Jenessa Week 8 - Biking!!! December 9, 2013

Hello Everyone-

This week has been crazy.....you want to know why??? Because we are now on BIKES!!! Yup thats right! We get to do it like the Elders do, although we do get a car part time. We are sharing a car with the other set of Sister Missionaries in our ward. Its been very interesting figuring it all out, that is for sure!

Sorry that ya'll are FREEZING while we here in Florida are absolutely BAKING in the sun!!! HAHA! Its been crazy....two days ago while we were on bikes it was 88 degrees outside...we were DYING!! LOL :-) And then I get on facebook later that day and find out that it was like a -9 back at home....what is up with the weather!!! HAHA!!! Not quite sure what to make of it. I am definitely enjoying the warm though, much preferred over the cold ya'll have going on right now. :-) Its also funny...cause we get down into the low 60's and I start shivering...LOL :-) I actually kind of get mad....cause I hate the fact that the thermomiter says its 61 degrees outside and I feel like winter is coming on.....I'm sure ya'll would die to have 60 degree weather right now!! I say I am sorry, but I am also laughing cause its just so strange! Life is just awesome!! 

We are teaching a guy named Larry, who hasn't been to a church in years! He loves everything that we have taught him so far though and he said he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon. He even committed to be baptized but made sure that we knew that it would be in his own time and not super fast. He is a great guy....has a super thick accent and is really hard to understand...my companion swears that she can't understand what he says half of the time....amazingly i have been given the "gift of tongues" and can understand him as well as our other investigator Dee....who seems to slur everything together. My companion cant understand her either....makes it a bit difficult to teach. Who knew that it would be so difficult to understand people that speak my own language....well...maybe its the same language?? LOL :-) I love these people to death. They are some of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life that is for sure! 

We had an awesome lesson with Momma Dee last night and took a recent convert Ylonda with us. They connected with each other soooo well. It was such a powerful lesson and Ylonda, being baptized only a couple weeks ago, is on FIRE! She rekindled the fire within me, that didn't necessarily go out, but just faded a bit with being sick and tired the past couple of weeks. I have finally kicked the sickness though. After discussing things with the mission Doctor, Dr. Rose. We concluded that I needed some antibiotics, I went on the antibiotics and poof in just over 24 hours I was feeling like a million bucks....wish we had just gone with them sooner instead of dealing with being sick for over 2 weeks. HAHA! Live and learn! 

Did ya'll get to watch the Christmas Devotional on Sunday?? If not, you should go find it online and watch it...it was amazing! I LOVE CHRISTMAS and the spririt it brings into our lives. I wish people could hold onto this Spirit during the year. Its amazing and what the Lord would have us feel ALL the time! My companion and I were able to watch most of it, but then the Bishop came to us not quite half way through and told us that a car had run out of gas and that the husband, Curtis...was going to get gas and his pregnant wife, Kristy was sitting out there. We decided to go out and talk with her. We were eventually able to convince her to come inside and enjoy the music and the messages shared in the Devotional. She was able to listen to Elder Neilson speak and then her husband came back. It was a wonderful missionary opportunity and they were happy to let us come over and share another video with them about the Savior later. It was wonderful!....although we found out that they live in the Timuquana ward, so we will be handing them over the the Elders or Sisters in that ward. A seed was planted and thats all that really matters right?? We are here to invite all men to come unto Christ, we dont take them there we invite them there and if they accept the invitation we are thrilled. We succeed when we invite!! :-) 

I have learned some amazing lessons since coming into the mission 8 weeks ago....that is crazy! Next monday I will "officially" have been here as a full time missionary preaching the gospel for 2 full months! CRAZY!!! LOVE IT!!! The time is just flying by. There is nowhere I would rather be though. I love it! Maybe I will be able to extend and come home with Larissa....who knows?? Anything is possible!! :-) 

