30 January 2013

Hola mi familia y mis amigos!
Well the week has flown by and I hardly
know what to write. Sorry if I repeat any of my last email...I cant
remember. The weather here is great! nice and warm! But at times it
gets quite hot when we are exercising outside at 3 pm. But I will not
complain because it is so much nicer that Provo. The people here are
wonderful! They are so incredibly nice and patient is helping us learn
spanish. Speaking with the natives here is the only thing that has
gotten me through the week.
 There are many changes here from Provo
that are hard to swallow but the best change is that we get so much
experience listening and speaking with natives. I am just blown away
by the incredible latino sisters here. Most of the ones that I have
talked with do not come from full member families and some have
families that are not at all happy that they are serving a mission.
Sometimes I forget how very fortunate I am! But through it all they
are still here and smiling. It is a constant battle to understand
because they talk fast and quietly. I feel like the words that I say
most every day are mas despacio. ha! On our third day here we got to
go to the temple grounds to contact. It was nerve racking to walk up
to strangers and share a spiritual thought with them and then ask for
contacts. But it went better than I expected. One of my teachers in
provo told us that a mission is all about getting comfortable with the
uncomfortable. That is SO true! Hopefully it gets easier. Today we got
to do a session in the temple here. It is TINY! The session room was
about as big as my bedroom at home with three pews and an alter in it.
Luckily there were enough of us Nortes there that the session was in
english. Only two people could be going through the veil at the same
time because they didnt have any more workers. Hence it took us almost
40 minutes to get through the veil. My poor companion needed to go to
the bathroom the whole time! On p days vendors come here to sell
stuff. It would be easy to spend all my money but I am trying to
exercise some restrant :) Luckily I found out that when I go to my
mission home I will be taking a bus not a plane so I wont have to
battle the weight of my luggage any more. Santa Ana is only about 4
hours from here. That is crazy to think about! The food here is pretty
good. Mel, you wont like anything though. I look at every meal and
find a least something that you wouldnt handle well :) Most of the
time I feel well but the other day I ran into my first set of
digestive problems....not fun! Hopefully it wont happen often. Well I
better go. Sorry that my punctuation and paragraphs are next to
nonexistent. The keyboard here is really weird and I figure out how to
do an apostrophy and there is no enter button. Weird! I hope all is
well with you all. oh and I hope you got my last email. did you put
it on the blog? my email is weird here too and lost some of my
contacts so sorry if you dont receive this email directly from me.
hasta luego!

I made it to Guatamala!

After a very long, tiring, and freezing cold night and airplane ride I
arrived in Guatemala at 7am yesterday morning. We arrived only to find
out that the CCM was only expecting one of us, not four of us. Since
we caught them off guard the beginning of our stay here has been
spastic, with very little instruction. After a good night sleep last
night though, today has been a much better day. I really miss Provo
right now probably because it was my comfort zone. It is official now.
I am now far from home in a foreign counrty that speaks a different
language. The Lord know that I needed at least one familiar thing so
he has blessed me with the opportunity to stay companions with Hermana
Miller. Thank Goodness! I also am roommates with my old companion
Hermana Edwards so there are a few familiar faces. So far I have
understood the language of the natives pretty well but I think that
that is because they are all talking slowly on purpose for me. :)
Today at lunch I met a sister missionary from my mission. Her dad is a
stake president there (one of the few) and she said she is going to
tell her family to look for me. She, and the other few natives that I
have talked with have been so nice. They try so hard to understand us
and help us with Spanish. I have definitely spoken more Spanish in the
last two days than before. My district in American and my teachers
speak English but the atmosphere just is more conducive to speaking
Spanish mas. This is great! This is just what I need! The weather is
nice. I felt the sun on my skin today for the first time in forever!
Mail is almost nonexistent here but today I got a dearelder from Race
Davis and it made my day! I have even less time online each week than
before so dearelder is better than email. Well I better go. I hope all
is well at home. I love you all!   

Hermana Heap

Still In Provo

Hola!

