Week 70 - Be a Friend

[Note from Mom: We were in Hawaii for Grandpa Murray's 80th birthday. 

The time difference really threw me off and before I realized what time it was in Indiana, I had a letter in my inbox from Elder Heimuli :(  ]

Hi Mom! I didn't get a letter from you yet but this week was great!! Here's kind of what happened!

Mon- We went up to Lafayette and blitzed with the Purdue campus zone leaders. After the blitz we stayed there and had P-Day with their zone. We are trying to spend time with other areas and zones as much as we can. But it was funny, on the way up there they gave us the wrong address so instead of going to Lafayette we ended up in Marion...which is WAYYYYY out of our mission!!!! We didn't realize it until we pulled into Marion. So we hurried to get back into our mission boundaries and finally got to Lafayette! Haha!

Playing the uke while blitzing campus

Following pday in Lafayette Elder Redmond and I contacted Less Actives and experienced another miracle. We knocked on a door. This guy came out and was kind of like, "Why are you on our doorstep?" We asked if he was Javan or knew anyone by that name and he said no. "Oh no, he must have moved," we thought. 

While we were there we proceeded to talk with him. During the conversation he really loosened up and was a lot more open with us. Afterwards he took our number and said he wanted to take us out to lunch and talk more about what we believe. So that was a miracle, but another miracle followed when we realized we had the wrong! So we eventually found the right door and met the Less Active member. Turns out he lives with an Active member who served a mission in Georgia from 2008-2010.

Lord of the Rings sword belonging to a member who served in Georgia

We contacted that LA and are going to try to help him get back to church and activities. So we had 2 pretty awesome miracles!!! Other than that we just had dinner with a member and went to FHE with the Indy YSA. It was a good day!

Tue- We went to the office and finished any business that needed to be done. After that we headed out to the field and PC'd for awhile. We found lots of potentials, but again none really showed a sincere interest yet. After that we went out and went Less Active hunting. We went everywhere trying to find less actives. And none of them answered!!! Haha I laugh because they probably saw us coming and hid, but it was kind of frustrating because we had no success finding any of the LA's. Well after trying to do that we visited a family Elder Redmond used to teach who are on date for baptism. They are awesome and we had a great time teaching them and it was a great lesson. After that we just went back to the office to finish up any lasting things.

Wed- We had lunch with a member who was good friends with the family Wimmer and I visited in the hospital. Turned out he was a good friend of Elder Redmond! He took us out to lunch and we just chatted and then went back to our area. We PC'd that day and we talked to a lot of people! However, not many people wanted to meet up with us again :/ But hey, that's how it goes on campus. After PCing a bit we had a lesson with a Recent Convert. We had a lesson on Fear and Faith. I think we sometimes think that once fear passes we can have faith. But faith is the means of overcoming fear. For there is opposition in all things, and fear opposes faith. Faith is the POWER to overcome fear. 

After that we went to Institute and a cool thing happened. We were trying to figure out who to visit when a member, who we have been working with to get less actives in their neighborhood to come back, suddenly turned and almost out of nowhere said they might have someone for us to teach! She gave us a referral for a friend of hers who used to investigate the church but then she fell away. We were ecstatic! We also got another person to visit who is less active.

Thur- It was very cold and dreary (yes, i used the word dreary) and we were really tired the whole day. We had to wait around for some new cars to come into the mission, for about 6 hrs when we got a phone call and SLC said the cars weren't coming anymore :/ We decided we had wasted too much time waiting there so we went out and tried contacting people. Well it wasn't successful and we felt like we had wasted our whole day waiting for cars to come, it was cold, and no one wanted to talk to us. We broke for lunch and I laid down to take a short nap because I was so tired. At that moment God blessed us with a miracle. Earlier that day I had texted the referral the member gave me at Institute. And she called us back!!! We talked to her and she said she wanted to meet up with us in 30min! We were 45min away, so I immediately jumped up and we sped to go meet with her. When we got to her house we sat outside and talked. She expressed how the church was so good to her when she needed help and how the members were awesome. She mentioned she had felt like she was pressured into baptism and didn't feel the same way about church as everyone else around her did. This made her feel guilty because she felt she was just wasting everyone's time, but she still loved the church so much that she was willing to meet with us. After talking for a long time we decided that we weren't going to push her to be baptized but to do the best missionary work technique ever... BE A FRIEND. We underestimate the value a good friend has on people. This girls literally loved the church and the friends she found there. They helped her to feel good at church, and still help her through her troubles and hard times. For no one really cares what you know, but they will listen when they know that you care. So we decided to just help her and be her friend. I firmly believe though that as she continues to meet with us, and with members, and come to activities, the spirit will be there. The spirit will help remind her of who she is and can be. We are excited to work with her some more. After the lesson we had dinner with Bro Toney.

Elder Heimuli the hunter...nah

He is an awesome guy and I love him. Have you ever heard from his son in Utah? Elder Toney? Anyways, we had a great time!!!

Fri- We just had zone meeting and went PCing. Because it's Friday campus is pretty dead so we didn't find much success. But we did have a lesson with a Less Active who's on campus. During the lesson we talked a lot about prioritizing and putting God first. We can't expect to find time for God if He's not the first thing on the list  She really understood that she needed to change and she was willing to come to church. So we are expecting to see her this Sunday. It was a great lesson and after the lesson a member took us to PF Changs!!!! Oh my goodness it was so good:) so that was our day Friday.

Now we are just emailing and we are about to head out into a random area in the mission and try to help out the missionaries there:) So I'm excited for today!

Hope all is well mom!!

Ofa Lahi Atu!

Elder Heimuli