I wanted to share something from my studies this morning that was incredibly powerful for me and has had me on the verge of tears all day. I LOVE THE SPIRIT! I was reading this morning in D&C 5. Towards then end of the chapter the Lord talks to Joseph about how their are many that lie in wait to destroy thee and I began to feel like that, I have had so many things that have happened over the past 2 months that have been so incredibly trying, that i feel like there are many "unseen" that are trying to destroy me and all those who are trying to do the work of the Lord, then I was completely overwhelmed by the Spirit as I read the Lords words from verse 34: "Yea, and for this cause I have said: STOP AND STAND STILL until I command thee, and i will provide means whereby thou mayest accomplish the thing which I have commanded thee." I was so taken back, as I felt the Lord was telling me to STOP AND STAND STILL. He is not necessarily asking me to stop moving and progressing, but stop trying to move forward by my own volition and not by His way. He wants me to "stand still" and listen to what he has to tell me, because this is His work and it must be done his way. These are His children that we are  talking with each day, he knows them better than I could possibly EVER know them. I felt comforted in knowing that He will provide a way for me to accomplish the goals and desires of my heart here in this area, despite the difficulties that we have had...but he has asked me to stop pushing forward and trying to do things "without" Him. I honestly think that is one of the reasons I have been sick lately, because I have forgotten to hand everything over to him and STOP AND STAND STILL...taking a moment to let him really speak to my mind and my heart, to bring me peace in this troubled world, and know that He has it all under control!  It was such an incredible reminder! 

I love the Scriptures. I wish i had time to share with you all my spiritual insights from the entire week, it truly has been a week that I can say I FEASTED from the scriptures and oh how FULL I am!! :-) I love this work. I love the Gospel and most of all I LOVE MY SAVIOR! He is my rock and my salvation. He is my never failing energy source. He is my best friend and someone I NEVER want to be without for as long as I live! It is his PERFECT LOVE that i seek daily and desire to share with all those around me! He will NEVER fail us! I know that He died for me and for you! I know that through Him we can find peace in this life and eternal joy and happiness throughout the eternities! I am so grateful for this knowledge. I know that we have a living prophet here on the earth that leads and guides us in righteousness. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, as is the Bible. I know that we can receive personal revelation that these things are true and so much more, as we get on our knees humbly before the Lord and ASK!! :-) I know all that i have said is true and I say it in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, AMEN!!! :-) 

Happy Holidays

-Sister Heckel 

Larissa Pic over Thanksgiving!!

Larissa and The MTC Sisters!!  Camera date is only off by one year!

Larissa Thanksgiving Week!! Craziest week EVER!

Well first off Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! Thanksgiving was great at the CCM! we had our thanksgiving dinner for lunch cause thats cuando they have all there big meals is during Almuerzo, which I kinda like alot now! All I wanted for thanksgiving was some pumpkin pie and guess what we got pie and icecream.... I may have cried with happiness for that.... or maybe not. you will never know.

Well this week has been one of the hardest/best weeks, our everything was going great until wednesday hit.... our investigator (who is depressed, had a really bad day) well he told us that he didnt want to meet with us anymore and that he didnt believe in our religion anymore and he was basically done. Me and Hermana Allen were shocked, we could not believe what he was saying! Our last lesson went so good and we didnt know what to do so all we could think of was ask him questions and bare our testimonies. we asked him to pray everyday to know that god loved him and had a purpose for him and then he decided that he wanted to see us again. That was officially the first time I have cried at the CCM, the rest of that day was so hard. We had a conversation with our Miestro (our investigator) afterwords and talked with him about and he said that we needed to work harder because this type of stuff will happen and he isnt going to be as easy on us as he has been. seriously it was so difficult. But then we had thanksgiving the next day so that made it better and our next lesson with him..... guess what happened! HE AGREED TO BE BAPTIZED!!!! So now we will be preparing him for that which will be awesome cause we have alot more to learn and are ready to work hard to get him to baptism. 

