Hola Familia!

Gosh, hearing about those cheesecakes makes me miss home! They sound so good! Wish I could eat one. I tell my district all the time how you make the best cheesecakes in the whole world. I am so proud of Eben and Kerragyn both! They are so talented! Tell Eben I command him to do the mile! Tell him that I know he will be awesome at it, it wasn’t my first choice either to begin with but I am so happy I did it! He will be surprised how easy it can and will become if he starts now! Wish I could see them run and play! Oh Danyon I miss him so much! When I show pictures of him to my district they say he looks just like me and is my twin. I miss his funny sense of humor, especially when times get hard, he always knew how to make me laugh. Tell him to keep working hard in school and in sports as well as his job. It is hard to juggle of that but I know he is strong enough to do it!  I wish I could be there to watch some of his games! He is such a basketball stud. Oh American Eagle! Love that place! Tell Danyon to tell everyone HI for me!! 

The investigators I have been talking about, some are actual investigators and some are just role playing so it’s really cool! I can give almost a full lesson in Spanish, I still have some more to learn but I am getting there.  So, this week let’s see where to begin, haha uummm, we got two new investigators so now we have three. It’s hard but I love it and the spirit they have. We have one who is ready for baptism and we will probably set a date this week. 

My first fast Sunday here went great. I thought testimony meeting would be awkward because our branch is small but the spirit was so strong and even though it was all in Spanish and you couldn’t understand what they were saying sometimes, it was probably one of the best testimony meeting I have been to in my whole entire life. It’s weird to think that my first Sunday out in the field will be a fast Sunday. After this week I only have 2 more weeks and two days left! It’s crazy. In Relief Society we learned about testimonies. It was such a good lesson. I learned that a testimony doesn’t come from others, it comes from the Holy Ghost. In Mathew 16:15-17 is one of the shortest but most powerful testimonies. I learned in Moroni 10:4 that to obtain a testimony you must ask if these things are true. In John 7:16-17 you need to pray, read the scriptures every day to obtain and maintain that relationship with Christ. After we obtain that testimony we are on our way to be being converted. What it means to be converted is you offer your whole soul (Omni 1:26) you don´t fight against God (Alma 23:6-8) you serve him with all your heart mind and strength (D&C 4:2). I love talks like that. Then later that night we had a devotional from Jeffery R Holland who is my most favorite ever!! 

Anyways, he gave a great talk about missionary work. The previous dispensations and prophets of old were able to go through failure, torment, and torture because they knew they were laying the ground work for us, that they would be a part of the success we would have because this dispensation that we are in will not fail. If the ancient prophets stood here today they would say that we need to be better than them which is scary because these are our heroes, people we have looked up to since primary! But they are right, we have more missions and we are going to more lands so we need to be the very best missionaries we can be! We need to invest ourselves in this work for our investigators sake, for our sake and for our dispensations sake. We aren’t commanded to leave our mission with 100 converts but we are commanded to come home with one and that one better be ourselves. In order to be the best missionary we can be we need to be converted. If you think about it we are God’s investigators. He wants us to repent just like we want out investigators to repent, he wants us to accept the gospel just like we want our investigators to accept the gospel and so on. After we convert ourselves we need to go out there and astonish people! (Mosiah 27:11-19) the root word for astonish is tondra which means thunder. We need to go out there and be bold and shake people so that when we leave they will be like “who were those amazing missionaries and where did they come from?” Another thing I learned from his devotional is why missionary work is so hard. It’s hard because it was never easy for the savior. Every step was hard for him! The atonement was hard for him. A disciple of Christ walks the way he walks, says what he says and weeps the way he wept. We aren’t going to bleed from every pore or have to carry our own cross but we are going to have to feel some of that pain and hardship when we get rejected or told that our investigators don’t want to continue with the lessons. We need to understand that we are going to struggle because there has never been an easy mission. Salvation is not a cheap experience, a price must be paid and that price is sacrificing everything. We are the future, the saviors on mount Zion :) Sorry, that was so long but I just had to share that with you because I just loved it. Anyways, want to hear something cute? The other day at gym I was standing outside watching a game of Frisbee and over on the tennis courts were two little Latino boys about 5yrs old. They were playing soccer and what not, well after 15 minutes of being outside one of them ran up to me and asked me if I would play with them. So I did and I have to say it was so much fun! It made me miss all my little cousins and sunbeams. They were so good too! I was able to communicate with them pretty well also. I hope I teach a lot of families because I just love kids so much and there sweet spirits:)

   My companion and I have been getting a long great!  I couldn’t have asked for a better one! As for food I still cannot eat the meat and have to use the bathroom every ten minutes but I am hoping that changes once I get back into the states. Thanks for pictures and the Skype account I will send you guys a friend request or add you as a friend today. So I will Skype you guys at 3:30 my time for you it’s like 1.30 your time :) I cannot wait to see all your beautiful faces! I love you all so much! I love being here on a mission and know it is where I need to be! This work is so amazing and so many blessings have come from it! :) See you all in 3 days!! 

