Hola my family!!!

            So this week was crazy and filled with miracles. To start off on Tuesday we were finally going to be able to see Manny. An elect guy we found our first week together. We came back and taught him the restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon. He said okay give me a week to read it and we can talk about it. We gave him a week but after we were supposed to see him, appointments fell through a couple of times but on Tuesday we were finally going to be able to teach him. We were so excited!! Half hour before the lesson he called and said that his mother a law wasn’t going to be there liked he planned and he knew we have to a woman in the house so he said that we could re schedule. We were like no! We will find a member, don’t worry we will see you at 2. So right when we got off the phone we prayed and asked what member was available and who could go out with us. The same person came to our mind, our RS pres. so we called her but no answer! We were so bummed so we tried and called every possible woman in our ward that we could think of. We called like 19 people. It was 5 min till 2 at this point when our RS pres. called us back!! She said she could go!! She said she never looks at her messages but had a feeling she needed too and she was close by!! Such a miracle. Heavenly Father really tried our faith. We went to Manny’s and had an amazing lesson. He had a 5 page outline like he was going to write a paper on the BOM of cross reverences to the Bible. It had questions and things he found on lds.org. It was so legit!!! We had a three hour lesson just answering his questions, sharing doctrine and bearing testimony. It was so good and so powerful! He said he was going to come to church on Sunday with his little girl (didn’t actually come because his wife and him got in a fight about church) and we gave him another chapter to read and he sent his notes to our RS pres. so we can study them for this Friday when we see him. He is amazing and will for sure get baptized!!

Now on to Karl. Karl didn’t get baptized this week. He is going to need some more time. He still won’t try and keep the word of wisdom and now he is going through some stuff. His son said that he might need an interview with our mission pres. before he gets baptized. We were sad but when we went and taught him this week, we brought a member and they became super good friends! He helped us out a lot!! Karl is still coming to church, he just needs to take baby steps and we need to help him gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. We think that once that happens he will just stop drinking wine all together. We are praying for him and hoping that he gets baptized this month!

This week we also got to see Christina who is the investigator that we had that powerful lesson with. I don’t know if you remember, but she is Brazilian and is someone Sister Burdett and Calvo were teaching before I came. We have been trying to get her to accept baptism and come to church for a while. This week we brought a member who just moved into our ward and who is basically her twin and they hit it off great!! We had a powerful lesson about church and the member rocked!! She bore powerful testimony and experiences and invited her to church. She even offered to give her a ride and everything! She accepted!! Christina is coming to church this Sunday!! Such a miracle! Couldn’t have done it without that member!!

We also got to teach Mathew, the nine year old and his sister!! They are so amazing!!! We love them to death!! They are doing so good!! They are now praying every night and have asked their parents, one is a member and the other isn’t, to remind them to pray. They have been telling there parents all about the lessons. We teach them at their grandma’s house because that’s were they go after school until their parents pick them up. They are asking them if they could go to church as a family!! So amazing. We talked to the mom this week and they said they are coming Sunday. They are all going as a family!! We are so excited!! We want to have Mathew and his mom baptized so we can get them to the temple!! They have such a strong testimony!! :)

Mathew and Amanda

Halloween was crazy!! All our day consisted of was food appointments. Yup, we had 4 food appointments!  We were on bikes because we ran out of miles and we had to be in at 7 and couldn’t knock doors after 5, so we only got in harvesting and the rest was food apt!! So crazy!! Getting ready for Thanksgiving I guess. We already got 2 members who want to feed us on Thanksgiving and there will probably be a lot more who will want to. Yeah buddy. We ate like big fat queens on Halloween. Thank goodness we were on bikes!!

Here's Sis. Burdett and I's attempt at being Elsa and Anna on Halloween. No one noticed, but, you know, our heart was in it.

​pumpkin carving!!

District Pumpkins

Our Pumpkin

This last week, you remember that old lady that has dementia who I quote sometimes? Well we did some service for her daughter who lives with her. We helped clean out this shed they have that was just filled with stuff because her mom always kept everything. Let me tell you now mom and dad please throw stuff away don’t keep everything. Her mom kept every letter she ever gotten and just a bunch of junk. There were newspapers from the 1980s. It was just crazy. It was fun to do service for her and help her out. I love doing service. Makes me feel so good and happy! When you are in the service of your fellow men you are in the service of your God. It’s amazing how a simple act can just make someone’s day. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, just a smile or a wave or whatever.

Service clothing! First time wearing jeans on the mission.

 Me and my comp made a goal this week to do ARKS each day. Which means Acts of Random Kindness for everyone that we see. We are excited to see how this goes and hope that it will expand our teaching pool :) The work is hastening and we are excited. Next week is transfers!! Super scared but excited. We will see what happens!!

 I love you guys!! I cannot wait to get my packages!! The weather has gotten super cold. It’s weird, one day it was super-hot and the next it dropped and has been in the 70s and 62 at night. When we harvest at night which isn’t often, but when we do we have to bundle up. Don’t worry I am being safe. The lord is with me :) Love you guys all so much!!! :))))

   Hermana Heacock!! 

Family,

           

The weather here is amazing! It’s getting a lot cooler and nights are perfect! Its only 80! Ha-ha we are on bikes now too and its scary riding bikes here because in the neighborhoods there is no street lights!! I guess Miami is cheap. It’s annoying but thank goodness for bike lights right?