Yesterday was the greatest experience ever! so we are kinda starting to review stuff we have already learned and using it in all spanish and figuring it all out! well yesterday we did an activity and we were learning to teach by the spirit. I was pared up with Elder Corry (who i freaken love, but he speaks incredible spanish so its kinda intimidating to work with him) and I was the investigator first and we were practicing the situation that we had the week before, an investigator who doesnt want to continue with the discussions. So I was the investigator first and I didnt want to continue with the lessons because my husband was a ¨"memeber" but wasnt terribly active and if I commited to a religion I wanted to make sure it was right and wanted to be the best I could be, i didnt want to fail. Well Elder Corry... Oh my gosh, the spirit was incredible! Its so weird how even as a pretend investigator you cant say no sometimes. He bore me his testimony and it was exactly what I needed to hear to make me feel comforted and go forward with the lesson and baptism. Then we switched, I didnt know his profile at all, so he came in and told me that he didnt feel god was answering his prayers.... I seriously could speak so good to him and was asking questions and finally I had a feeling I should have him to pray with me right then... and that is exactly what he needed. seriously the room was not big enough for how much of the spirit was in there. It was so overwhelming, me and elder corry are almost in tears. It was incredible, I had been praying to know how to receive guiar during my lesson for my investigators and during my studies for them and this week i finally figured it out and it is incredible. I figured out how the spirit really speaks to me, haha it needs me to stop talking and listen, just pause for a bit in my lesson to really think and feel before i act and then I will know where I need to go. I was so overwhelmed because My prayers were answered and I felt the spirit so strong, I love this gospel, I know it is true with all my heart. I might not know everything and my testimony has a long way to go but I KNOW (YO SE QUE LA IGLESIA DE JESUCRISTO DE LOS SANTOS DE LOS ULTIMOS DIAS ES VERDADERO) I know it. This work is so incredible and I love it so much! 

I couldnt imagine being anywhere else right now. I seriously love it here so much! the Spanish i really starting to come along, in our last lesson with Ulises (depressed investigator) I spoke basically the whole time (oops) but It went to so good I could talk pretty well, haha some of my sentences were mixed up but all the words were out there! we are slowly but surely getting better, we made a goal as a district to talk spanglish as much as possible and just throw out our english words we dont need anymore.... and I learned the craziest thing. Some sentences we say in english, you can say in one word in spanish just by conjugating them (Ex: "Orará" means "will you pray") one stinkin word!!! CRAZY!!! but its nice at the same time, easy to remember, haha there isnt a word for "will" so we have to learn those conjugations very quickly cause they are vital for a lesson! I am really starting to LOVE SPANISH SO MUCH now that I can actually speak and commmunicate and kinda understand! haha sometimes they talk so darn fast I cant understand a word that he is saying but If i can pick out a few key words I can figure it out pretty easily. 

I want to share a couple things that we learned on the Thanksgiving Devotional, it was taught by Russel M. Nelson and his wife Wendy Nelson. So good it was basically on obedience and being clean and ready to serve the Lord. the quote that I will never forget from this devotional is "Obedience brings success, Exact Obedience brings miracles." so comepletely true, we have to be exactly obedient in order to receive all the blessings and that is what me and my companierá are working especially hard on for the last two weeks we are here because I am so excited to see how we improve because we definitely are not where we want to be before we leave so we are kicking it into gear! 

Mi companierá y yo have gotten so close seriously she is just the quiet shy version of me, but we are twins. I love her so much and cant even imagine leaving her after these two weeks. buien thing she is going to Texas with me so I will at least get to see her a little bit before I leave. Seriously one incredible girl and we work so well together. 

Our district had some super drama this week, we have all gotten so close and started to love eachother so much! seriously these hermanas and Elders are like my brothers and sisters. they have taught me so much and have helped me and my companierá through so much  but now we have had a tendency to talk and sing instead of study.... which is not good. so our Miestro emailed our branch president (basically like our zone bishop) and we had a talk about some of the stuff we need to fix. so after the meeting we went back to our classroom and talked and shared how we felt and made goals of what we can do better and I think It will help us out alot!! soooooo much actually, and me and hermana Allen have made our own goals and i think the goofing around will stop.... during study time. We still love the play volleyball and all that. Seriously I cant even think about leaving my district at the end of these last two weeks because I just start to cry. I love them all so much I cant even say. All the elders have such strong testimonies and amazing spirits and amazing stories. They have all been through it, all different things but for most everyone in our district it was a hard road to get here which has made it so much better. I love all of them. except how the nickname "hobbit" has stuck so well and they make jokes about how frodo is my dad, and ask me how mordor was..... yes they are definitely 18 year old boys.... until they feel the spirit then they turn into Missionaries. haha

The district that was here before us left yesterday.... I am so sad right now I cant even believe that we are the one of the oldest districts here. I have no idea how that happened so fast, but I miss them so much. the Hermanas in that district were incredible and I cant wait to hear how they do in the field cause they will do amazing things. 

