I've Grown A Foot Or Two!

Dear Family!! :))

This week was a great week! It had its ups and downs but I was able to learn a lot. Elizabeth had her interview for baptism on Wednesday and confessed to a Law of Chasity problem, so we are helping her with that and hopefully soon she will be able to get this fixed and be baptized. We really love her and are so excited for her! Other than that we haven't gotten a new investigators this week which was the downside, but we know that there are people out there that Heavenly Father is preparing for us right now to find this week :)

This week i really learned about enduring to the end. In 1 Cor. 9:24-27 it talks about a race and how life is a race. This reminded me of an EFY councilor who told us we need to sprint to the finish line. If we have a goal in mind we are unstoppable and can make it to the end. We need to constantly train ourselves so we can finish our strongest. We are all qualified for this work but sometimes we let ourselves get in the way.

I read a story about this swimmer. She was really famous and has swam 20-40 miles before. She was training for the English Channel race, which was 21 miles. Easy, she has swam that many miles lots of times. As she was racing, the it became foggy and she couldn't see in front of her. After some time, she called it quits only to find out she was 4 miles from the finish line she was angry and decided to try again the next year. She did but she called it quits early again only to find out she was only 2 miles away from the finish line. Many people asked her what happened. She had swam 20 miles before. What was different? She said when she trained she is used to having her dad right beside her cheering her on and telling her how many miles she had left to but when she was racing she didn't have that so she had a hard time enduring to the end.

I can totally relate to this because when I first came out here, it was so hard because I was so used to having you guys cheering me on, telling me where to go what I needed to do and how far I was from the finish line, but being out here on my own it was foggy and sometimes calling it quits didn't seem like a bad idea. Then I would remember our missionary purpose which is to help others endure to the end. I never realized how important those four words were. Enduring to the end. Enduring helps you obtain hope and feel closer to your Heavenly Father. You allow yourself to grow and to change. It’s amazing. Enduring to the end isn't easy but it makes our blessing that we receive after a long trial worth it :)

I wish I had crazy stories to tell you, but nothing to crazy has happened lately. The only one i can think of is the other night while I was sleeping, I heard this rattle noise like something was in our window. I woke up and just laid in my bed frozen. I kept hearing something move around in our window which is just above our beds. I laid awake for an hour and finally when the alarm went off I hurried and switched on the light and right next to my bed was a HUGE cockroach!!! It was so gross I screamed and threw my pillow at my companion and woke her up. She wasn't too happy until I showed her the cockroach. She screamed and got the poison and we squirted him with it until he was dead. After that we were wide awake and ready for the day. It was crazy. But that's it really. My Spanish is getting a lot better! It’s such a nice feeling now that I can understand people :) Not much is happening in Florida. It’s still hot and rainy and tropical! Thanks so much for all your prayers!!

I hope you guys have an amazing week!!! i love and miss you guys so much!!

Herman Heacock