Shout For Joy!

So this week was awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Remember Brandon?
Remember how he started praying on his own?
Remember how he wouldn't ever pray with us?

Remember how he felt guilty for missing church?
Remember how he promised to read?

GUESS WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brandon prayed with us!
At the end of a lesson this week we invited him to pray and he DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE SCREAMED AND DANCED AND SHOUTED FOR JOY THE REST OF THE NIGHT!!!
We called people to tell them what happened!
It was so exciting!
THEN, he came to church and told us he read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon and the Testimony of the Witnesses!
AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

He is changing!
The gospel is changing him and I'm so honored to be the tool God chose to teach him. :)

I know that this gospel is true and that it changes lives.

I know that this is what God wants for all of his children.

I want to invite you all to read the Introduction to the Book of Mormon.

Here's the link--> https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/introduction?lang=eng

Answer these questions and send me your answers :)
I'd love to hear what you learn!
1. What is the Book of Mormon?

2. Who was it written by?

3. When was it written?
4. What does it teach?

5. What was Joseph Smith's role in the bringing forth of the Book of Mormon?
6. How did Joseph Smith get the Book of Mormon?

7. What are the three things that we are invited to do in the second to last paragraph?

8. What does that last paragraph say you will know from reading the Book of Mormon and praying to know that it is true?

I love you all!
Have a blessed week!

Love,

Sister Heywood

THE GOSPEL CHANGES LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!

So first off....HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO MY WONDERFUL DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU TO PIECES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for some exciting news!

WE HAVE A MIRACLE!
We're teaching this guy named Brandon, kay?
He's been in jail before.

Lives in Flint.

Has an expensive car.

Has expensive shoes.

Has an expensive hair cut.

He really likes nice things.

He's an interesting guy.

He cusses like a sailor and smokes like a chimney.

Seriously, he uses the F word just as much as he uses the word "the".

He's cool.

He's come to church and for the longest time he would not pray.

But guess what.

HE PRAYS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AND he didn't come to church because he went out to the bar Saturday night, but we saw him last night and he felt guilty for not coming to church!

He hasn't been reading the Book of Mormon, but he feels so guilty about not coming to church that he was planning on reading the Introduction!
OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Brandon I met 9 weeks ago wouldn't pray, read, or feel guilty about missing church.

For a while, I wasn't sure he would change, but the gospel is changing him!

It's so amazing to see the gospel change lives!

I also want you all to know how powerful you member missionaries are!
We brought an 18 year old in the ward with us to a lesson and she was so perfect!
She read up on the lesson in Preach My Gospel before we went.

She bore a powerful testimony of how living the Gospel blesses our lives.

AND she promised Gavin blessings.

We didn't even have to ask her to do all that.

She brought the Spirit to the lesson in a way we couldn't. 

We need all members to be prepared to go out with the missionaries.

YOU ARE VITAL TO THIS WORK!

The work of Salvation is NOT possible without every single one of you.

Sure, I wear the name tag, and teach lessons, but you can do so much more.

I love this work. 

I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Christ's church restored to the earth.

I know this because I have received personal revelation through prayer.

The Holy Spirit has testified to my heart that this is true.

You can know it too, by diligent scripture study, prayer and church attendance (meeting with the missionaries helps too :))

Gensis 5:22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,gentleness, goodness, faith,

23 Meekness, temperance

Have a good week.

I love you all!!!

Love,
Sister Heywood

Itchy Legs and Bloody Noses

My allergies are killing me!
Oh my gosh.

It's awful, but it's warm outside, so I shouldn't be complaining.

I just can't ride with my windows down anymore.

I have a ton of bug bites too.

AND Michigan is humid, so you'd think I wouldn't have dry skin.

WRONG!
I get like 3 bloody noses a day.

Awful.

I got one in the middle of a lesson this week.

That was fun.

You haven't experienced fun until you get blood all over your shirt and then have to take 10-15 minutes cleaning yourself up in the bathroom, and then you have to sit and teach someone with toilet paper rolled up in your nose.

It's awesome.

The most awesome part about it is that the Spirit was still able to be there :)
It's amazing what the Spirit can do in weird situations.

