I'm Staying in Grand Blanc?!

Just kidding, I'm not staying in Grand Blanc.

I've been here for 6 months and now it's my time to go.

Tomorrow I will be headed to what will probably be my last area.

Of course I'm sad, but I'm ready for new adventures.

I will go where ever the Lord needs me, when He needs me to, without a fight.
I know that God has a plan for everything.

He is so aware of everyone and their needs.

While here in Grand Blanc I have learned a lot.
I have learned how to be me and that's something that I lost for a little while.

For a long time out here in Grand Blanc, I felt depressed and lost.

It was strange, but I overcame it with the help of the Lord and for that I am eternally grateful.
I have been able to truly see the Atonement work in my life and the lives of others.
It has been truly amazing.

I've worked with people who have addictions they never thought they would overcome.

I've worked with people who thought there was no hope, but soon found it through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This church is true and I know that by seeing it change people's lives for the better.

Here's a cool miracle.

We had another busy week and didn't have much time for finding.

Our district leader asked us last night how many hours of finding we did this week.

I said, 5 minutes.

It's true!

We only did 5 minutes.
It sounds pitiful, but in that 5 minutes, God blessed us with a new investigator who has been amazingly prepared to hear the gospel.

It's one of our neighbors.

The funny thing is that the night before we found him, we were talking to the zone leaders.

they had found 2 sweet investigators.

Our conversation went like this:

Me: Man, we haven't found any.

ZL: Well, have you gone tracting?

Me:......no....

ZL: *laughing* Well you have to go tracting to find new investigators!

OBVIOUSLY, I know that, and when we went finding, we found someone who is ready.

I hope you all have a great week!

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Love,
Sister Heywood

Families Are Forever

It's getting cold here.

How annoying.

You know, I miss my family.

It's so hard to be so far away from them with so little contact, but guess what!
I get to be with them for ETERNITY!
We will be a family forever and that's all possible through The Church of Jesus Chirst of Latter-day Saints.

Because of the temple we are sealed together forever and if we remain worthy of our covenants, that bond will never be broken.

I was reminded of this and am so grateful for eternal families because I witnessed a family who had a loss.

There was a guy (we'll call him Bob) who came to visit his daughter (we'll call her Amy).

Bob came up from Illinois to visit Amy.

It was a surprise visit.

They hadn't seen each other for a while.

They're both members of our church, but Amy hasn't been for a very long time and I don't know if Bob is active.

Bob had a heart attack and ended up in the hospital.

His sons came from Utah to see him.

Unfortunately, we got the news last night that they had to let Bob go.

It was so sad to hear that, but I know that Amy will come back to church and will be able to make it possible for her to be sealed to her dad for all time and eternity. :)

We were crazy busy again this week.

The Elders asked how many hours of finding we did.

We did 0. 

Haha, that sounds awful, but we honestly didn't have time.

I'm hoping that this week we will be able to do some finding.

We really need to.

Kay, before I go, here is a cool story.

We were teaching Serena and as we were leaving the church, she asked about modesty.

Well that's kind of my thang, like I'm super obsessed with it, so I was really excited.

Serena is the perfect example of how the gospel changes lives.

She has a desire to dress modestly.

She doesn't fully understand why it's important, but she knows the gospel is true and that she should dress modestly. :)
We are going shopping with her today to help to find modest clothing and to show her how to make immodest clothing modest.

I'm so excited!
She is so solid!

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

Don't forget how much God loves you.

I'd like to invite you all to look for God's tender mercies this week :)

Love,

Sister Heywood

September 8th

Boy was this week a good one!
We were busy, busy, busy.

We were so busy that we only had time to knock on like 3 doors.

Because we were so busy teaching and didn't have time for finding, I was scared we wouldn't find any new investigators.

Well, the Lord blessed us with two and we didn't even need to find them.

One of them, Serena, started investigating in March in Las Vegas.

She went to New York for a bit and then came back home to Michigan.

When she got here, she did everything that she could to find us.

She knows the church is true and she wants to get baptized.

She has a lot of problems with self doubt, but I know she will overcome that and be baptized to receive the blessings that God has to offer those who follow his gospel.

The second one is Cassie.

The Elders have been teaching her.

We love Cassie.

We're basically best friends.

Well, some things have been going on in Cassie's life and the Elders feel it might be best for us to teach her.

Whether this is temporary or permanent we don't know.

But we don't care either way!
We're just excited to teach her! :)

Well, some other crazy things happened this week.

We saw one investigator pretty much every day.

3 of those days, he was drunk.

He's a really happy drunk.

It's pretty funny.

One day I asked "on a scale of 1-10, how drunk are you?"

He said 3, then 4, then 5.
He may have gone up to six.

Haha he's a funny guy.

He came to church though!
That's good :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!
Have a great week!

Trust in the Lord and His timing.

I promise you that it's better than ours.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Love,

Sister Heywood

Jim & Phil

This week has been awesome!
So full of miracles!

We found Phil and Jim this week and they are so solid!

We knocked on Phil's door and he invited us to come back the next day.

We did.

I was so nervous.

I hate return appointments almost more than I hate the initial contact!
I get so nervous.

