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-

Week One

Buenos Dias!

I have officially survived my first week of the mission and the MTC. I hear that it is one of the hardest weeks in the MTC and I hope that it true! It has been very hard but very good too. I have been so blessed with wonderful companions: Hermana Miller and Hermana Edwards. We are all on the same page and are here for the same reason. Thus far we have never argued...what a blessing! Being in a trio is interesting but I like it so far. It is amazing how quickly you can come to love people even when you haven't spent much time with them. I have been sick with a fever, chest congestion, and a cough since Monday and they have been so nice, accomadating, and understanding of my sickness. There are two other companionships in my district- one duo and one trio: Elder Shipp and Elder Harper-Smith and the trio is Elder Read, Elder Guthrie, and Elder Olenslager. They are nice but not really interested in us hermanas. But I think that we will eventually become more united as a district. Elder Shipp is 18. December 19th was the first day that 18 and 19 year old missionaries entered that MTC. According to rumor, the floods are coming starting in January. My stay here could be quite interesting and historic. :)

We have hours and hours each day to study and very little of it is supervised. After so long, it is easy to get tired and just start talking about other things. My district is really bad about this right now! Most of the time it is started by the Elders but I am always interested in their conversations so it is hard to tune them out and keep working. Elder Guthrie is from Florida and has an awesome southern accent. That accent, his facial expressions, and body language are hilarious to me! I have a hard time looking at him and not laughing! It is god to get some laughter in to brighten my day but there are times when it is inappropriate to laugh and that is when I struggle. :)

I feel like we have actually had very little Spanish instruction for how much they expect of us. We have already taught our "investigator" Enrique three times and also Ezekial once. Since we know so little Spanish we have to look up tons of words and have the lessons totally scripted out. That is all fine and dandy but every time you get to the lesson you have to understand what he is saying and asking. Trying to follow the spirit while teaching the lesson is very hard because we have so much that we want to say but we don't know how to say it. My companions don't get too nervous about our lessons because they know that Enrique is just acting but I worry a lot more. We barely finished translating our 2nd lesson in time and I was so stressed about it. As we started out and got into the meat of our pathetically short, simple lesson, all of the sudden I felt calm. I wasn't worried about looking like a fool. I was only worried about teaching Enrique what he needed to hear. I felt this love and concern for him so much that I just wanted to answer his questions and get to know him better. This amazed me! This was only the second time that I had ever even seen Enrique! I know that I could not have cultivated this love for him so quickly on my own. My Heavenly Father is here with me every day, helping me, teaching me and reminding me of his love for me. With God on my side, what can go wrong?!

I have received tender mercies every day! Some of them are as simple as walking into the cafeteria for dinner to find that Papa Johns pizza is for dinner. That completely made my day!! Food has been a struggle for me here. Nothing ever sounds good. And especially now that I am sick, nothing ever tastes good. My wonderful friends at the bookstore have given my many sweets but sweets don't sound good at all ever. I guess that part is a blessing. Ha! Elder Guthrie always gets packages and last night he got some beef jerky and shared it with me. It was the best tasting thing I have had all week! Oh the joys of the MTC.

Thank you everyone for your letters. I love to hear from you! I love and miss you all!

Hermana Heap

ps: I brought the wrong excercise pants. Mom do you think you could send me the black and gray capri pants in my bottom drawer please? I have ran out of time today but hopefully soon I will try to figure out the picture thing.

Feliz Navidad!

Hermana Heap's 1st Mission email:

 

Hello everyone! I am still alive and chugging alone on this Christmas day. My p-day is not until Thursday so I will write you the full time then. This is a special privilege to spend 20 minutes on the computer today. We didn't know that we would be able to email family until this morning. What a blessing. My Christmas has been good so far. It honestly hasn't felt too much like Christmas this past week because we are so busy with everything else here. The only thing that feels like Christmas is singing the songs. Yesterday we had a fireside that was basically a re-enactment of the Christmas story. It was wonderful. There are so many talented people here so the special numbers are often and amazing. After the fireside we got to watch A Christmas Carol and eat popcorn. It sounds simple but to a missionary here, it means the world! ha! Our schedule has been relaxed today. This morning Elder Russel M. Nelson came to speak to us. My seats weren't very close but it wasn't worth the fight. :) His wife spoke too and it was her talk that stood out to me more. She talked about gifts of the spirit and encouraged us to identify a weakness in ourself and then pray for a spiritual gift that would help us overcome it. There is such a great spirit here! Today's lunch was turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravey, and candied yams. It tasted so wonderful! I am so grateful for all the people that are here today, working, for our benefit. We couldn't make it without them.

I have gotten several Christmas cards from the Hunts, Curtis's, Uncle Eric, the seminary, and Michelle Crosby. They decorate my desk quite nicely. Thank you Mel and Wendi for your lettlers. Letters or mail in general is just wonderful. We have been told to tell you that at least for now in the MTC it is best to use DearElder.com. That way I can read them at my leisure during the week instead of having to use my precious little time online to read them. Yes, Wendi, I got your letter on DearElder. Thanks!

This morning in my spare time I opened my presents, which consisted of the Gifts of the Heart form Holly's family (they were wonderful!!), opening a letter from a friend on her mission, and opening the Christmas card for the seminary. What great presents! It is kind of nice to have a simplified Christmas. The MTC presidency also asked us to read all these scriptures about the Christmas story and about the Expiacion de Jesucristo. I have never read so many scriptures directly on Christ on Christmas Day before and it has been great to center on the true meaning of the holiday. Needless to say, this week has only increase my knowledge of how much I need the Atonement of Christ. I could not do this on my own!!