We get a new district this week too. I am so excited!! I love being the sister leader! I get to go talk to the girls all the time and make sure they are okay and that they like it here and feel loved and happy. The new districts hermanas are muy muy bien, todos bonita y fuerte testimonios. I love them all already and they have only been here a little less then a week. But they will be great. We get to go to district leadership meetings on sundays.... which is great cause we get to know about how we can improve as a district and as a zone and everything. Its great!! 

Well All in all I love el CCM!! for real, I love learning the gospel and learning spanish!! its seriously still incredible.

sinceremente, Hermana Heckel

Jenessa Week 7 Dec 2, 2013

Hello Everybody-

This week was great and at the same time was not so great! I got sick early on in the week and it has put me out of commission for a few days this week. It all started coming on around Tuesday afternoon/evening and I am still dealing with a bit of the sniffles today. Even though I was sick I still went out a bit and this week was wonderful! 

On Wednesday, Harold and Christine committed to be baptized on December 22nd. We are so excited for them. We have some word of wisdom issues that we are going to have to work through, but nothing that the Lord can't help them handle!  

On Thanksgiving, Sister Orton and I had TWO Thanksgiving appointments. We first had a CAMBODIAN Thanksgiving with the family of the First counselor in our Bishopric, Brother Nhiev. HAHA! His whole family is Cambodian! Its great! He and his wife both served missions....Sister Nhiev served in Guam and he served in California. Pretty cool! They are so great. Thanksgiving at their place was great....TONS of family speaking a language that there is NO WAY i would ever be able to understand! I dont know how Sister Rachael Kohler is doing it in Cambodia!! LOL :-) Good for her! I'll stick with my English, sometimes that is hard enough to speak. HAHA! Some of their family are not members of the church, as well as some of the friends that came over for Thanksgiving as well. It was great to mingle with them and even answer some questions about the church for  few of them. Incredibly, even though I could not understand the language, unlike the other missionaries their I could understand EVERY word that the cambodians said with their really thick cambodian accents!  It was great! 

Our second Thanksgiving was more tradition with Sister Webster and Sister Morrow. Sister Webster is such a sweet woman. Her husband is a trucker and so he was on the road this Thanksgiving so she had us and Sister Morrow (who turns 71 this month) over for Thanksgiving dinner! It was a wonderful evening, although my sickness really started settling into my lungs and I was really really tired the entire evening. Sister Webster, bless her heart, was so kind and let me fall asleep on her recliner while they finished preparing dinner and stuff. It felt like being home there!! It was so great! I LOVE this ward! I never want to leave!! I have met some of the most amazing people here. Some of the most charitable hearts EVER! 

Friday was spent at the apartment unfortunately because I had a bit of a fever. Although, we did go to dinner at a members home that night and it was the most AWKWARD thing I have ever been a part of in my entire life!!! I dont think their are words to even describe how the dinner went with her, especially once her Hometeachers showed up and she was all upset that they weren't going to teach her the EXACT message from the hometeaching message from the ensign....which their isn't one this last month because it is the conference ensign, but thats ok. It was quite an eventful evening and unfortunately I dont have time to give you all the details, just know that I have a good story to tell you when I get home...dont let me forget to tell you! 