Guess what?! As I am sure you already know, I am still freezing here in Provo. Monday morning Hermana Miller and I got almost all the way packed only to find out that afternoon that our flight to Guatemala had been delayed until the 23rd. This was a hard pill to swallow! We were so pumped to go, but oh well. Such is the life as a missionary. I got to call home for five minutes to tell Mom and Dad about the change but that was just hard. I now know why we are not allowed to call home very much- it increases homesickness! Even though this was a great let down, the Lord made up for it on Tuesday. We have devotionals every Tuesday night so we were sitting in our seats as normal, when all of the sudden everyone started standing up. Since I am quite short compared to all of the Elders, I couldn't see a thing. Luckily some of the elders in my zone took pity on me and told me that it was Elder Holland who had just walked in. Elder Holland is AWESOME! And his talk was just incredible! I took pages and pages of notes that I wish I could share with you but I will just pick a few points to tell. He said that he has this theory that the only way that the prophets in all the other dispensations were able to keep going even though they knew that their dispensations would ultimately fail, was because they could see ahead to our dispensation. And they knew that we would succeed. They rejoiced because of us. Wow, I thought that was pretty powerful. I have thought about Nephi and how he must have felt to know that his seed would ultimately be destroyed. No matter how hard he worked, they would not succeed in the end. But, according to Elder Holland, he was able to keep going because he had seen our time.

He also told us about the creation of Preach My Gospel. President Hinckley sat everyone down one day and said that there was something definitely wrong with the missionary program because so many return missionaries were becoming inactive in the church. Hence Preach My Gospel was born seven years later. I had always thought that PMG was created to benefit the investigators but Elder Holland said that it was created for the missionaries instead. Because we no longer teach recited lessons but rather have to teach lessons from our hearts and souls, we have to become more converted. He said, "I command you to come home with at least one convert and IT HAD BETTER BE YOU!" Wow! That totally changes my outlook on PMG.

At the end of his talk he said the dedicatory prayer for three newly remodeled buildings on the MTC campus. One is a classroom building and two were residence halls. I don't think that I have ever heard a more powerful prayer in my entire life! Even my branch president said that he has heard many temple dedicatory prayers but none of them were as powerful as this prayer for residence halls! After hearing this prayer, I am convinced that there is no safer place to be in the world than where I am right now. It was blessed to be protected from any and all violence, guns, explosives, natural disasters, and it was even blessed to have angels constantly guarding the doors of these buildings. Wow! It was just and incredible talk and prayer! Afterwards Hermana Miller and looked at each other and thanked Heavenly Father that our flights had been postponed!

We have been asked to prepare five minute talks on a certain subject each week in spanish. Then after the sacrament is over two people are picked to give their talk each week. This is definitely nerve-wracking but because we have been so new, no one in my district had been called yet. It was supposed to be my last Sunday here but there was a big district leaving as well so we all figured that it would be them who would get chosen to speak. I also was playing the piano for sacrament meeting so I definitely was thinking that I would be off the hook. But alas, it was not the case. I got to be the first one up there to give my talk on repentance and forgiveness. All of the other weeks I had taken the time to write out word for word what I would say in my talk but this week I didn't feel like taking the time to do so. I had thought about what I wanted to say and had written our bullet points in English. Therefore, I got the opportunity to learn and grow through standing up that and forming everything that I wanted to say on the fly. It was pretty terrifying! Luckily it didn't go too badly and I even got some compliments from the older district. It definitely could have gone worse.

After the big district left this Monday, our whole zone has only had two districts in it- 15 people. That is tiny! Our zone hadn't gotten a new district since we got here a month ago. Hermana Miller and I were the only girls. But yesterday we got a new district with 6 Elders and 6 Hermanas- this doubled the size of our zone! I still haven't seen them much yet. Two of the girls are our new roommates though. They both barely turned 19 so they are youngens! But they seem pretty nice. One of the best parts of the mission so far is meeting wonderful people. I have really come to like my district and the district ahead of me. My teachers are wonderful too. I hope the I only continue to meet and associate with wonderful people!