Well, I've hit a year!
It's been a great year.

6 areas

8 companions

Hundreds of members

and special relationships.

This has been the best year of my life.

I've been able to develop a stronger testimony and become more converted to the gospel.

I'm not the same Emma I was a year ago.

I'm a better Emma.

I'm closer to being the Emma that my Heavenly Father needs me to be.

Because of what I've learned, I will be a better daughter, sister, friend, student, citizen, wife and mother.

I've learned about hard work and picking myself up when I fall.

I've learned how much the gospel changes lives.

Though, I've never seen anyone enter the waters of baptism, I've seen people change all because of the true, restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

I know this church is true.

Though I'm always tired, God has helped me through.

I have learned about faith and repentance.

I know that God loves me and I know that He loves you.

It'll be weird to have to leave all this behind in 6 months, but just because I won't wear a name badge in 6 months doesn't mean that I'm not a missionary.

I want to encourage you all to pray every day and ask if there is a prophet on the earth.

Read the Book of Mormon and pray if it's true.

You don't even have to read the whole book to know it's true.

We see miracles every day.

Here are some.

1. I can actually wake up at 6:30 after having a full day of being mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted.

2. I found something to keep my shoes from smelling.

3. I haven't strangled investigators yet.

4. I survived another bike ride.

5. A less-active we've been trying to see for weeks finally let us in.

6. We had zone-conference and it boosted my confidence.

7. I received a witness that God is real and that He loves me.

There are so many more, but I'll stop there :)

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Heywood

That Moment When....

...you pray your investigator won't get drunk Saturday night so he can make it to church on Sunday.

...you ask someone if they have a belief in Christ and they shut the door as they say "uh. ah. dah...." and you don't know if they do or not.

...you have to make sure your investigator is eating because he's been living off of coffee and cigarettes for 4 months.

...you get attacked by 9 Chihuahuas when you walk in the door.

...you have a million bug bites.

...it's sunny and then thunder storming 5 minutes later and then sunny 5 minutes after that and then freezing 5 minutes after that.

...it's hotter after it rains.

...you're asked if you've ever seen any paranormal activity.

...you help someone plant spinach and you've never gardened in your life.

...you get a watch, but have no idea how to read it.

...one of the Elders hates mushrooms, so you disguise a can of cream of mushroom soup to look like a Sprite can and give it to him.

...a ton of kids have a water fight on memorial day and you stay dry because you're a missionary.

Yup, all those things happened this week.

But here are some even better moments.

These are actually miracles. :)

We had exchanges this week.

I went with Sister Stuart the first part of the day and Sister Tracy the last part of the day.

Sister Tracy and I stopped by Mike's.

We taught him about prayer.

I had a feeling to share a scripture that said "Knock and it shall be opened unto you."
Well, I only had my Book of Mormon and I have no idea where that would be in the Book of Mormon.

I quickly turned to the index and looked up knock.

I didn't find what I wanted, but I found what I needed.

I found something even better.

2 Nephi 9:42

"And whoso knocketh, to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them."

I was about to read it, but the Spirit said, no.

So I didn't.

The Spirit said to listen to Mike, so I did.

THEN Mike said something and the Spirit told me what scriptures to share with him.

Now I don't know the scriptures very well and I can barely tell you where anything is, but I know the fist like 6 chapters really well.

I had a desire to use the Book of Mormon to help Mike and the Spirit helped me to call upon the little knowledge I have to help Mike.

It was awesome!
I shared:
1 Nephi 2:7 about thanking the Lord:

And it came to pass that he built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord our God.

And 1 Nephi 2:16 about asking God questions:

And it came to pass that I, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in stature, and also having great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore, I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers.

It was so cool!
THEN later the Spirit said, "ok, now it's time to share 2 Nephi 9:42."
So I did.

I haven't felt the Spirit like that in a long time.

It was nice :)

ANOTHER MIRACLE:
We were knocking doors and you know, a lot of people will talk to us through their screen door.

It's so rude and annoying, but oh well.

