is what we must all strive to do! With our everyday decisions we have before us we CHOOSE to walk as he walked, no one will make that decision for us! Elder Christopherson said it so great in his talk about our agency saying that “God will not live our lives for us nor control us as if we were His puppets, as Lucifer once proposed to do. Nor will His prophets accept the role of “puppet master” in Gods place.”  How amazing that God has given us this amazing gift to choose. It is our responsibility to choose where we want to be in the end and how happy and joyful we want our journey to be along the way! Elder Christophersons continues with “In matters both temporal and spiritual, the opportunity to assume personal responsibility is a God-given gift without which we cannot realize our full potential as daughters and sons of God. Personal accountability becomes both a right and a duty that we must constantly defend.”

I have not always been good and giving a personal accounting to the Lord. In fact, I used to never think about it…until I became companions with Sister Boucher and she taught me by her example how powerful accountability is in our lives. I have been working on personal accountability and on using my “God-given gift” of agency to help realize my full potential and hopefully in tern help others see theirs. J

I know that the words that were spoken at conference were inspired and I am so grateful for them! I encourage all of you to go back and READ or LISTEN to conference again! Its so powerful and you learn so much the second time through. What they say, when inspired by the Holy Ghost, truly can be taken as scripture and just like scripture there is something new that can be learned each time we read and strive to apply the teachings into our own lives! J

I want you to know that I know that President Monson is the Prophet here on the earth today and that this is Christ’s church lead by inspiration through his prophets and apostles in these last days! I am grateful for my agency to choose and the ability that I have to learn to “walk as Christ walked.” I know that as I continue forward with diligence each day that I will see miracles and find that I am coming much closer to walking as he walked then I ever expected! I know that God lives and He loves us! I know these things and finish my writing in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

With much Love

Sister Heckel 

Enjoy the pictures :-) 

1. Went out to lunch with these wonderful sisters...oh goodness I love them so much! The two on the opposite end from me are our Sister Training Leaders. 

2. This picture of Christ is my new FAVORITE picture of Him :-) Love it! 

3. Love the MIDWAY sign for the Baptist church....its also right across the street from the "Midway Cemetery." :-) Fun stuff. The saying on the church sign is pretty neat as well :-)