Week 45 - Did Your Siblings Serve Missions?

Hello again!!!

Yup it's pretty busy here haha. It's weird because we are on a different schedule than the other missionaries. We study whenever we have the chance because we are usually in the office by 9am and doing all the work we can. 

My first day on the job with Elder Clark. What d'ya mean there's a rule that says I can't wear aloha shirt and shorts?

Dinner with the office missionaries before transfer day. 

Cleaning up after dinner with Elder Mortensen (Morty) and Elder Wimmer.

I must be good luck (that's why everyone's got a hand on me)?

Dinner before Morty left to go back to Utah

Then whenever President needs to change schedules or assignments or anything we immediately drop everything and do it right then and there because he receives revelation for the mission. We usually come back home around like 9 or 9:30pm at night. So it can be a pretty long day. We travel to different areas as well to help out, deliver stuff, go on exchanges, or conduct meetings. It's a lot of fun and just a little bit tiring. But probably not as tiring as having to write a son who never writes you back, huh mom? haha!! Seems like work never stops for you. And you are giving that stake talk too, huh? Your email kinda cut out so I kinda missed some things. 

Hema gradutated!!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy for him! The first graduate too!! First missionary, first father, first in a lot of things. I'm proud to have an older brother like him and just all of my older siblings in general! Whenever I'm with other missionaries and we are with members they always ask all of us, "Did your siblings serve missions?" 

Most of the missionaries say that they're the oldest so not yet, or that their siblings didn't choose to go on missions. And I always am proud of the fact that all of my older siblings did. I love to tell people about Hema, Helam and Hevynn because I'm thankful for their examples and everything they did! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be here if not for their examples.

I love the temple! As APs we get to go with the departing missionaries to the temple :) So I get to be in the temple more than I have ever been before!!! Which is great! There's alot to learn in the temple. I hope that your inspiration comes, mom :)

As for things I need, I don't need anything. So don't worry about sending a package or anything like that because you already have a lot on your plate. The investigator in Niles did get baptized last week :) i was soooooo happy!! No investigators to pray for so far, just pray for us to find opportunities to teach. Oh and as for Mothers Day I can call you:) What time would you like me to call? 

Tell Aunty Lani that I love her!! I pray for her and the family! Tell Hannah congrats from me :) I tried to write everyone handwritten letters but my handwriting was horrible so I'm going to have to just email everyone:) haha!! Sorry this letter is so short mom but you know I gotta run. Love you!

Ofa Lahi Atu

Elder Heimuli

Quick Pic

[Note from Mom: I was surprised to get this today. Wonder if I'm really going to have to get used to these short 40-word emails? Guess it's better than a 0-word email!]

Elder Wimmer, Elder Mortensen (he's home now) and Elder Clark. Wimmer is from Sweden, Mortensen is from Spanish Fork and Clark is from Colorado.  I had some time so I thought I'd send you a quick pic :) Love you mom!

Left to Right (I think):  Elder Wimmer, Elder Mortensen, Elder Heimuli & Elder Clark

Week 44 - Whenever I Have Available Time

[Note from Mom: I received this very short one-liner from Elder Heimuli while I was attending a stake missionary fireside tonight. I had replied to his Saturday email, asking for his new address and teasing him about being taken out of the field and put into the office. I asked him if he was in trouble or something, haha. Guess I'll have to get used to these short emails from now on.]

Haha, close. I'm AP now, so I will be emailing you whenever I have available time.  But count on Saturdays from now on.  Love you!  Just send the packages to the 777 Sunblest one :)

Elder Heimuli, Elder Mortenson, Elder Wimmer and Elder Clark with President Cleveland

Saturday? Quadpanionship

Hey mom!!!

So I will be emailing you on Saturdays from now on haha. Because I'm an office missionary now (yay :/ I think) but the office staff and everyone here are great! It was funny because President called me on Thursday during lunch and told me I was to leave immediately and go to Fishers Indiana... so that was a quick transfer in Niles Michigan! So now I'm here and now I am SUPER busy lol. I will just apologize in advance right now if I have shorter than usual letters mom. However funny thing is I am now in a Quadpanionship.... haha, only for this week because next week one goes home and then I'll just be in a trio. Which is probably best because funny things happen when you have 4 missionaries together!!

Quadpanionship: Heimuli, Mortenson, Wimmer & Clark

Thank you for sending the videos and photos of Hendrix and Kiegan! I am loving them haha. I constantly watch them now! They are just the cutest babies I've ever not seen haha. As for this week we were able to have one of our investigators get his baptismal interview done and he will be getting baptized tomorrow :) yayyyyyyy!!!!! 

Also I received some letters from Uncle Hema and his family. It made me super happy to hear from them. Tell them thanks for taking the time to write to me. The kids are all studs from what I hear! Congratulations also to Leah, she will kill it over at BYU Hawaii!! 

How are things going at home? How's work? How's the family? How your calling going?

Sorry for the short letter mom. I will make sure to send pictures and a longer letter this week! I promise!!

Ofa Lahi Atu!

Elder Heimuli

Week 43 - Before You Hated Their Guts

Hello :)

Elder McCloud is good!! In fact things here are great!!!!

