Briaunna got to see the Weeks during her lay-over in Dallas!

Raelene wrote:
"She looks great and is excited to get to Florida.  We were able to visit for about 20 minutes or so and she called Carleen on our phone.  I think she needed to see family.  She didn't want to break our hug but I think she is excited too.  It was good for the boys to see her too and know she's going on a mission.  We asked about Mexico and she said it's crazy with police with machine guns and shooting sounds all night.  The boy's eyes got wide."

Brother and Sister Jones sent us a message form the MTC!

"My husband and I are Senior Missionaries at the Mexico City MTC.  During the last six weeks I have grown to love your sweet daughter.  She will be a wonderful missionary!  I miss her already!"

HI!!

            I love you guys sooo much! I cannot believe that it has already been 6 weeks! It goes by so fast! And I know once I get to Florida it will go by even faster! I am so excited to see the Weeks and I really hope I get to call you once I get into Florida.

            Not much has happened this week at all just packing and saying goodbye. We said goodbye to 3 of our Elders yesterday, which was sad. Who knew that in 6 weeks you could get so close to a group of people? It’s crazy. Oh, we got a new district in our zone and one of the Elders is really into archery. So we had a nerd conversation about archery it was great. He says he shoots a prime bow. I have never heard of those but he said they are amazing so maybe dad can look up some info on that.

            Let’s see oh I have to finish packing too, haha ugh, packing! But I am so excited to go to Florida and teach people and meet my new companion. My mission president sent me a letter and I will stay in the mission home that night and start my work on Wednesday!

            I spoke yesterday in church and gave the whole thing in Spanish except for a story from the Ensign. It was 10 min. Haha, you know me, 5 min talks just never were my thing. I miss you guys and cannot wait to tell you all about my adventures next Monday! I just am so happy and excited!! AHH and nervous and all those other feelings of being a missionary! I love you guys so much and I am so thankful for your prayers. I can feel them. They really help me!! I will send you pictures in a sec!

Love you all bunches!! Thanks for everything, miss you guys. Hermana Heacock 

We sent Briaunna a Greenie package to meet her when she arrived in Florida!

Hola Family! 

            I cannot believe that in just four days I will be leaving! Aahhh, soo crazy time has been flying so fast. They said that we will be able to call once we got to the mission home so if I don’t get the chance to call you at the airport I will call you once I land in Florida but, if everything works out I might just get to call you twice. I also get to email you Monday before I leave. I am really sad to be leaving my district, we have gotten so close it’s crazy. I am so excited to teach and get immersed in the culture! It just makes me so happy and excited!!

            So tell Raelene that will meet them at baggage claim and that I cannot wait to see them! :)    

            So cool that you guys went fishing! Haha, that reminds me of when you would take me and Danyon fishing we wouldn’t catch anything either, story of our lives right? But it was still so much fun! Wish I could have been there. And as for you Danyon, I am so proud of you and the choice you made to get your patriarchal blessing. It is an amazing event and I hope you write and share some of the stuff that was said. It’s such a spiritual moment that you will remember for forever. Oooo, fifth grade camp haha yes! So much fun. I hope he takes pictures so I can see there outfits and fun stuff! That was such a good idea with the hats! Too cute! He will have so much fun! 

            Now this part is for Karley, maybe you can forward this part to Aunt Janae for me. 

   "Karley, I am sooo sorry to hear about your legs, I know how devastating and hard it is to be told you cannot play volleyball. For me, I was crushed when I couldn’t run. It’s hard watching others succeed and move on to better things when you’re stuck with crutches but one thing that got me through was staying positive and always smiling. Instead of feeling like woe is me, I decided to try and finds ways to help my team and to still be involved. It helped me so much, it was like doing service. It made me happy to help those I loved succeed. You are a strong girl and I know getting back to normal will be long and hard it defiantly won’t be easy but endure to the end stay positive and don’t give up. You got this. I will be praying for you. And hey, crutches come in handy when brothers are being annoying ;) I believe in you! I love you lots Karley!!"

            Tell Eben and Kerragyn that I am so proud of them for their accomplishments in their sports!! They are doing sooo good!!