We've started to just hold the screen door open so that when people answer the door, the screen door is already open. :)
We also talked about if someone opens the door a little bit, we would just open it the rest of the way.

Well, we did that, but on accident haha.

We knocked on a door but we didn't open the screen door because the regular door was already open.

Michael came to the door and opened it a little bit.

Sister Watko and I just happened to open the door the rest of the way for him. 

Why? I don't know, but we did and it was a good thing we did.

He said "do you want to come in?"
We said yes and we went in and taught the Restoration.

He says he's not ready to have a relationship with God, but we're going back this week to see him again.

Pretty cool!!!!

I love this work.

I know this church is true!

I love you all and thank you for your support!
Have a blessed week!

Love,
Sister Heywood

Gimpy Foot

This week was better.
Not much happened, but it was good.

We got to see all of our investigators which was nice.

I hurt my foot.
I don't know how, but it hurts.
I have to wrap it, elevate it and take lots of Advil.

A foot doctor in our ward thinks I may have strained my arch.

It's no bueno, but I'm surviving.
Knocking is hard, since it hurts to walk, but I know it will get better and I'm trying to pace myself so I don't hurt it worse, 'cause then I will be hurt longer.

Anyway, we got to see Elder Holland!

He's this guy right here ---v

I have to be honest.

I was not excited to go see him.
I don't know why.

He's super cool and he's an apostle, so why wouldn't I be excited?
I have no idea.

But I'm so glad that I got to see him though.

We had a half hour drive to Clarkston to pick up the Sisters there.

Then we drove to Holt, Michigan for transfer meeting, which was about an hour and a half.

Then we drove to Lansing, had the meeting and then went back to Clarkston (we got ice cream on the way) and then went home.

I got to shake Elder Holland's hand.

Now, we had to do this in an organized fashion because there were like 300 missionaries.

We had to weave through the pews to make a line and we had to quickly shake Holland's hand.

Well, I stepped on Sister Watko's shoe before we got out of our pew and then when we went through the next pew and tripped over everyone's bags and then that made me step on Sister Watko's shoe again and then with her trying to put it on we tripped over more bags.

I don't know how I got out of the pew.

I just tripped my way through.

And on my way back, one of the sisters was crying from laughing so hard.

SO when we got to Elder Holland, we were hiding our laughs and so how did it feel to shake his hand?
I don't know.

Cool?
It was too fast and I was a little distracted.

I was worried that this would change the Spirit for me, so I prayed really hard that I could feel the Spirit.

I happened to have my patriarchal blessing with me and I got to study it before Holland came.

I'm so glad I did.

He talked about different impressions that I got from reading my blessing and helped me to better know how to act on those impressions.

It was pretty sweet. :)

I learned how to be better, how to have courage and how to be better converted.

Holland didn't talk about how to teach better and stuff.

He taught us to convert ourselves, so then we can help convert others.

It was great.

He talked a lot about repentance, which I've been really trying to work on.

I'm grateful for what I learned from the Spirit that day.

I know that President Monson, his counselors, and the 12 Apostles are prophets, seers and revelators. 

I am grateful for them and all they do.

I know that God loves me.

I know that He love you too. :)
We are so precious to Him.

He wants all of us home and I know that the way home is through the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I know that Gospel has been Restored to its full form by Christ, through the prophet Joseph Smith, into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior and through His Atonement, I can be made clean.

I love you all and pray that you have a great week  :)

Love,
Sister Heywood

D&C 6:36

Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.

Knock Knock Knock

Sister Watko and I are staying in Grand Blanc one more transfer!
YAY!

We get to see Elder Holland tomorrow.

YAY!!!!!

This week was rough, or so we thought.

We did a lot of knocking.

Like, a lot.

One day, that's all we did.

We went out at the beginning of the day and knocked until lunch.

There was a house that we didn't knock, but I felt like we should and it bugged me all through lunch.

SO 20 minutes into lunch, we went and knocked on the door.

They weren't interested.

We knocked the rest of the street and then went home and finished lunch.

Then we went back out after lunch and knocked until dinner.

It was 4 straight hours of knocking doors and it was raining.