What a clown

Things at home seem like they are doing a lot better! I hope Helam didn’t get injured at this year’s game haha! He probably didn’t because he was probably beating everyone else down. I hope Aunty Lani is doing well. I got to hear from her :) she is strong, stronger than me. And why would you say your challenge is to follow the promptings of the spirit?

This week was great! We went on exchanges with Plymouth and did service with them this week. I got to go with an Elder Morgan who actually came out with me on the same day.

With Elder Morgan

Doing service I got to be with Elder (Jared) Clark who played DE for Woods Cross. Heyyy, no one’s perfect :) It’s funny what good friends you become when you’re on a mission, when before you hated their guts because they went to a rival school.

With Elder Clark from Woods Cross High School

So him, Quick and I love to reminisce haha!!! However the service was great. We cut wood for a Brother Richarts who coached for BYU in 1980. He knows Vai and said to say hi from him. What a small world.

Then this weekend we had the opportunity to go to stake conference. Elder Randall K. Bennett and Elder Michael V. Beheshti spoke at the conference. It was amazing. During Saturday stake conference Elder Bennett loved having the audience involved. So there were only three 5-minute talks (awesome!) and the rest of the time he turned to the audience.

Here's what he did after each person spoke. He'd say "Ok, you know what you’re doing wrong. Now, how are you going to change?" I thought about that the whole time. How am I going to change? We all recognize our faults and recognize what we do wrong, but what are we doing to fix those issues? We get into a habit of thinking that since we recognize what we are doing wrong we can just wait for someone or something else to change us. No. We have to do it! In the Gospel of Jesus Christ true repentance is when, after recognize what we’re doing wrong, we IMMEDIATELY stop it! Then we do all we can to make up for it. So if we are not doing something right, STOP IT and move on. 

Needless to say I was inspired and I thought, "Yeah, I need to go tracting for 4 hrs now!!!! LETS GO!!!" Wouldn’t you know it, tracting that day did not go that well. In fact we pretty much got shut down at every door and I thought, "Well.....crap..." haha!!

However we saw a pretty cool miracle. We knocked on a door and a guy came out and said, "Oh you guys again. My mom’s a Mormon and she thinks she should send missionaries here to convert me. I’m not going to be converted, forget about it."

We paused and looked at him and said, "We just want to share a Christ-centered message with you if that’s ok." He looked at us and told us to go out the side door.

We talked for a bit and of course he was not interested, but then his sister-in-law came outside and said, "Oh thank goodness!!! I’ve been praying for you guys for weeks!!!"

Turns out this lady moved from Florida just a couple months ago and was homesick. She was converted there and knew that the missionaries could help her feel better and find the nearest church. So this week we will be visiting her and taking her to church. It’s just funny how miracles turn out, and it’s often not always the way you think. 

Anyways other than that this week has just been another great week of missionary work :) I love it out here!! I’m so blessed and so thankful for this gospel! I pray everything goes well at home and I love you all!!!

Proud uncle showing off his beautiful planner cover

Ofa Lahi Atu

Elder Heimuli

P.S.  Thank you for the packages :) I bought milk and we downed the cereal! haha Thank you!

Week 42 - Are We Slacking

Hello again!!!

Poor babies :( and Harry too, can't forget that kid haha! It's even worse because you're out of town haha, but it's okay because Dad's there. And the babies are looking so cute!! They are growing fast too! How's everyone doing at home? As for what's happening out here it's going well. This week it snowed a lot so tracting was interesting.

However things are going well. The man we have on date is doing well, in fact he said he wanted his father in law to baptize him on Sunday so now the new date is April 24th! That's the Sunday before transfers so it'll be a nice way to finish out if McCloud gets transferred. Oh yeah and since the MTC has now extended the missionary stay an extra week, all of our dates coming home and this transfer were extended by another week. This Sunday was fantastic because 3 of our investigators including one who dropped us came to church! We got to teach them and they came during fast and testimony meeting which is the best time to have people come to church!

Well for this week we have been studying a lot out of the New Testament. Hebrews chapter 11 is one that I've focused on because i have been working on increasing my faith. Hebrews 11:6 says that we cannot please God without faith. So think about our church duties and responsibilities. We do it out of duty, which is okay, but are we also exercising faith while doing it? During tracting I tend to get in a habit of thinking, "Well, it's time for 3 hrs of people shutting me out, calling me names, and bashing with me."

I'm too slow to remember that I should be more faithful, that I need to believe and trust that God is in charge of His work and that these minor things won't even matter once we find The One. I'm sure THAT is what pleases God more, not just doing things because we have to. We do it because we believe in Him, because we love Him and want to do His will. I know it sounds generic and I suck at explaining things but I hope you can get the gist of it all, haha!!

As for priesthood responsibilities, the word that comes to mind is worthiness. You know keeping covenants, going to the temple, magnifying their callings and stuff like that. I can't tell you just how sad it is to see priesthood holders who don't live up to their potential, don't take their family to church, don't lead their family in prayer. They settle for less, they don't progress so they keep their family from being blessed not just now but for eternity. Priesthood holders who understand God's plan and really do love their family would step up and take their place. It's a pattern I see a lot so if I had any insight or advice for your talk to the priesthood leadership Mom, it's just to stay worthy. It's a choice, if we are willing to do the little things and stay worthy everything else falls into place. It just does, it's miraculous!!