             Let’s see, this week has gone by really fast. I finally got bit. The other day I woke up with 4 bites on my face, four on my back and two on my arms. Yup, living the life haha! This week three people in our district had birthdays so our branch president brought us pepi! Yeah, I was so happy. Tasted yummy. In gym today I took out a chunk of my finger bled like crazy nice good raw skin. Haha, what can I say, I am a bit accident prone.

            One of our investigators committed to baptism this week which was awesome! Cannot wait to teach all real investigators! 

             This week I learned of the importance of reading the scriptures. We must read and study them so we can gain personal revelation and testify to our investigators of the power they have and that they too can receive personal revelation. The more we learn about the gospel the more power we gain to fight off the fiery darts of the adversary.  We really need to feast upon the words of Christ (2 Nephi 32:3-5) A quote that I like is "when we want to speak to God we pray, when we want him to speak to us we read the scriptures" His words are spoken through the prophets. He will teach us and our investigators as we listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. The scriptures can give us comfort and uplift us and inspire us. The scriptures aren’t always what you think they are. As we really study them they can become more to us or there meaning can change, “By his words and his example Christ has shown us how to draw closer to him" - Henry B Eyring. Our relationship can grow with our Father in Heaven as we read them. These are his words and teachings meant for us in our day. If the savior were among us today he would teach us from the scriptures as he taught when he walked upon the earth. Robert D Hales said "Search the scriptures for they are they which testify of me. A testimony borne by the Holy Ghost, for by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things" Now how do we study the scriptures? There is no one correct way to study the scriptures. Study is an act of faith on our part believing that we will, and can receive answers and personal revelation. I love this thought, Let it rain from heaven in revelation on what you should study. We need to spend time in the scriptures every day, many answers to difficult questions are found by reading the scriptures. I love this quote “if you want to give light to others you have to glow yourself" - Thomas S. Monson. We also had a district meeting Sunday and one of the questions asked was “why could only Christ preform atonement?” Why, if someone lived their life perfectly, why couldn’t they perform the atonement? And the answer is this, because Christ was called and prepared in the pre earth life to come and atone for our sins. Christ came to earth, he knew his purpose and what he had to do so he lived his life as such to accomplish his purpose. We have gone through the vale and don’t really know our potential and sometimes our purpose but Heavenly Father does, he knows what we can become. If we let him help us. I love all the meetings we have here. The point of this gospel is to make bad men good, good men better and to change human nature. How blessed we are to have the grace of our Heavenly Father. His grace is what gives us strength in our lives it’s what kept our pioneer ancestors going and it is what keeps us going on the right path so that we can return to live with our Father in Heaven again :) Hopefully I can pack as good as mom and get everything to weigh the right amount because now I have books. I love you guys sooo much! Oh how is work going for mom? Thanks for the quotes dad! I love quotes they are my favorite. I love and miss you all sooo much! I will have pictures on Monday!! :)) 

Miss you guys!

Love, Hermana Heacock

One of my Latino friends! His name is Jama! Pretty cool right?! He is awesome!:)

Hola My family!! :)

Gosh, first off, those pictures of the cheesecakes are amazing and I want one so bad. They look sooo good :)) I am so happy I got to talk to you guys too! It was seriously the best day ever! I wish you could have seen me but, being able to see you was such a blessing! Saying goodbye was so hard! I am so thankful for you guys. I am so blessed that this whole time I haven’t been homesick. Some people here have been really homesick and it has made it really hard for them.  Every time I think of home I get a comforting feeling knowing that you guys are alright and that families are eternal and I will be with you guys again :) I loved hearing all your stories and how things are going at home. It gave me such peace just hearing about the regular everyday things you guys have been doing. I am so sad to hear that you guys are sick :(( I pray that you guys will feel better soon.

