Basketball!?

Hola! Hola! Hola!

First off, shout out to my girl Carly! Miss Hermana Upton! She enters the MTC this week! Chile is so lucky to have you!

Alright! I've got lots to tell! This week was crazy! So here it goes:

-Guinea pig funeral. Yup. That really happened. 

("We had a funeral for a bird." Name that show.)

-A member came out with us on Tuesday. She's 18 and can't decide if she wants to serve a mission so we let her experience a day as a missionary. It was so awesome! I wish we could take her again, but she leaves for college tomorrow.

-Our Sundae, Sunday Family Home Evening went really well! The kids and the parents loved it! We're trying another one tonight. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of our visuals and we didn't write a song, but it's still cute and it's about love at home.

We're trying it out tonight with the Brooks family. They speak German in their home! HOW COOL IS THAT?!

-Our neighbor Ken had a birthday! We took him a cake. We got to talk to him for a really long time. We're becoming best buds, and soon we'll all be united in the gospel! haha :) It's gonna happen!

-Our neighbor Ryan moved last week, but we got new neighbors! We met them really quickly one day and have tried to take them cupcakes, but they're never home.

-One time when we went to take cupcakes to our new neighbor we decided to take them to the next neighbor over. At first we weren't too excited to do so 'cause he always seems kind of crabby and unfriendly, but we did it. When he opened the door he was super confused, but we said we had cupcakes for him he got super happy. His name is Ryan and now were friends. He'll join the church one day. :)

-One night we could not figure out what to do. Everywhere we went, no one was home. We went home and prayed. After we prayed, we left. We didn't know what to do or where to go, but we know to receive an answer to our pray, we needed to act. We felt like we needed to go to a potential's home. They weren't there. Why did we feel like we needed to be there then? So we went somewhere else close by. A less-active named Debra. She was outside. We asked if she needed help with what she was doing. She said no, but that she needed help packing the next day, because she's moving. We said we would help. Debra told us that before we got there she had prayed that she could find help. Crazy! How cool is that? I love God. He's so cool. The next day we went on exchanges, so I didn't get to help pack, but the sister I switched with is in the ward that Debra is moving to. Crazy! Everything worked out so well!

 

 

-Exchanges this week were awesome! The best part was when we played basketball. We got home for dinner at 6, but felt like we needed to go see a woman named Janet. She has a little less-active grandson named Kashawn that the sisters have been trying to make a good connection with. 

We knocked on their door. 
No answer. 
We went to see a less-active that lives in the same complex. 
We saw her walk in her door so we were like, yes! 
This is why we need to be here. 
Knocked three times. 
No answer.
Obviously, we were confused.
We had another appointment that night at the same complex with the elders. 
She cancelled.
Why were we all there?
The Elders told us to come up to the basketball court. 
As we walked up, all these little black kids started following. The elders know all of them because they've been teaching all of them and playing basketball with them.

Guess who else joined!

KASHAWN!

So, we played basketball.

In skirts, flats and with little black kids.
It was awesome! This sounds crazy, but God wanted us to play basketball.

-We got two new investigators this week! 

Tony (a referral from the Saline Elders)
and Bryce (a referral from the Hill Street Sisters)
They're both great! I love them! 

Well, that's all the exciting stuff!

Scripture study time!

What'd you learn?

I want to talk about Jacob 1:19

"And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day."

We as members have a responsibility to share the gospel. When you do not share the gospel with other, especially those you feel impressed to share the gospel with, the fate or blood or exaltation or however you want to word it, is on your hands.

If you share and they turn it down. Fine. They have their agency and they're responsible for themselves now. 

Don't be afraid to share the gospel. If you do it by the spirit, you have nothing to worry about. People have their agency and will say yes or no. 

I heard somewhere (I can't remember where) that the success is NOT in baptizing someone or having them over for dinner or whatever it may be that you invite someone to do. Success is in the invitation.

Let me say that again.

Success is in the invitation. 

You mean we're successful by just inviting? YAH! That's all God has asked you to do! Invite. Share.

Now I want to talk about a couple other things before I go. 

Self mastery and salvation and exaltation.

Self mastery:

This was the theme in sacrament meeting yesterday. The talks were awesome! We have to learn self mastery. That's a big thing I have to work on! Today I exercised it in my shopping. 