Anyway, the return appointment with Phil went great!
He said he has been being tried lately and that he's been looking for something, and then we knocked on his door :)
I'm so excited to help Phil :)

Now let me tell you about Jim.

Jim is awesome.

We found him at McDonald's.

Our Sister training leaders committed us to pray for colors this day.

We chose to pray for yellow.

We prayed that everyone who was prepared for the gospel would be in yellow.

So we knocked on yellow houses, houses with yellow trim or yellow flowers.

Talked to people in yellow or with yellow logos on shirts and hats.

Well guess what.

We went to McDonald's and it's got YELLOW!
And that's where we found Jim.

Jim: You look like you just came from church

Me: We're missionaries

Jim: Oh! I have questions for you.

Of course he asked about polygamy. 

he actually kind of thought we did things like the Amish.

He was excited to find out that we're normal haha.

He's awesome.

We've seen him twice now and he's excited to meet again.

This was such a great week!

I hope you all have the best week of your lives!

LOVE YOU!

Love,

Sister Heywood 

A Brother's Influence

Can I just tell you how much I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God has made it possible for all of us to come back to Him some day.

All we need to do is have faith, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end.

This doesn't mean that we have to be perfect, it just means that we when we mess up, we have the faith enough to repent.

When we break our covenants, we have the faith to repent and renew our covenants on Sundays when we take the sacrament.

Enduring to the end doesn't mean being perfect, it means that when we fall or mess up, we keep on going.

This week we had a great miracle.

We went to Gavin's house to teach him about faith.

We prayed that we could have an opportunity to teach his sister Kiara.

We've been wanting to teach her for a really long time.

I almost chickened out of asking her to join us, but God set up a perfect opportunity for me to get what I asked for and so I invited her over.

She joined us!
She listened!
She loved it!
She accepted an invitation to meet with us.

We've seen her a couple times already and we're seeing her again at a member's house for dinner.

She is so excited and so prepared.

Gavin's influence has been really great on his brother and sisters.

I hope that we can eventually teach all of them.

I've been thinking a lot about another brother's influence.

Our big brother Jesus Christ.

If we all followed His example, the world would be a much happier place.

I've seen how Gavin's influence on his sister has made both of them so happy.

It's the same with us and Christ.

Follow Him.

Walk with Him.

I promise you happiness beyond belief.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is truly Christ's church on the Earth.

Christ is the Savior of the world.

I love you all!
Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Heywood

Missions Are Full of Contradictions and Water

So Detroit flooded.

Transfers were cancelled because of it.
I think we hit record breaking rain fall or something.

That's appropriate I guess since we had record breaking snow fall too. :)
I still need a shirt that says:
"I survived the Polar Vortex 2013"

Well, we've got a lot of good things happening and a lot of bad things happening.

That's how missions go.

We can't get a hold of investigators, but the ones we can are doing great!

Mike is going to quit smoking.

Michel is going to get baptized on September 7th :)

We have a less active who's been progressing so well.

She loves the gospel.

Her husband hasn't been so sure that he likes the church.

This week, he officially decided that he wants nothing to do with the church.

Robyn decided to support her husband 100% and walk away from the church with him.

I don't know that I have ever been so heartbroken.

I love them both so much.

It pains me to see them make this decision, but I've done all I can and now they need the chance to use their agency.

Being a missionary really stinks, but it's the BEST TIME OF MY LIFE!
I've never been so tired but have had so much energy.

I've never been so sad, but so incredibly full of joy.

I've never been in so much pain or felt so much healing.

I've never cried harder, and I've never smiled more.

I've never so badly wanted to scream.

I've never so badly wanted to laugh.

I've never wanted to hug so many people.

I've never wanted to punch so many people.

I want to sit, but I want to run.

I want to curse and I want to sing praises.

I want to yell at God and I want to thank Him.

This is the hardest thing I've ever done, but I've never done anything better.

I want time to go quickly, but I want to hang onto every second.

I'm almost finished, but I'm still in the middle of my mission.

Life is ugly and and oh so beautiful.

I want to quit, but I want to finish (and don't worry, I will finish).

Missions are full of beautiful contradictions.

It's a miracle that God lets us come out here.

All us missionaries are still a bunch of snot nosed kids, but we're representatives of Jesus Christ.

That is a miracle :)

I love you all.

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Heywood

Where Am I Going This Transfer?

Are you all ready to hear what's happening to me this transfer?
*Drum roll*

I'M STAYING IN GRAND BLANC!!!!!!!

Yes, the Sister who never spent more than 2 transfers in one area before Grand Blanc, is staying in an area for 4 transfers.

I'm so happy!
I love Grand Blanc!

We've had some pretty great miracles!
Here's my favorite:
So in April, when I first got to good old GB, Sister Watko and I met Jaelyn.

We committed her to read the Restoration pamphlet and call us about what she learned about the priesthood.

Well, we never got a call. :(
I was bummed because I really thought she would call us.

Well, this week, we were walking by her house and she was outside.

She was so excited to see us!
She had been reading the pamphlet and kept trying to call us, but the number didn't work for some reason.

The next day, we were able to teach her and commit her to baptism on September 19 :)

She is so prepared!
I'm so glad God put her in our path.
God is so good!!! :)

I love you all so much!

Don't forget how much your Heavenly Father loves you!

Love,

Sister Heywood