 On the bright side I have been hardly sick this week. I am pretty sure it was the milk which makes me sad. But, oh well haha! Thanks so much for telling me about your lesson! I really miss your lessons. You do such an amazing job mom! I really loved President Uchtdorf’s talk on Easter. That missionary he talked about was amazing and so humble and a big example to me. I also love, love that quote from President Spencer W. Kimble. It kind of ties into what we talked about in relief society about the desires of our hearts. In Moroni 7:13 it says that which is of god inviteth and enticeth to do good. In Moroni 7:17 it says the devil persuadeth no man to do good. The devil doesn’t give up, he will try and bring us down because we are trying to build up something he wants to destroy. We signed up for this we are going to have hard times. We should always seek for joy and happiness. In D&C 11:13 it says we need to shut off the devil and listen to the spirit who will lift us up and let us know that we are important. We need to strengthen our thoughts. In D&C 6:36 it says look unto me in every thought, doubt not, fear not. Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith :) We need to try and turn off our negative thought and count our blessings. In Philippians 4:13 it says we can do all things through Christ. Feel hopeful because the lord will be with us on our right and on our left. With his help we are capable, we can do what he has asked of us :) Sorry that was a lot of scriptures, but it was such a great lesson. I love Sundays here they are most defiantly my favorite. 

Later that evening we had a devotional by Richard G Scott and it was about prayer. I learned that communication with our Heavenly Father is a sacred privilege. He put us on the earth to succeed not to fail. We can talk to our heavenly father anytime, anywhere. He is our wise loving Heavenly Father and we are his children. There is nothing about us that he does not know. He loves us all perfectly and wants to help. We need to share our deepest feelings with him. We can take all the time we need. We don’t need an appointment. In D&C 8:1-2 and 10-11 it talks about how he is conscious of our needs and can give us all the answers. Answers come through peace, you can sense that upsetting feeling, and when you feel no response. When he answers no it is to help you not make any mistakes. Always trust him. He is our perfect father, he knows what is best for us. Answers may not always come right away but they come. The stronger your faith the greater your character. When you have no desire to pray that’s when you need to pray most. Pray with gratitude and thanksgiving. What God has done in your life is for your eternal good. He will always answer in a way that is best for you. Sometimes our answers are delayed because he wants us to stretch and grow. I just love prayer sooo much! I love being able to talk to my Heavenly Father. He is one of my best friends :) 

      
We have been teaching our investigators this is week and the lessons have been going great! In one of our lessons with our investigator we were teaching him about the Book of Mormon and the importance of it. After reading a part of the introduction of the Book of Mormon, he asked “what does praying with a sincere heart mean?” It was definitely a challenge to explain it to him in Spanish and he sort of understood, haha. So I will have to work on that but, it was still a really good lesson. Every Wednesday we have what is called TRC, it’s kinda like tracting, We teach a bunch of volunteers one after the other the first lesson and our fist investigator that we met with just couldn’t understand me. I knew I was saying the right words and in the right order but every time I talked she would say “No say”. Which means she didn’t know what I was saying but she could understand my companion just fine. I got so frustrated and mad at myself because there was all these things I wanted to say but couldn’t.  I was so close to crying, so I said a little prayer in my heart and right when I finished, my companion turned to me and so I just started to bear my testimony. When I finished she said she could understand me perfectly. I was so grateful for the power of prayer and for the help Heavenly Father gave me in my time of need. 

  Today we got to go to the temple!! Well, the visitor center anyway, haha!  It was soo amazing and cool and I wish you guys could have been there with me! Mexico is super scary though. They drive like crazy people!! They don’t really have lanes, and people just merge when they feel like it and people just walk right out into the middle of the street! There is no speed limits so they drive however fast they want. It’s just crazy and it smells so bad too. But it is also very humbling because these people have hardly anything.  People in some parts of Mexico City live in shacks that are so rundown. We saw a McDonalds on the way there and man I have never wanted fast food so badly! Haha! Right when we land in Texas I am looking for a fast food place in the airport. Haha. 

Speaking of Texas, is Aunt Raelene and Uncle Ryan coming to see me? Oh, and you should tell Danyon and Eben to individually email me! Oh, it’s so cool too that all of Mexico is dirty and gross but right when you see the temple it’s clean and beautiful. It looks so out of place but the temple is sooo pretty here and I want to come back after my mission and go through it. :) A quote I heard this week that I love is "baptism is the gate, the temple is the goal, the members are the key, the doctrine of Christ is the path, and the atonement is the only way" :) So, also when I leave I get to call you guys. It will probably be either when I land in Texas or when I get to the mission home so just be ready! I love you all sooo much!! Thanks so much for all your support and help!! :)) Until next week,

Love Hermana Heacock :)