Saturday, we had a cool experience. We got to go to the "dedication" of a Buddhist Temple! I guess this kind of thing only happens like once in a lifetime or at least once in like 50 years or so. It was way cool. There were over 150 monks present from all over the world, some of them from Cambodia. Brother and Sister Nhiev were there to help explain things to us. It was great. It was this massive celebration with AWESOME food. It was nothing like I expected it to be, but it was very cool to be a part of something historical like that. Something interesting that they do at Temple dedications, they dig these pits around the temple (like on the temple ground) and then their is a big deep one that is dug right in the middle of the temple itself.....and before the dedication is complete during this 3 day celebration, people will come by and throw things in to these pits.  They will throw things in that they desire to have or to be in the next life....say you want to be beautiful, then you would throw in some make up and a mirror or something. If you want to be smart, you throw in some paper and a pen or a book. If you want to be rich, you throw in some money....get the picture? I guess in Cambodia, these pits are much larger than they were at this gathering, but they do the same thing with them. I guess, if you fall in they wont pull you back out though. You would be considered bad luck. So in cambodia if a child were to fall in on accident, they would bury the child alive. That means the family would get to have them in the next life, but once something has gone into the pit it cannot be pulled back out. Pretty crazy hu?? I thought so. The whole thing was great though. Definitely different from the dedication of one of our temples....espeically since the Spirit was nowhere to be found at this event. It made me sad! It was so much about worldly possessions and this and that. 

I am so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel and the peace that it brings into my life! SOOOOO GRATEFUL! 

Unfortunately being out in the cold again on Saturday did me in for Sunday and Sister Carlson was also sick..... (she's new to our area), she's companions with Sister Martinez. So we did a little tradeoff for Sunday. Sister Carlson and I stayed home sick, while Sister Martinez and Sister Orton went to church and did missionary work like we wished we could do. We were so sick, but we decided to build a fort in the middle of our apartment....since we had studied as much as our hazy brains would allow us too. I will send a picture to show you. We look so happy in that picture, but we truly were quite miserable, but you dont want to look miserable in a picture....especially when you are in a fort...haha! :-) We are mostly recovered today though, Sister Carlson is a little bit more under the weather then I am at the moment....lol. Hopefully by the time we have Presidents interviews this week we will both be in tip top shape! 

I am so ready to get back to regular missionary work and be health and well again! It will be so great!! 

I love this work! I am so grateful to be a missionary! Life is amazing and tough and wonderful all at the same time!!! HAHA!! 

Hope ya'll had a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

Love

Sister Heckel

Blog is up and Running!!

Here we go!!!

Larissa Pics More MTC Nov 2013

Larissa and Comp

  

District at Mexico Temple
Sitting inside the emergency circle for evacuation of buildings!!!

Larissa Good Morning!

Well we just ended week 3!!! It has been the greatest week ever!! One thing I have learned about the CCM is that this work is all in your attitude, I have been so blessed to have a companion that is so uplifting and happy. This last week we had our "star moment" with our investigator Carlos, we had been having trouble with him and we had been having trouble talking because I can just talk forever and make sentences and just go but my companion knows all the important words I need so we work pretty good together but we had trouble because we couldnt understand eachother let alone the investigator.... yeah teaching is hard when stuff like that happens but we had been praying so hard for carlos and for us to teach him something that he needs in his life so we decided we would study but go into this lesson and strictly listen to the spirit and go wherever we needed. IT WAS AMAZING!! we Both spake so good and understood eachother and spirit soooo strong, we almost asked him to be baptised but we ran out of time so dont worry we will get him next week haha SB (haha that is Jk in spanish). 

My district is seriously the Bomb!!! I know i probly talk about them in every letter but I seriously love all of them, they are one of the reasons I havent gone crazy here and one of the reasons I have.... if that makes sense:P well they made up a new nickname for me.... cause I am the shortest girl in our district and zone and one day we were talking about Lord of the Rings ( i know great missionary topic) and then Elder Stewart gave me the nickname "the hobbit"... and it stuck, haha i dont really mind but it so random and weird! haha they are all so fun, we do everything together and have gotten so so close with everyone, good thing all of them are from utah because we are having a CCM reunion when everyone gets back and we can all speak spanish to eachother and that will be really cool.