I love you all. Thanks for the letters and the prayers. I am definitely getting divine help. I love you all so much! Have a good week :)

-Hermana Heap-

And We Have Pictures!!!

 Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure

 This was taken right before Hermana Edwards left.
The guy in the middle was my first teacher,
hermano Bulloch. He is my favorite!

 Here are some photos! Hermana Miller is the one with
the glasses and shorter hair. Hermana Edwards is
the other one. The ones with elders is my district. I think I 

am going to have to send them one at a time.

Hola!

Another p-day is already here....crazy! Time is definitely starting to go by faster, which at this point I am going to consider a blessing. :) As far as I know I am still scheduled to fly out to Guatemala on the 15th. I have a layover at the LAX from like 9:30 to 12:30pm so hopefully I will be able to call home. Sorry, Mom and Dad, that that is so late. I am preparing myself to go but at the same time I am terrified. I was telling Hermana Miller this week about how terrifying everything about the mission is to me. It is just all out of my comfort zone. An elder in my zone this week asked me why I decided to serve a mission. Once I told him how I got here, he told me that I have incredible faith. Ha! I don't know about that but I am definitely trying.

Days here are like emotional roller-coasters. The day can start great and end great but in the middle could have been so hard. My mood just really depends on the minute. Ha! But once again, I have been very humbled this week. There are so many things that are asked of me that I don't feel capable of doing. I realized that even though I have a testimony of the atonement, I am not sure how on earth I would teach that to an investigator. It is so wonderful but yet so vague at the same time- so incomprehensible! I have made a special effort to study the atonement this week and I have definitely learned and been reminded of a lot. I reread the talk that Elder Bednar gave on the enabling power of the atonement. It is a wonderful talk and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone! So often the scriptures and talks and lessons about the atonement only talk about how to repent (make a bad man good) but there is so much more to the atonement! I am totally incapable of doing all that I need to do here as a missionary but also in life. Heavenly Father knew that so he provided a way to do it- to be enabled. Every day since I have studied this principle, I have prayed for strength to handle my trials and hard things rather than asked the Lord to take them away from me. These simple but frequent prayers have truly made a difference. I have felt so much more calm in lessons where I can't understand what the investigator is saying and have no idea how to answer his questions. What a blessing! I definitely have a testimony of the enabling power of the atonement! And I am sure that that will only continue to grow throughout my mission.

This week has been interesting because my district got completely new teachers. Because the new semester started, working schedules for the teachers changed so we got new ones. I was really sad to say goodbye to the old ones but the Lord knows what he is doing. Hermano Bailey and Hermano Beeston are both great teachers, they just teach very differently. ha! Hermano Beeston came in on the first day and laid down the law. We each have to memorize 20 words a day, 5 sentences a day, read aloud 3 pages from the Libro de Mormon, learn a grammer principle a day, and memorize a scripture in spanish every week. And we are given no time in class to do this so we have to fit it into everything else that we have to do every day. And to top it off, he quizzes us individually every day. YIKES! My stubborn side wanted to just give him what for and tell him that he can not make me do that. Who does he think he is?! But of course I didn't, I just thought all of these thoughts to myself. :) I told him that I would try but in my mind I was thinking that there was no way that this would happen. But luckily I have a supportive district and companion that have helped me to try. And guess what?! It is possible! I have been able to get all of this done every day so far. That, my friends, is call the enabling power of the atonement!

Hermana Edwards flew out to Guatemala this Tuesday. It felt like my arm was being chopped off. How can I function without her? Luckily I still have one wonderful companion here with me so that I am not alone. It has been hard to get used to not being in a trio but there are some good things about it. It is much easier to stay on the same brain-wave as your companion in a lesson when you only have one. It is also easier to all take an equal part in teaching the lesson with only two of us. We do miss her though! She was our dictionary! Ha! Hopefully I will get to see her soon in Guatemala!

Thank you all for the letters and packages! I have been enjoying so wonderful jerky! :) I also have a card reader now so hopefully I can get you some pictures today. I have heard that it only works on the computers in the laundry room though so they will not be attached to this email. I love you all so much!