Love Hermana Heacock <3 

Hola Mi Familia!

This week has been a bit harder just because i have been sick :(  I think the food is finally catching up to me, haha. I feel like Kevin, I have been on a salad and fruit diet. The meat doesn’t settle with my stomach very well at all. Oh well, other than that, this week has been great!! We did see President Uchtdorf’s talk! It was really inspiring! I loved it so much! We have devotionals on every Sunday and Tuesday and I just love them. The spirit is so strong all the time. Being on a mission is awesome because you’re on a spiritual high all the time and always so happy!

That makes me happy you had the sister missionaries over for dinner and dad would talk the whole time ;) haha. It has been pouring over here too. This week we have had one storm everyday but they are just like Florida’s storms. They only last like 15 minutes then it’s gone, but they are so cool. There is always thunder and lightning but it’s a warm rain so you don’t get cooled off.  It’s fun because they said that when it rains the sisters can take off their shoes and walk in our bare feet, so we go puddle jumping a lot.

Aww, Kavir! I miss him and American Eagle! I am so glad that he reads my blog.  AE sweatshirts are the best just saying ;) I love the pictures of Danyon and Kassidy! They are so cute and Danyon is a stud as always! I hope he had fun!

Yes I can wait for my skirts :) We don’t accept packages anyway. Only ones from mydearmissionary.com. It’s okay. I am doing good with my clothes. Everything is working out perfectly.  Thank you so much for helping me prepare!! Yeah, I bought a laundry bag and yeah, I can buy candy at the store, but it gets old after a while.  I do have to say, they have some awesome cookies and chocolate bars stuffed with Nutella. I really want yogurt. That’s what I have been craving this week. Haha. But the food here is good and they have fresh fruit every day, fresh mangoes which is awesome.

That’s funny that Kerragyn said that. By the time I get back they (Kerragyn and Danyon) will be best friends! Tell Eben that I wish I could be there to watch him run track!! Tell him not to get discouraged and keep trying new events till he finds what fits for him. It took me pretty much my whole first season to find out where I fit and what worked best for me. It just takes time and soon he will be a champ! If he runs like me tell him to do distance! Is he still doing hurdles? He has a natural born talent he just needs to find what he likes best.

Sam said he loved the temple and I just cannot wait to go and see it and tell very one about it!! We get to go to the Mexico temple next week, but it’s closed so we will just be going to the visitor center which people have said is amazing, I am excited. Some missionaries here they said they have to travel a couple days to get to their temple and it just makes me so grateful that we have a temple so close and we can go anytime we want!

This week also has been a good learning experience for me as well. I learned what it means to really love your companion and the blessings that can come from it. The first few days were great but after being with the same person 24/7 for two weeks it can get really hard and soon things start to annoy you. I got frustrated one day with my companion and was kind of holding a grudge. But, the thought “love your companion” kept coming into my mind so, I said a prayer and I am really glad I just let it go. If I didn’t we wouldn’t have been able to have the spiritual experience we had that night. We were planning a lesson for our new investigator (we have two new ones now) and we made some bullet points on what we wanted to teach him. Then as we were doing our personal study, I kept having the thought that we needed to teach the atonement so I was like “okay” and studied that. Well, when we came together to share what we had studied and to work on our lesson more. I told her what I had felt and what revelation I had received and she said she received the same revelation. If we hadn’t forgiven each other we wouldn't have received that revelation and wouldn’t have known what our investigator needed to hear.

The Spanish is coming a long so good! My goal with our new investigators is to not use any notes, which was kind of hard to give up, but I had the coolest experience. A couple days ago when we were teaching and all these words kept coming out of my mouth and I remember sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, I am speaking Spanish and it makes sense! Ha-ha. It’s still a little broken but I have learned that as you study and exercise faith that Heavenly Father will bless you and bring all what you studied to your remembrance.