            This week was like a roller-coaster. It had its ups and downs for sure! We got to teach Mathew the 9 year old and his sister. We have been getting pretty creative and have been making puzzles for them. They love it! Their grandma got them a Book of Mormon for kids and they love it!! They are amazing and there are changing. Now they want to pray all the time and read and they remember things so well!! Their testimony is super strong already! We just need to meet with their parents! And try and get them more involved. We met the mom a couple times and she is starting to warm up to us but we want to get there whole family activated and to the temple!! So that's going really good. We love them so much! Makes me miss my primary kids. That calling prepared me for this!

We got to also teach Mary, the member who has dementia. She is so sweet. We were talking about the scriptures and Sister Burdett said "Yeah the scriptures can bring lots of peace" and Mary said "Yeah I like pizza too and hot dogs" So funny. We love her. She always makes us laugh! Her daughter invited us over for dinner today so we are excited for that! Should be good.

 We had interviews with president and they went super good! They always leave me spiritually recharged and pumped up. He said that this won’t be my last time training and that I will train a couple more times. Yay! It’s scary but I am excited! I love president so much!!! He is amazing and really cares and loves this work so much! He is like our mission dad :)

This week okay another funny experience. We were harvesting and knocked on this guy’s door and this 19 year old answered. He had Asperger’s but was sure nice and agreed to pray with us. We asked what we could include in the prayer for him and he said world peace and less people because he doesn’t like to be surrounded by idiots. Apparently there is too much in the world. The whole time I was like oh boy and it’s my turn to pray. This is going to be interesting. I started praying and he would add in his own comments.  I would say please pray that Hersin (that's his name) will have strength and peace and he would say "oh that's nice" and I would say please bless him that he will strive to make a difference in the world and he would say “I will try but there are too many idiots". I would say please bless his family and he would say “my semi normal family” and just stuff like that. It was sure funny.  The whole time I was trying not to laugh because it was so random and that has never happened to me so it was a weird experience. But he liked the prayer and felt the spirit so I guess it worked.

We had another experience while knocking doors. This one is kind of scary. We were knocking doors and we knocked this door and it looked like a nice house. This girl about 22 answered the door with this a knife like a 12” long knife and said “can you please step away from the door, and who are you?” We said "We are missionaries. We just wanted to pray with you" (while baking away) and she was like “oh okay! Can i put my knife down?” We said "uh yeah that would be nice" It was scary and weird. She was super cool though and loved the prayer. Hopefully that's the last time a person tries to kill us.

This week we got to see Christina, the one who we had an amazing lesson with a couple weeks ago and asked her pray for baptism and if it was right. She felt the answer was not right now, but she still loves when we come over and teach her so we went last night and taught her and she said that she has been praying for light and happiness for her kids. The whole time we wanted to say, “The light you are looking for is the gospel and its sitting on your couch!” It was frustrating but it was good spiritually. We decided we are going to teach about temples and families and invite her again to be baptized. Hopefully this time she will listen more carefully to the spirit because we know she needs to be baptized.

This week was slow in finding people. Our teaching pool is really small right now. During language study I was studying conjugations for the word esperanza, which means hope. I saw the verb for hope is esperar, which means to wait. I realized that hope and wait are jointed together. Sometimes we have to wait for the things we hope for. We need to have faith and trust in our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ and realize that good things comes to those that wait. And that Jesus won’t forsake us. He and Heavenly Father know we are having trials and tribulations, but he is right there next to wait.  New investigators will come as we continue to work hard and be obedient. It was a really cool spiritual experience during language study

  

I love you guys so much!! I have a new commitment for you guys too, will you guys say gratitude prayers as a family very night? i know it will be hard but i promise that you guys will be blessed and this week will go smoothly for you!! I love you guys so much!! Thanks for all you do!!! :)) I miss you!!! :))))

Love,

Herman Briaunna

Hola!! 

Glad you liked Meet the Mormon’s!! Yeah I wish we could go see it!! I am so jealous but I cannot wait to see it when I get home! Super glad the church put it out!! Heard they did an amazing job!! Thanks for the song book also! I love it so much!! Learning primary songs in Spanish is the best and helps me learn new words and helps me with my pronunciation

So this week we are teaching this member’s grandkids. Their dad is an inactive member and their mom isn’t a member. There is Mathew and Amanda. Mathew is 9 and Amanda is five. We have had to get pretty creative on lessons with them and it’s hard because we can’t use google or anything so it’s been a challenge but super good! We love them to death and their testimonies are strong! They remember so much!! It’s incredible. We are hoping they come to church this week! 

​this is Alison and Andrew. kids from a less active family! :) they are the best!

We got to teach Karl this week. We taught the plan of salvation and at the end he set himself with his own baptism date and is reading and doing super good the only hard part is the word of wisdom. He won’t give up coffee or wine. And says he isn’t addicted to them and Jesus drank wine. So we are praying hard for him and his son is trying to help him. We will see but Nov. 2nd is the goal!! Its progress for sure!! And that’s all really for this week. We just strengthened our relationship with the ward and visited a lot members and tried to find people to teach. It was kind of slow but we tried really hard! I and sister Burdett get a long great and its super fun! Heavenly Father has really been blessing us. It’s been a great challenging experience. Sorry this letter is going to be short. I don’t have a lot of time. I love you lots!! 

             I hope you all have a good week i will send letters! Since this email was so short!! You all are the best!!! Pray for you every day!! :) 

Hermana Heacock