-Hermana Heap-

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had fun New Year's Eve celebrations because I had none. :) It was just a normal day but that is okay. New Years has never been my favorite holiday anyway. To start the new year, the MTC celebrated by having a stomach flu "epidemic". I heard that over 300 cases of it were reported in the first day. People were dropping like flies! We would walk down our residence hall and it felt like a hospital. Seven people in my zone have been taken out of commission the last two days. YUCK! Thank goodness my companions and I have made it this long without catching it! And for some more good news, after being sick for over 10 days and being without a voice for 7 of those days, I am almost better! I have most of my voice back and only cough a little now. It has been kind of a rough week because of that. Another elder in my zone has the same symptoms and he was diagnosed with bronchitis. What a way to start out the mission! But I have had some miracles along the way. Several of the worst nights I spent awake coughing my guts out, unable to fall asleep because if I breathed deeply I had to cough. Hermana Edwards is a super light sleeper so I felt so bad. After about a million prayers for help to stop coughing I gave up praying for myself and started praying that my companions would be able to sleep through my racked. When I apologized the next morning for all of the coughing, both girls said that they had slept right through it and didn't even know that I had had such a miserable night. MIRACLE!

We have given a few lessons this week to some new "investigators". Osvaldo is an atheist so he had some questions. It is way hard to answer questions when you have next to no vocabulary! After I testified that God hears ours prayers and answers them with peace and comfort he said that he had never felt that peace and comfort. How do you feel it. Wow...how to answer this with the 20 words that I know? I ended up answering the only way that I knew the words to: when you learn more about the gospel you learn more about how to feel this way and what it feels like. Osvaldo is really one of my teachers, Hermano Bulloch, so after the lesson he gave us feed back. He said that my answer was actually a great way to teach the principle instead of just teaching applications. And also that my answer enabled we, the missionaries, to stay in control of the lesson. Who knew that having a limited vocabulary might acutally help be be a better missionary some times? Ha!

The spirit here is a powerful thing. I am amazed by how much it is here, how much it helps, and how much I can feel it. The Spirit is just amazing!. But this week I have tasted the fruits of missionary work without the spirit with me. It did not go well at all! I am humbled even more to be reminded again that I am worthless without the help of the spirit. And I think because I am a missionary, I am held to a higher standard and so I can loose the spirit easier that before. Again this is humbling and gives me much to work on.

My teach Hermano Harris- who was Enrique- challenged us all to memorize the condensed version of the first vision found in Preach My Gospel. Well I felt like he had thrust this challenge on me and I was not happy about it. I struggle with the idea of just memorizing sentences in Spanish when I have no clue what they mean. It is hard to make them feel heartful to the listeners that way. I want to ability to form the sentences on my own. But since I had committed I felt obligated to give it a try. Amazingly there were only like 3 words in it that I didn't know the meaning to. I looked them up and memorized the whole thing in an hour! There is definitely something to be said about obedience. What a miracle!

I had to go down to the police station yesterday to get another background check. I guess El Salvador wants one for the few weeks that I live in Provo while I am at the MTC. Weird! It felt like the biggest waste of time but it was nice because I got to meet the 2 other missionaries in the MTC that came in on Dec. 19th with me going to my mission. The other sister is a native spanish speaker so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn't be her companion. :) My estimated date to fly to Guatemala is on the 15th of January but it is still pretty up in the air if there will even be room for me to go down there. I talked to the travel office the other day though and it sounds like a visa shouldn't be a problem for El Salvador. I only need my passport to fly on there and they will give me the visa when a get there. That is a relief. I will let you know when I hear more.

Thank you for everyones' letters and prayers. Thanks Mom for the awesome key chain and my exercise pants. I hope all is going well there. Is it snowing at home like it is in Utah? We went to the temple for the first time this morning at 6:30 and I swear, it had to have been -10 degrees. It was SO COLD! The snow is nice though. I hope that everyone out there is a lot healthier than we missionaries in the MTC. I love you all!

-Hermana Heap-