            Last Sunday was our first actual Sunday. The zone that we are in is our branch and we just meet in a seminary class room and have Sacrament. The scary part is that you don’t know who is giving the talk until they announce it. So you have to have one prepared every week just in case they call on you. In Relief Society we learned about disciples and who they are and what they stand for. A disciple means someone who lives according to the teachings of Christ. Jesus called us to be his disciples. Disciples are not people who just follow Christ because everyone else is doing it or because it looks fun they follow Christ because they want to follow with all their heart. In John 6:60-69 it talks about how some of his disciples left him because it was too hard but in verse 63 its says when things get hard the only that will help is the words of the spirit. I have learned that when things get hard we need to stay on target and remember what we are here to do. We need to be a disease, an annoying disease that will not go away.  Fight until the work is done. I have also learned that started are many but enders are few. What you told me mom about how I can always do one more day as stuck with me and has gotten me through the days I felt like giving up, "It is our work and our glory to bring to pass the eternal life of man" I took out the immortal part in that scripture because Christ has already taken care of that part.  It’s my job to work on the eternal part. Elder Christofferson said in a devotional on Tuesday that its better to be trusted then loved and I love that because it’s true. You can love the people you are teaching and they can love you but if they don’t trust you won’t get anywhere.

            I love and miss you guys so much!! Did you get the pictures I sent last week? Miss you! Hope you guys have a good week!! :)) Love Hermana Heacock 

My first week at the Mexico Missionary Training Center (MTC)

Hola!! 

     I miss you guys so much!  The days go by slow but the weeks go by fast. I am learning so much! I just love my companion Sister Batemen. We get along so well and have become fast friends. I love my district, they are sooo awesome and my zone is pretty sweet!! We all just connect so well! The second day was all orientation, class and eating. It really is eat, class, eat, class and eat some more.  I've lost 10 pounds already because I am only limited to 3 meals a day no snacking or junk food:(

      The MTC is soo big. It's 91 acres so we get a lot of walking time. It's so beautiful here and the weather is amazing! We do have random storms that are crazy with lots of thunder and lighting but I love it because it reminds me of home. Yeah, we felt the earthquake. We got the after shock of it and it lasted for like 5 minutes but it wasn't that bad. We didn't know how big it was until a couple days ago. The world could be on fire and we wouldn't even know it ha-ha! 

     The Spanish is coming along great! It's hard but I can already pray in Spanish and bare my testimony and have a very small conversation. It's amazing how fast you learn the language! We have been teaching an investigator and at first it was really hard and my companion and I were flustered and quickly forgot everything we learned. As we went on it got better and I knew that what I was teaching was right. After that the lessons got soo much better. One lesson I forgot my notes and I started freaking out! So, I said a prayer and all of a sudden everything I had studied came to my remembrance. I was able to speak in broken Spanish ha-ha and understand him. It was amazing and the spirit was so strong!! Yesterday he committed to baptism and it was the most amazing thing ever! I love teaching. It is really hard and they talk fast but I can understand them for the most part. Sometimes its a game of charades ha-ha!
  

     The food here is very Mexican. Every Tuesday we get Costco pizza which is amazing and the other day we had hamburgers and I scarfed down two. I miss American food but Mexican is good. Okay, so the milk here is soooo good! It's kinda sweet and ice cold. I don't think I will be able to drink our milk again I have like 3 glasses every meal. And guess what they have Nutella!!!!! I have Nutella on toast everyday ha-ha! 

     Easter was good we had a lot of really good devotionals. I kept wondering what you guys were doing all day. I am so glad that I am serving, this is so amazing. A mission is the foundation for your life, it is really true. I love being a representative of Christ. Our life is a calling and our calling is to return to him :) 

     Oh, I almost forgot, I got a package this week from one of my friends Dillon Stratton! We only accept packages from  mydearmissionary.com. He sent me a dozen Krispy Kremes and it was amazing!!! Everyone was jealous, it made me happy. Yesterday I sprained my thumb pretty bad playing volleyball and it swelled up like a balloon it was fun, not! It's okay now though. Don't worry I am doing great and cannot wait to hear back from you next week!

Love you!! Hermana Heacock

Sister Dunn, I met her at the Phoenix Airport.  We are in the shuttle to the MTC.

 My MTC companion Hermana Bateman

A good friend sent me Krispy Kremes! Thanks Dillon!!