I did awesome by the way!
All I needed was milk, cereal and bread. 
I didn't buy anything extra. I only bought one box of cereal, 'cause I don't need more than that.

Learn self mastery and you will be successful.

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2000/04/the-power-of-self-mastery?lang=eng

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1985/10/self-mastery?lang=eng

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/continue-in-patience?lang=eng&query=

Salvation and Exaltation: 

I won't spend much time on this, but it goes a little bit with the scripture study we did.
EVERYONE receives salvation. Everyone is saved! Everyone is resurrected!
But, not everyone receives exaltation.
Exaltation is going to the Celestial Kingdom and being with God and being like God.
Share the gospel, so we can all be home with Heavenly Father and together in exaltation.

http://www.lds.org/topics/celestial-kingdom?lang=eng

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/salvation-and-exaltation?

The Plan of Salvation is called that for a reason! Everyone is a part of the plan. Everyone receives the blessing of the plan. We are here on earth to work towards exaltation.

I don't know about you, but I want to be exalted. And I don't care if you don't want to be. I want you to be. I want to live with all of you again someday. I love you all so much! Even if I don't know you! I really do love you. But, don't do this for me. Do it for God. He loves you more than I ever could. He wants you home more than anything. 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Heywood

PS

Reading assignment.

Jacob 3: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/jacob/3?lang=eng

Jacob 4: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/jacob/4.13?lang=eng

PPS 

I forgot stuff again. Our house is falling apart. The blinds are broken. The door to the bathroom is broken and the towel rack is broken haha. Love it!

 

And the little girls in Activity Days at church made me a card! How cute is that?!

 

Just Call Me Barney!

Well, what is up my friends? 

I'm good. You know, just living the life here in Michigan.  

 

Here are some things about Ann Arbor that I don't think I told you before. 

-Jay walking IS NOT illegal, so basically people are always running in front of our car.

-The streets here are awful! They are so bumpy. It always feels like you’re on an old wooden roller coaster. 

So, lemme' tell you what happened this week. 

-Paul, a recent convert, finally prayed for us! He never prays out loud because he's scared to, but he did it. His prayer was short, sweet, simple and beautiful. I loved it! 

-We've started teaching Paul the stories in the Book of Mormon. I've started drawing them out and simplifying them so it's easier for him to understand. (I've sent pictures. My mom will have to post them. I hear she's getting better with all of this technology stuff. Love you Mommy!) Anyway, it's fun and cute and it gives me something to do during my free time at lunch. :) 

-We had specialized training which was awesome! We worked on doing roll plays with members. It was super cool and helpful. 

-We visited Clarence and Heidi yesterday. Clarence leaves for Italy tomorrow. He'll be there for 2 years. It was so sad saying bye! But, we got pictures, so that's cool :) I love them so much! 

-Sister Sherrow and I are trying to get really creative. There are a lot of families here with little kids, so sharing our message about missionary work just won't be interesting for the kids. SO we've been trying to come up with all kinds of kid friendly messages and visuals. We have one that we will be trying out for the first time tonight. Here's how it goes (I have to give my Mia Maid teacher credit for it because I stole the idea from her. Thanks Sister Summerhayes! Mom, you will also have to put the pictures in here :)): 

We all like sundaes right? Right.

Well here's some ice cream.

 

But a sundae isn't a sundae without toppings.

I've got some good toppings for you.

How about Salsa?! No?

Ok how about carrots?!

 

What? You don't like carrots on your ice cream?

Alright, here's a really good one. 

How about cheese? Gross? What?

 

Ok how about?

Hot fudge, bananas and whipped cream?

 

Yes?! Yah, I like those too.

Well, this is like Sundays, the day!

Salsa, carrots and cheese are all really good things, but they aren't any good on Sundaes. 

 

That's just like things like shopping, going to the movies or the zoo or playing sports. They're all good things, but they aren't good to do on Sundays.

On Sunday we do things like read our scriptures, pray, go to church, spend time with our families.  

 

Then we will sing a cheesy song that we wrote. It goes like this: 

Sundaes, sundaes

What do we put on sundaes

Carrots, cheese and salsa?

No!

That's no good on ice cream

 

Sunday, Sunday,

We go to church on Sunday

We read and pray

And think of Christ all day

That's what we do on Sunday

 

Just like somethings are no good on ice cream

There are things we just don't do on Sunday.

 

Do we go to the zoo or movies?

No!