We taught 2 lessons.

No return appointments.

Then we went and had dinner.

After dinner, we visited Brother Gleason and he boosted our spirits :)

I love him :)

After that, we did some more knocking.

We knocked for 2 hours.

Taught two lessons.

4 lessons in 1 day.

I've been able to teach 4 lessons in 1 hour before.

This was Saturday.

A lot of people were home.

We got a lot of slammed doors, but we kept chugging along.

I wanted to cry, but I didn't.

I squared my shoulders and lifted up my head and kept knocking.

I didn't want to, but I needed to.

Yesterday, we had a lot of appointments with members set up.

We even committed one family to take the lessons like my family did, so that they can be better prepared for missionary opportunities. :)
I'm super excited.

Our one teaching appointment we had set up with an investigator fell through, so guess what we had to do.

Knock.

We went to a street where some potentials live.

I started to have a better attitude and was actually really excited :)
We had a goal to find 5 new investigators and were even challenged by our zone leaders to do so, and we only had one, so I was pumped to find 4.

I knew we could do it.

My companion was pretty down though.

We pulled over to talk and to rest since we hadn't had a chance because we were running from appointment to appointment all day.

As we were sitting there, a member pulled up next to us and said,

"Hey Sisters! Nap time?!"
We laughed because we were actually planning on taking a 5-10 minute nap.

He said "we're having cake if you want some."
Well, we had already eaten cake, but I'm not one to turn down cake, so we gladly accepted the invitation.

We could use a little boost :)

The family asked us about our week and we told them about Saturday:
Them:"How was your week?"
Us: "It was rough. Especially yesterday."
"What happened yesterday?"
"Well, we knocked all day and taught 4 investigators"

(We said that kind of timidly because we were disappointed and embarrassed. AND both the mom and dad had served missions. We expected an "it's ok" or an "oh")
Them: "Oh my gosh! That's awesome! That's way cool!"
They were so excited for us and we were confused.

Us: "Oh really? That's good?"
Them:"That's really good!"

It gave us the confidence we needed and reminded us that we are doing a great work and every effort is important and every little thing is a miracle.

After that, we got a new investigator and we didn't even need to find him.

The Elders found him for us :)

I love you all.

Have a blessed week :)

Love,
Sister Heywood

Pure Exhaustion!

I'm tired.

Really tired.

BUT GOOD TIRED!

I've been having to work really hard to feel the Spirit and it wears me out!
But I love the feeling :)
Being warn out by the Spirit is awesome!
That guy and I are like best buds!

It's been kind of hard for me to feel and recognize the Spirit lately though.

I don't know why.

It's annoying, but I'm working on it.

We had a really cool specialized training this week teaching us about finding and strengthening families!
Super cool!
I'm so excited to put what I learned into action! :)

This week we saw Ronnie with a member who used to be his neighbor!
It was awesome!
The Spirit was there and I was worn out from it for 3 days.

The member we brought was perfect.

She was bold and loving.

I really hope we can help Ronnie.

He is really depressed from his wife's death.
I don't blame him, but it's so sad to see how obsessed he is and how much it's ruining him.

He doesn't fully understand the gospel yet and how he can find peace with his wife in the eternities.

I'm so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel that gives me peace in times like that.

It's ok to be sad, but it's happy to know that families are forever :)

I love that guy :)

We had a really cool experience where we found 3 investigators.

We went to check up on a potential and her cousins were over.

The potential didn't listen, but the cousins did.

We started to teach them the Restoration with the pamphlet and it was way rough and awkward.

Part way through we said "Hang on, Let us get something."
We have these cups that we teach the Restoration with sometimes and we happened to have them in the car.

So, we taught the girls with the cups and they loved and understood it.

They are super excited to read the Book of Mormon!
We get to see them again this week and hopefully with their parents :)

The amazing part, is that we had a goal to find 3 investigators that day.

We didn't have much time to find because of the training and weekly planning, but the Lord blessed us and we found those 3 girls and one more :)

God is so good! :)

I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so glad I got to talk to my family!
I miss them so much, but I know I'm where I need to be :)

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Sister Heywood