Hey Family!!

Thanks so much dad for what you shared with me about faith and your mission! It gives me great comfort to know that you felt like you didn’t have enough faith either. At the start that’s how i felt and it makes me feel good that you had those struggles and overcame them. It gives me hope. Thanks so much for being an example to me! I love all your stories about your mission so much! I tear up too so its okay you are not the only one. I print out your letters and put it in my letter binder so i can re-read them :)

 I love how you guys have the missionaries over! And help them out! I never realized how dependent missionaries are on the members. We really need their help! I am so blessed to be in a ward where the members are so kind and always fight over who gets to feed us every week.

So I want to share a little more about what I learned about faith this week and some awesome experiences i had.  I read this awesome story I wanted to share. The pioneers were facing a drought and crops were going to die so the bishop asked them to pray and fast. On a particular Sunday the Bishop asked them to come together in the afternoon for a final prayer that rain might come. As one family prepared to leave home a little five year old girl said wait dad I forgot something. She ran back inside and came out with a bag. All the saints gathered together in a courtyard and exercised their faith as they said the prayer. Before the "amen" rain began to fall and soon it came down in bucketfulls. Everyone ran for cover. But the five year old girl and the Bishop stayed. The little girl opened her bag and said “Bishop, would you like to share my umbrella?” She was the only one who brought an umbrella. This five year old girl had total faith that it would rain. In Hebrews 11:1 its talks about how you can’t see it beforehand you just have to believe in the feeling you are getting. I love this story of this little girl and it really inspired me on how important it is to have the faith of a little child. I realized that I want to be an excellent missionary. A missionary that the Lord would be able to say "that is my missionary through and through". At times though we missionaries can get discouraged but it is important that we keep increasing our faith until it is almost impossible to get discouraged.

In the past weeks I have been asking in my prayers for experiences to exercise my faith but this week I decided to change that and ask Heavenly Father to increase my faith. So with that in mind we were harvesting a couple days ago and came across these teenage boys playing basketball. Their aunt was outside and we asked if we could pray with her. She said yes and went to go get some chairs for us. While she was doing that Siater Calvo said to the boys, “Hey, we are going to pray with your aunt do you want to pray with us?” and being teenage boys they were like uhhh, so then sister Calvo out of nowhere was like “okay, if my companion makes this shot you have to pray with us.” I was taken by surprise. I was like what?!? You want me to shoot a basket? I don’t even play basketball! I was scared but she just sat there and smiled and the boys were like okay. I was about to be like no, but then I remembered that I had prayed for Heavnly Father to increase my faith so I agreed. I went to the spot they told me to shoot from which was a good distance away from the hoop, I said a quick prayer and shot the ball and SWISH! I made it! It was amazing. So they prayed with us! It was a great experience and they really enjoyed it.  After that my faith was increased a bunch.  I think when i come back I will be an NBA star haha. I learned that when asked Heavenly Father will help you. I know that He is watching over me and is helping me. I don’t have to do this alone. I have such a strong faith in my Savior that is getting stronger every day and i love it! He is truly amazing and probably one of the best missionaries ever!

I was reading in 3 Nephi 11:18-22 and I love how he has just appeared to the Nephites and he right away is giving the authority to baptize. He didn’t waste any time because he knew how important baptism was. It’s the first step on the road to salvation. And we as missionaries should be just as urgent helping our investigators realize the importance of baptism. I mean, eternal life is at stake here! We shouldn’t be lazy. We need to go out and work to find those people who Heavenly Father has prepared for us so they can live with him again.

Which leads me into my next experience this week. Yesterday before church we did our usual round up where we go and see if those who committed to come to church is still coming and if they are ready. Well, it was quite a disappointing round up. The investigators that committed to church couldn’t come. So we said okay, let’s just go to the church. We said a quick prayer and left. It was about 20 min till church started and all of a sudden 3 our investigators who hadn’t even committed to coming, came! It was a miracle!! Roni, a son of a member who is 26 came, Antonio who we only taught once came, and Dyanna who is the single mom I told you about last week came with her son! Sister Calvo and I both hugged each other we couldn’t believe it! After church we invited all 3 of them to be baptized and guess what?!? They all three agreed to a date!! It was a miracle Sunday! Because we hadn’t had investigators at church in a while or a date for baptism and now we had three!! The lord really blessed us. And we know it was because of our faith and our hard work. We tried so hard this week to be focused so we could reach our goals and we did. So amazing!! 

Sarah

  This week too we got blessed with these awesome Cubans. We were harvesting on onside of the street and all of a sudden we hear, "Hey you guys religious? You guys read the bible?" Me and my comp turned around and was like yes.... then she said  "Come here!" So we went over there and she was like "do you want my number, my address? I need Jesus! My life is crazy and I need Jesus! Can I have one of those Jesus cards? Let’s pray!" She said this all in one breath and I was like, wait what? So we prayed with Sarah and her friend Lazador who is awesome and they said they wanted us to come back. We did and have been teaching them they are so funny and super cool. They were political prisoners in Cuba for 20 years. They are super nice and crazy and always feed us guava pastries which i don’t have a problem with.

Lazador

My interview with the president went amazing!! I just love him so much! I ran cross country and track so we talked about that which was awesome. He is so inspired. One minute we would be laughing and laughing and the next we would both be crying because of the stories he shared about his mission. He served in Brazil and has some pretty cool stories. I know I was called for him. He and his wife are the best. 

Thanks so much fort that scripture on faith! Loved it!! And so glad you guys are loving the letters! I love writing them! I love you guys so much and glad you guys are doing amazing!! :)) 

Love,

Hermana Heacock