Play sports or go to the store?

No!

These things are good

Like salsa and cheese

But we just don't do them on Sundays 

Sunday, Sunday

We go to church on Sunday

We read and pray 

And think of Christ all day

That's what we do on Sunday.

We're the new Barney. What can I say?

I'll let you know how it goes tonight. :)

Something else really cool this week was that I got to see the church in action. Dawn's, a less-active in our ward, basement flooded. So many people from the ward showed up to help her husband, who is a non-member. I was amazed! People who don't even know Dawn came to help. 

Our investigator Danielle moved this week and again, tons of people showed up to help her. It was amazing.

The church is so wonderful like that! I wanted to cry it was so beautiful! Actually, I did cry. Of course I cried. I'm a crier. Most of you know that.

So, the reading. I don't know about you, but I LOVED it this week. Not that I don't every week, but I found so much yummy goodness in these books that I've never  tasted before! I was pretty stoked.

Two big things really stuck out to me.

1. The overall topics of these books were faith and obedience, which go hand in hand.

Jarom 1:9 says "Inasmuch as ye WILL keep my commandments ye SHALL prosper in the land."

And Omni 1:6 says, "Inasmuch as ye WILL NOT keep my commandments ye SHALL NOT prosper in the land."

There you go. I don't think I need to say anything more about that really.

2. Omni 1:26 says, "And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved."

Again, need I say more. Nope. This scripture says it all! 

I cross referenced it with Moroni 10:3-5:

"3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."

The reading assignment is Jacob 1-2

Jacob 1: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/jacob/1?lang=eng

Jacob 2: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/jacob/2?lang=eng

Also! Check this out!  (This is great!  Especially for anyone that doesn’t really know what our missionaries do)

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/mormon-missionary-life

Well, I love you all! Have a wonderful week! 

Love,

Sister Heywood

P.S. Pictures: 

-The one of me with the bee puppet on my lap is with a less-active family. Their mom made that puppet and the lady bug puppet that I'm talking to. Isn't it cool? 

 

-I tried to get pictures of how green it is here, but we were driving, so they didn't turn out too good.

 

 

Everyone Love Ukuleles

Well hello everybody! How you doing? Good? Good! Me too :)

This week was good! It was way better than the last! 

Sister Sherrow told me something really cool in studies. She was reading the bible dictionary (which is super cool by the way) and found that "gospel" means "good news." So I'm out here spreading the good news of Christ! I love that! The gospel is good news! I was so excited when I heard that. :) 

Story time: 

So a couple weeks ago I wanted to use the pepper, you know the spice that goes with salt? Yeah. That. Well, I couldn't find it. I asked Sister Sherrow if she knew where it was and she said she threw it away. Why? Because it was old and went bad. Uh....Pepper doesn't go bad. I was upset because I like pepper. I told her that pepper doesn't go bad and she thought it did. I thought...ok why don't you know that. We even asked the people we had dinner with that night if pepper went bad and they said they didn't think so.

Well, this week Sister Sherrow was using the pepper...the spice. Here is how our conversation went:

Me: Did you dig the pepper out of the trash?

Her: No.......
Me: Then where’d you get it?
Her: The cupboard......
Me: I thought you threw it away!
Her: What? Why would I do that? 
Me: You said that it went bad!
Her: What?!.....Wait...NO! I threw away a pepper that was in the fridge!

Yup, we realized that day I asked where the pepper was she thought I meant the bell pepper, not the spice and I thought she meant the spice, not the bell pepper. We had a good laugh over that. :)

So this week we went on exchanges. I stayed here with our sister training leader Sister Hartley and Sister Sherrow went to Walled Lake (where ever that is).

Sister Hartley and I are way too much alike. We had a lot of fun. She went to BYU-I and has the same track as me. She's a theater major and loves to sing. She's the same age as me. She's the same height as me and she has the same shoes as me. 

 

Let me tell you all about exchanges. They were AWESOME!!!

-We went finding with my ukulele. We knocked and offered to sing to people at the door. It was pretty awesome. Sister Sherrow won't sing with me, but Sister Hartley did, and it was so fun! Although, people might have been weirded out by two little white girls with a "little guitar" and name tags singing church hymns. Haha, whatever. 