I love you all and hope that you have had a great Christmas Day as well. If you get this today, I hope it reminds you of the true reason for the season. I love you all and keep you in my prayers!

Hermana Heap

ps: for the rest of the day we have a musical talent show, a fireside by Greg Olsen, and get to watch ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE!!!! That is my all time favorite Christmas movie so I am stocked! Nothing makes it feel more like Christmas time than watching good Christmas movies that inspire you to be better and singing songs of Christ. I must admit that I am going through piano withdrawls and miss my Forgotten Carol. Esta Bien!

Names

I have a tendency to get sucked into things pretty easily. Most of the time this happens with books, movies, or TV shows but this time it was genealogy. I have been interested in family history for a while but is seems to come in stages. Because of this interest, I have always wanted to name my children after my ancestors. It has been easy for me to find boys' names that I like but the first four generations of girls' names are a little abnormal so finding ones that I like has been a challenge. My Mom found a way to print up nine generations of a pedigree onto one sheet; it is called a fan chart:

She printed up one for her awhile ago and put it on the kitchen wall. Almost every time I pass it I stop to look at it for a second. The other day I asked my Dad if he had his printed up yet. He had, so I borrowed it and a copy of my Mom's as well so I could sit down and look at them. Well I kind of got sucked in at that point and no longer was it enough to just look at all the cool names. Pretty soon I started writing a list of all the girls' names, a list of all the boys' names, and a list of all the last names. My Mom thinks I am crazy but it was fascinating so I thought that I would share a few of the fun facts with you, my readers, since most of you have the same ancestors as I do.

• The most popular female name was Mary. Between both lines there were 69 women with the first name of Mary! The second most used female name was Elizabeth, which was used 52 times. 
• The top male name was John, which was used 58 times. William came in second, being used 45 times.
• Around 54% of all the names were from the Bible. Wow! I think that says a lot about their priorities.
• My Dad's grandma and grandpa were fourth cousins, making him is own sixth cousin. 
• My great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandma's name was Running Deer. I think that that is the only non-Anglo part of the family.
• Many of the ancestral last names are the same on both sides of the family. Some examples are: Ward, Clark, Lowe, Brooks, Williams, Stoddard, Scott, Lewis, Gray, Harrison, Thompson, and Butler. 
• I must be related to John Wayne because my Dad's line ties into the McClintock line ;) My Mom's line also ties into the Redfords so I am thinking that Robert Redford must be our distant cousin. jk!
• I found two different lines with the last name of Lathrop on the ninth generation. After researching a little more I found that the line does indeed tie into the Reverend John Lathrop line. He is a well known Reformist who lived in England around 1600 who was imprisoned for being at the heart of the Puritan's reform. After two terrible years in prison they let him out on the condition that he move to New England and never return to England. I first learned about him in my Church History class because he was the great great grandfather of Joseph Smith. In my research I found out that there are millions of his descendants alive today. Through this line I am distantly related to Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, Joseph F. Smith, George Albert Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. and Orson Pratt, N. Eldon Tanner, M. Russell Ballard, Quentin L. Cook, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Bush, Sarah Palin, and even Mitt Romney. Who knew!

 It was really fun to look through all the names! And I also now have a list of boys' and girls' names that I like for my future children. Now I just have to hope that my future husband likes them too :)

On a side note, on the family search site I was able to follow on of John Lathrop's lines all the way back to Adam!! Holy Cow! I didn't even know that that was possible at this point. I am just so grateful to all those before me who contributed to recording my family history. Because of their hard work I can sit and sift through hundreds of names at my leisure without having to do any work!

IT'S AUTUMN TIME! IT'S AUTUMN TIME!

I happen to think that autumn is the ABSOLUTE best time of year, hands down! I keep thinking of all the reasons why it is the best, so now I am going to write them down mostly for my own benefit, and hope that some of you agree with me.

• The colors are AWESOME! There is still green on the earth and then the leaves change and create a beautiful contrast.
• The weather is perfect. It is warm but not too hot and sometimes there is a little chill in the air that feels great.
• The lighting in my home is so cool. The sun has just started to shift to the south, shining into all the south windows of the house. It is so direct and warm that Mom pulls the sheer curtain in the living room to save the couch from sun damage. Walking in the front door with the curtains pulled with sun still shining in on the Halloween decorations is just perfect!
• It is harvest season. You work all summer long planting, watering, weeding, irrigating, and whatever else it takes and you are finally rewarded in autumn with all the fruits of your labors. I know that it is a lot of work to pick everything and preserve it all but there is such a feeling of satisfaction to it!
• School starts just before autumn so autumn has a fresh-new-year-of-school feel. You haven't gotten bogged down by months and months of classes yet.
• It is football season. I know, I know, cliche but it is true. I love the excitement of homecoming and Friday nights in the dome watching the games. Even though I don't watch much football anymore, it is still associated with warm fuzzy feelings.
• It is soccer season. It is still warm enough to spend hours and hours outside playing (or watching my nieces play) the sport that I absolutely love! 
• Raking leaves! This is one chore that I really enjoy. I love having a big cottonwood in the front yard that has given me opportunity to rake. I also did some raking in Utah and it is associated with such wonderful memories.
• It is the beginning of the holiday seasons. I loved when my Mom would decorate the house for the holidays. 
• Change. I don't know why I can see the earth changing so much more in this season than the others but I do. Watching the change makes me reflect on my life every year and think about all of my good memories and the things that I have accomplished. Very rarely do life's disappointments pop up during these reflections. 
• It's my birthday! I am sure that this carries quite a bit of wait in forming my opinion about the season, but I hope that after you have read this list you can see that it isn't the only reason.

I absolutely LOVE this time of year!!