Hey dad!! Guess who I got to see this week? We were on our way to church when the elders called and said someone was waiting for me a church. I was like what?!?! We got there and your former  missionary companion, Ian Bow, introduced himself and we took pics. It was such a great surprise!! :) He is so cool! He wants to take us out to eat but our president said no. He said it would be too distracting.

My dad's companion from his mission, Ian Bow, came to visit me!

1     What has been your biggest challenge this week?

So biggest challenge this week, hmmmm. This week was full of miracles, but it was probably getting the members to be excited and pumped to help us. Latin wards are a crazy bunch. For example on this past Sunday, we had an investigator at church and one member started just talking about garments. Yup, I had to cover our investigators ears. Ha-ha

Sunset in Florida!

2     What has been your biggest concern? 

My biggest concern this week was getting our new investigator baptized. I will tell you about the miracle in a sec, but our new investigator is named Julia and she has cancer and is starting chemo this week. She really wants to get baptized on the 14th but doesn't know if she will be physically able to. We have been praying and fasting like crazy that either she won’t need chemo or she will be physically able to get baptized.

3     What has been your biggest success? 

Our biggest success this week…… Well, where do I start?  The biggest miracle happened this week right after zone conference. We were all committed to baptize in the month of Miracle March. So after ZT, we were pumped and ready to go find people to baptize. We decided that we would go and knock in the neighborhood of one of our less actives but when we got to what we thought was her neighborhood, turns out it wasn't. So we decided to pray if this is where we needed to be or if we needed to go to the right neighborhood. After we prayed, we felt that we needed to go to the actual neighborhood of our less active. So we went and started knocking doors. We weren't having lots of success, but then we had a feeling that we needed to knock this one house. We knocked and this older lady in her 60’s named Julia opened the door. All we said was "hi, we are representatives of Jesus Christ." After that she said "come in, come in" So we went in and her son was sitting on the couch with no shirt on and tattoo on his chest. He is 100% Cuban yeah(he is a huge guy). We pray with them, and after the prayer, her son said "I am a member of your church." We were like "really?!" Yup, he is a member, just less active. Because his brother is a pastor at another church and told him to start coming to his church and not ours. His name is Jesus. We asked him “what is God telling you?” He said that he knew that God wanted him to go to our church. Then he shared his testimony which was amazing!!! He said I have been trying to get my mom to go to church and have her believe in God for years! We asked her if she wanted to learn more and she said yes. She said she could feel the spirit super strong and she knew that she needed to be a member of our church. So the next day we went back and taught her the restoration and it was so powerful! Afterwards, we asked her if she would pray and ask if Joseph Smith was a prophet and she did. After the prayer, she said "I know he is a prophet of God" The next day we took her and her son Jesus to the temple!! Temple was beautiful and so amazing. She and Jesus loved it! We taught her the plan of salvation on the temple grounds because she had a daughter that passed away. So spiritual. She is reading the Book of Mormon an hour a day and loves it. She doesn't have any word of wisdom issues. On Sunday she and Jesus came to church and Jesus brought a ton of his friends who now want to be taught and learn more. Seriously, best Sunday ever. My jaw dropped when all his friends came in. Jesus is such an amazing missionary! He is so amazing. Such a great miracle!! Julia is the best and we love her so much! So elect!

Our investigator's Julia and her son Jesus at the Fort Lauderdale Temple.

4     Who has been your favorite person this week?  Why?

My favorite person this week is Rachel Bartholomew. This week I got a letter unexpectedly with no name, only an address. I opened it up and it was from Rachel! I was so surprised and happy. At the very end of the letter she said "When you are feeling down, just remember that that-one-girl-who-you-used-to-babysit-believes in you." So cute! Something I needed to hear! Such a blessing! Made my whole week!! :)

5   What has been your most significant tender mercy?

My tender mercy this week would have to be Jesus bringing all his friends to church. Seriously, such a tender mercy. Best thing ever. Because we have the hardest time getting investigators at sacrament. 

6     What are you looking forward to this week?

I am looking forward to be able to keep teaching Julia!! Just finding more elect people to teach!!

7      Do you have a goal set for this coming week?

This week my goal is to be the best me! This past week while at zone conference in Fort Myers, we learned a lot about how to be our best selves. To work hard and get lost in the work and have fun. Love what we are doing! :) So that's what I am going to be working on :)

Just a little rain...

8      Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

The scripture that has helped me the most is Alma 17:11 It is about putting your trust in the Lord and how we will receive blessings if we do so :) So good!

Trio Power!

Some other exciting news is I am in a trio!! On Saturday we got a call. One of the missionaries is going home so one of the sisters that we live with got transferred up there to replace that missionary and the other sister is now with me and Sister Torralba for the next 3 weeks of the transfer. We are working in both areas! It’s going to be lots of fun! we all get along. The only thing is the other sister is an English missionary so we will gain a testimony of the gift of tongues this week, ha-ha.  But it has been lots of fun so far!! :)))

  Such an amazing week! Thanks so much for everything you all do!! I love you all so much and miss you!! I hope you have a great week!!

Hermana Heacock

1.     What has been your biggest challenge this week?

Okay so my biggest challenge this week was staying positive. We struggled this week and have been struggling to find people to teach. We would pray about everything. Where we could go knock, who we should see, what members to visit and it seemed like we kept hitting a brick wall. It was hard to stay positive but our efforts paid off! I will talk about that in a sec.