-We met Spencer in his yard. He's spiritual and not religious. He's not sure if he believes in God, but he believes in something. He was really nice and we had a good conversation with him. We might not teach him, but he'll join the church some day. I have a feeling. :)

-We met Jason who seemed interested and we went back to teach him on Saturday. I think his mom told him some stuff about us, so he said that he wasn't interested anymore, but I could tell he is. So sad. His mom will come around some day and the whole family will be converted. I know it!

-When Sister Hartley and I were walking down a street there was a guy outside. I had a strong feeling to talk to him. He had his shirt off though which makes Sister Hartley uncomfortable, so I said to the spirit, "if you tell me to talk to him when we come back this way then I will." The feeling I had to talk to him didn't go away, so when we came back I told Sister Hartley we should knock on the door. She said "you know that's shirtless man right?" I said yes. She said ok, and we knocked. He answered (with a shirt on haha). He was about to leave so we didn't have time to talk to him, but he said to come back. His name is Trevor. Funny thing is we knocked just as he was about to open the door. He thought it was weird and of course we were freaking out inside because it's meant to be. He had a cigarette behind his ear, about a million others on his porch and beer bottles all over. He needs us. I'm super stoked to go back. 

Well, that was exchanges. It was awesome!

Some other things that happened this week:

-We knocked on Jim's door. He was eating dinner, but said to come back a little later. We waited too long and ended up knocking when he was about to walk his dog, but he said to come back any time. I have a good feeling about him. He's gonna join the church. 

-We got a member to come out with us for an hour on Saturday (Sister Mitchell, she's the best) and we went and saw our investigator Lorraine. We taught about God's love. We're sneakily teaching all the lessons, 'cause she is too busy to let us in for a whole lesson. She's so sweet. I love her! She's going to join the church.

-I also have to say that I prayed and prayed that a member could come out with us and it happened. I love God. He's so great!

-We have become friends with our neighbor Ken and his dog Sophie. We've noticed that he hasn't been carrying a cigarette for a while and he ALWAYS has a cigarette. The Lord is preparing him. He's going to be converted. 

-Our other neighbor Ryan noticed my ukulele and got super excited. I told Sister Sherrow before that'd be our way in with him, 'cause we knew he played. He's gonna be converted. 

-Unfortunately, we dropped our investigator Chris, but we know that this is best for him. He isn't progressing and he needs to figure things out on his own without us dragging him to keep commitments.

-I've had some health issues. My heart burn has been acting up really bad and I think it's because I got really sick. I also hurt my wrist a week and a half ago and don't know how. My mom suggested I get a blessing, so I did. It said I would heal, that I'll be better because of my faith and my work will not be hindered. It also said that the Lord is proud of me. I needed to hear that. 

We should get to know all of our neighbors and they will all be converted. :)

Scripture study time!
Who did it this week? 

I don't have much to say. Chapters 20-21 are kinda hard to understand since they're Isaiah, but I was able to get one thing out of it. :)

In 1 Nephi 20:2 it says "Nevertheless, they call themselves of the holy city, but they do not stay themselves upon the God of Israel."

Footnote 2b says "hypocrisy".

This scripture told me, don't just say you're a follower of Christ. BE a follower of Christ.

Let me say that again.

Don't just SAY you're a follower of Christ BE a follower of Christ.

We've been given commandments. Follow them, every single one. It doesn't matter how hard or dumb it may seem. Just do it. You will be so much happier. You will be so much closer to God. You will receive more blessings than you have room for. 

I also started reading Psalms and chapter 1 goes with this: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/ps/1?lang=eng. The chapter heading says "Blessed are the righteous -- The ungodly shall perish."

Be righteous. Be a follower of Christ.

This week we will read Enos, Jerom, Omni and Words of Mormon. 

Why are we skipping 2 Nephi? Because I feel like it. I don't remember what's in the Enos, Jerom, Omni and Words of Mormon, so I feel like reading it. I'm even going to post links for you. :)

I love you all. The work is still hard, but I love it. The Lord is proud of me, and that's all I need to know. Even though we aren't finding people I know He's proud and that's good. :)

The church is true. I know it. God has a plan for each of us and we can return to live with Him one day.

Love,

Sister Heywood

P.S.

Shout out to Ryan Defig for coming home!!! So crazy! 

 

Enos: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/enos/1?lang=eng

Jarom: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/jarom/1?lang=eng

Onmi: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/omni/1?lang=eng

Words of Mormon: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/w-of-m/1?lang=eng