Week 16 - Experiment

Hi Mom :)

Luckily our library is open on Columbus Day (maybe because our city is named after the guy. ;)) haha.... that was a lame joke...But aside from that, yes I did get the card (THANK YOU) and I've been exercising every morning (except sundays..Duh). It's been nice to finally get good workouts in. My day seems more relaxed and I feel more confident when I feel less fat. Haha. 

So I sent Hevynn a bday gift, it's not much, but I hope she enjoys it :)

I also hope that she had a fun birth-week (cuz we all know she drags it out for longer than just a birth-day). Full wedding mode!! Haha that's sooo crazy but sooo exciting. My sis is getting married. And someone's actually marrying Bo. I'm sad I'll be missing that but I am really pumped for them! They are a great couple and I love them. 

Seems like life is hectic and crazy, but that's not a bad thing. I've realized that our lives are hectic when we are accomplishing things! A nap is nice to have here and there but being busy is really a blessing from God. He's saying He trusts us enough to give us many responsibilities. So keep it up!

As for Leah, I'm sorry things didn't turn out as planned but we have to remember all of this is really not OUR plan. Just like you've said to me many times, we just have to keep working hard and having faith in God's plan. As long as our choices align as much as they can with God's will, I know Leah and the rest of us will be fine. She's still #1 in tennis to me!

No, I didn't get the football updates! I'm so pumped that Weber won:) Elder Hansen and I are always repping Weber State out here. However, I do have to say that I'm sad Utah and BYU won. Not very charitable, I know. :(  haha I know I shouldn't wish this but I hope they lose the rest of their games. And I hope Weber keeps winning theirs!! So there I probably just jinxed the wrong team.

So last week was crazy. Elder Briggs and I were teaching a Family that I found with a different Elder. We said a prayer and then we started walking to their house and we both thought jokingly, "Hey with all these people we can handout baptisms like Oprah does with random prizes. You get a free baptism, you get a free baptism, everyone gets free SALVATION!" Of course I'm kidding because feeling the spirit is as far from random as you can get. The spirit helped us teach a very solid lesson and invited T (Investigator) to baptism. She accepted. Then her sister in law K and little brother R were both listening in on the lesson and they said, "I want to be baptized too." I kind of stuttered because I was so surprised. I probably gave one of the most informal baptismal invites. I just opened my mouth and said, "So, you wanna be baptized too?" 
They accepted and those 3 are now on date for November 21st. They love it and are progressing well, however T and K also want to get their husbands to join. So could you pray for them too? I can really notice the difference when prayers are involved. 

During General Conference I'm not sure I told you but I had an impression to move another investigator's date up. I don't know why, I thought I was just being selfish in wanting her to move it up. But I asked her to pray and she said she had a feeling to move it up too. So now she will be baptized on Oct 24th! Then she was faced with some more family challenges, however, they are starting to be resolved thanks to the help of your prayers. So thank you and keep praying!

Sadly Briggs went home. His knee was really jacked up and it was getting very hard for him to walk, so the mission department thought he needed to get surgery. He was sad to leave, and I was pretty sad too because we became super close!!
However, he needs it to be pain-free and then he will be good. 

Now my new companion is Elder Ballif and he's pretty cool. He came out with me. He's from St George so I got another Utah companion!

Oh and I left my camera at a member's house for like this whole week so I didn't get the chance to take many pictures...Sorry!!

Here's a scripture I've been trying to "Ponderize" and it's a good one. Alma 32:26-27 ...

26 Now, as I said concerning faith—that it was not a perfect
knowledge—even so it is with my words. Ye cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.

27 But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

I love this scripture because it gives us hope that includes EVERYONE. If we just exercise a little faith, even just a little bit, it will eventually
become bigger. It will swell until our faith becomes so strong that we cannot contain it! However it takes action which is what this means when it says it takes experimenting. I've seen what happens when we experiment with faith and it's just amazing the miracles we witness because of it.

Exercise that faith, act on it, believe in it and we can never go wrong!!

Give my love to the fam!!

Ofa Lahi Atu,

Elder Heimuli