2.     What has been your biggest concern? 

My biggest concern this week was myself. All this week I was thinking, am I the one that's withholding us from blessings? Am I not being obedient enough? Am I doing something wrong? So this week I have been praying for things that I need to change and improve on so I can help us qualify for the blessings :) 

Eating with Maria, a less active

3.     What has been your biggest success? 

Here is where our efforts paid off.  We had two really cool experiences:

1.     This week we went on a full day exchange with the STLS and I got to be comps with Sister Calvo!! I was super happy to be comps again with her. So much fun. We were on our way to see a less active, but she wasn't home. As we were leaving her apartment complex, we saw this older lady sweeping outside and we asked her if we could give her a card and she said yes. Then we asked if we could share a prayer with her and she was like "no my husband is sick." We told her we could pray for him,so she let us in. They are a cute older Cuban couple. She is 70 something and her name is Segunda, which means second in Spanish. Her husband is 93 and his name is Armando. We learned that they just had a son pass away not too long ago and that Armando had seen him in a dream. So we shared a prayer with them and taught a little how families can be together forever. They were excited to learn more. It’s a little difficult to teach because Armando can’t hear well or understand much but we are excited to continue to teach them!

2.     Our second miracle happened yesterday. It was after church and we were looking for a place to knock doors. While we were praying, Sister Torralba got the impression that we needed to go to a Spanish grocery store called Sedano’s and contact there. Its pure Latin and we felt like we would have lots of success there, because we haven’t been having that much luck knocking. So we went to Sedano’s and acted like we were shopping and gave a card to whoever the spirit promoted us to talk to. We ended up getting two new investigators, Edwin and Trigenal. They are super cool and elect and want to know more about our church. We have a return appointment with them this week! We are excited to teach them. Also, we were talking to one of the workers and found out that he is a member and just moved here from Columbia and has been wondering where our church was. So we got to help them! Super cool and one of our biggest successes :)

Cutest future missionary ever!

4.     Who has been your favorite person this week?  Why?

My favorite person this week is Sister Orton. Sister Orton is a mother of a missionary who served here and went home a little while after I got here. Her mom writes a lot of the missionaries here in the mission weekly. I didn't know her daughter very well, but she writes to me every week. A little letter from her and then she includes a bunch of conference talks. Talks from devotionals and stuff like that. This week the talks she sent were inspired. It’s just what I needed. The talks were: Only 10 dollars by Emma C Miller, and the other is A Time For Faith, Not Fear by Elder Larry W Gibbons. I really want you to read these talks because they are so good!! Here are some things that i really liked from these talks! From the Only 10 Dollars talk: 

Once in my car, I began sobbing. Not because I regretted giving up the 10 dollars. Not because I felt like a do-gooder, though I did feel good about helping. But I was moved because this thought hit me: “How many times in my life have I come up short? How many times have I taken my case to the Lord in spite of feeling inadequate or unworthy to receive His blessings?”  Heavenly Father doesn’t say, “Again? This isn’t the first time this has happened; you’ve come down this road before. This is so frustrating.” The Father doesn’t call the Savior in and ask Him to explain to us why we can’t have what we so desperately need at that moment. He doesn’t tell us we should have planned a little better. The Savior paid the price for us, and we are saved by His grace, “after all we can do” (2 Nephi 25:23). The man at the grocery store probably gave all he had and needed someone to come to his aid. He needed mercy. Justice meant the items would have to be paid for, but mercy meant that someone else could step in and pay the debt.

Quotes from the Time for Faith, Not Fear talk:

"Life is a test"

"Difficult days are a necessary part of like and give us an opportunity to build our faith and learn to rely on a power far greater than our own"

"President Packer said, faith to be faith must center around something that is not known. Faith to be faith must walk to the edge of the light and then a few steps into the darkness."

"It is hard to build faith in the noonday sun. When the night is dark and the clouds are thick we have the opportunity to put our hand in the Lord’s hand and rely on him to help us"

"Look up not down"

I have found that usually when we face our most difficult test, the Lord is there ahead of us to prepare the way through them"

"The rapids are really the best part"

"This is the lord’s work, let him do some of it"

"Let the lord do some of the heavy lifting"

Those are just some highlights from these articles. Please read the talk! Its super good!! :)

Server made me a turtle. Ahhh

5.     What has been your most significant tender mercy?

Finding investigators

 

Drivin'

6.     What are you looking forward to this week?

Teaching people

7.     Do you have a goal set for this coming week?

Goals I have set this week is to really trust in the Lord, be exactly obedient, positive and love my mission!

8.     Which scripture has had the biggest impact on you this week?

The scripture that has helped me the most this week is D and C 84:88

Thanks for the Valentine's package!

The weather this week has been super cold!! I have been having to wear layers and layers but it’s finally starting to warm up. This week we have zone conference in Naples! A 3 hour drive!! But I am excited and can’t wait to tell you all about it!!  Thanks so much for the valentine’s package!! So amazing, I loved it!! Thanks for all the letters!! Those notes were the best and made me laugh hahah :) I love you all soo much!! Thanks for all you do!!!

Really cold, so we all got out our fuzzy socks

Herman Briaunna :)