The spanish is coming along so good now, I can pray, bare my testimony (kinda) write a talk (kinda) and completely teach my lessons in spanish! me and my comp decided to make a goal to speak as much spanish as we possible and it is so much easier when we speak all the time and use the words we learn, plus we had the smart elders (elder corry and Elder Bennet) come help up when we have problems and they gave us great advice that completely helped us teach. I am so happy we are finally getting there!! we are still having a little trouble understanding but it is gradually getting better. And something else i found out. Spanish is the most undetailed language in the entire world, that is the problem we are having right now is that we want to use really expressive words that dont exist in spanish. So its hard to express yourself when you dont have very many detail words.... so great. I still think it would be harder to learn english cause we have rules that dont make sense I mean think about the word Depot.... why did we decide for this one word to make the T silent....? yeah I know crazy! But I love spanish so much it is really awesome and once we really start speaking it it is really easy speak. I love it and cant wait to be able to teach real investigators and talk to them. 

This week one sunday our devotional was by Elder Holland (my favorite) it was incredible he talked to us about the book of mormon and how he has lately seen so many missionaries come into the mtc and no read the book of mormon all the way through and dont know the stories.... I have read the book of mormon all the way through but I dont know the stories terribly well which kinda sucks sometimes when you want to pull out a story for your investigator but you cant cause you dont know where it is. The book of mormon is the key stone to our religion, it is the word of god and it is so important and I love the amazing stories in there!!! He also talked about when people ask what the symbol of the church is... well we dont have one the closest thing we have is missionaries. Cool huh!! He also talked about mad he gets when missionaries go home and fall away, he asked if that was what we wanted for our investigators. Once we leave do we want them to just fall away and go back into there old ways? No way!! It was an incredible talk and definitely has bumped my scripture study up for sure. haha another thing that was cool was that he said that we are probably the most prayed for people in the church... next to the prophet, we are probly neck and neck with the prophet:P

I know you will be shocked but I can still wake up early and be happy as a bird in the morning, haha the Hermanas in my room are all quiet morning people, I wake up about 45 minutes before them to get some personal study in (its easier for me to wake up at 5.. not sure why) so I am like wide awake by the time they all wake up!! haha but I love mission life! I am tired, stressed, working constantly but so full of the spirit and so driven to learn this gospel for the people in texas houston, so that I can bless there lives the way mine has been blessed. 

The food is good.... stay away from any type of "jello", "pudding", or "flaun" so nasty.... everything else is pretty good, everything is spicy but I am really starting to like it alot!! and I found a new system where i bring a water bottle to lunch and fill it up with juice:) so now my day is so much better then it was before!! 

We went to the temple today, all in spanish! I was really surprised how well I could understand everything!! I loved it, spanish is so awesome!! And the Templo esta muy muy bien!! 

I have no words to describe how greatful I am to be here and to learn, we have the most incredible Miestro ever Hermana Castiano, seriously he is a life saver and is so good with us. I will have to send a picture of him soon. 

OHHHHHHH!! so guess who is the new Sister Leaders for our Zone! yep me and my comp got called last week to be sister leaders, its kinda like zone leaders but with the sisters, we just get to go around and visit them and make sure they are doing okay and help them when they need it. It truly was an answer to my prayer, there is a test you can take in the preach my gospel and it can show you things you need to work on or study and such and one thing I decided i wanted to work on is Charity. This is completely perfect for this and I am so grateful for it!!

So funniest thing ever, we had our oldest district in our zone leave yesterday and today, well we have a tradition in our zone that we have a testimony meeting the friday before a zone leaves. well it was during our study time and we kinda got in trouble for it.... funny how the thing we get in trouble for in the CCM is for having a secret testimony meeting right? but it was so good, I got super close to our zone so it was so sad to see them leave, I cant even imagine leaving my district.... I am going to be so sad when I leave them. But i thought that was funny, haha us little rebelious missionaries having a testimony meeting when we should be studying. I love it!! 

We are getting a new district this next week and we are sooooo excited:) one because our zone is so small and we need new people to talk in sacrament so we dont have to talk. and then we want to play the adams family game with them....:) a little CCM hazing if you will but it is fun and we end up getting to know them pretty well after that, Oh and our new zone leader is in our district so we have all the "power" now!! haha right.

I love this gospel, I love being a missionary. I have been so blessed already and I have only been here three weeks. it feel like longer! Its incredible, this is the best decision of my life!!