And I would also like you to share this with the family... I love everyone!!!!!!! If I could do something over at home I would spend more time with the family. We are always caught up in work, school, sports, friends but we seem to put our family on the back burner. We expect our family relationships to always be solid when the time comes and we need them the most. Unfortunately, it won't. If we fail to fortify our families, if we fail to support one another, if we fail to love one another and spend that time nurturing our relationships it is destined to fall apart. In Alma 55 the Nephites are trying to figure out how to get their brethren out of the Lamanite fortress. The Nephites decide to give the Lamanites wine to make them drunk. Slowly but surely they did it. When the drunk Lamanites fell asleep the Nephites threw weapons over to the prisoners and armed them. Then when the guards woke up they found a whole bunch of Nephites armed and ready inside their fortress and it was too late to stop them.

Are we slacking in our family relationships? If we are then we are like the guards who fell asleep. I’m not trying to say that the Nephites are bad at all but Satan will throw everything he can into our home to wreck it from the inside when we aren’t paying attention. He will use stuff as simple as fighting, jealousy, laziness, to things more serious like church inactivity, internet, pornography, you name it. By the time we realize it our home has been taken over and we can do nothing about it. So please do all you can to keep the family and the home a strong and fortified place where the spirit can be. Pray daily, read daily, take time out of our busy schedules to make family a priority. If we do, we are promised a family foundation that can't be moved! I know you're thinking how weird. Houston is single and he's preaching about family, it's funny how much I think about my family and my future family even way out here on the mission. I'm sure Hema and Helam and Hevynn all thought the same thing knowing they would have their own families some day. Anyways I love you all and I pray for you guys all the time!!!

Ofa Lahi Atu

Elder Heimuli

Week 41 - Fix It

Hello Mom :)

This conference weekend was the best! We just went to our chapel here in Niles to watch it. But man what an uplifting experience, I felt even more motivated to go out and work even harder. One of my favorites was also Elder Renlund’s talk, it was very inspiring and enlightening to me. So earlier this week we had MLC which is the conference for all the leadership in the mission. We focused a lot on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in doing this I really started to understand the transition between Faith and Repentance. 

Mission Leadership Council

Elder Heimuli's first MLC

Elder Renlund mentioned that the farther away the recipient is from the giver, the more entitled the recipient feels. It’s true. When we distance ourselves from God we begin to feel entitled, to blame someone else for every bad thing that happens to us, and to give ourselves credit for every good thing that happens. Weird right? I never thought about it that way. But it started to finally make sense, people who have faith, and continue to build their faith, will draw closer to Christ. As we draw closer to His love and light, we are compelled to change, thus we become more humble and repentant. Just like a candle, as we draw closer to the light it illuminates our imperfections and wrongs that we have been hiding in the dark and that's a good thing. Then because we have been humbled, we choose to change, which is where sincere repentance comes in. I learned that Repentance is not about fixing all our sins. It’s much more than that. Repentance is the opportunity to improve our lives and inevitably enter the gates of baptism and receive all of the other saving ordinances. If we just have faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ will fall into place for us. We will live with our God again.

Good to hear Helam is doing well in spring ball. I think they need to throw to him too but they’ll realize it soon enough. He has a lot of stuff on his plate, like Kiegan, school, football, even more family. However he's got a fantastic wife, Alyssa is awesome! I think Harrison is a lot more selfless than I was at home. I would of just peaced out and played all day haha!! It’s good to hear that he spent a small window of his spring break to spend time with each member of his family. I’m learning from him it seems like. Congrats to Hema! :) First grad in our family!! First of a lot of things in our family! On top of that he's raising his own family, doing work and school, and has a wonderful wife as well to help him. Norma is awesome! How do such ugly guys get such awesome girls? I should also ask Bo that same question. I just hope that blinding spell still works when it’s time for me to find my eternal companion :) Priesthood session talked a lot about our roles as priesthood holders and (for me) eventually as fathers. We must do all we can to make sure we are worthy of the priesthood so that our families may be guided and blessed! President Nelson said we have the priesthood authority as bearers of this covenant, but do we have priesthood POWER? Are we living our lives to be worthy to have that power? If we aren’t, FIX IT. The faster the better! I’m so grateful for the priesthood and for a father and brothers who hold and exercise that authority, but I am many times even more grateful for the women in my life. So Mom, Hevynn, Norma, Alyssa, thank you! Y’all are the best! 

So Elder McCloud is great, we are helping one investigator progress to baptism on April 23rd so please keep him in your prayers! We have about 18 missionaries in our zone so it’s loads of fun working with all of them. So speaking of fun, we had MLC (which I mentioned earlier) and it was great! I got to see great missionaries who I look up to, like Freeman (my dad) and Hansen (who is going to Weber), so I was thrilled. 

So happy to see Elder Clark, Weitzel, Freeman and Mortensen at MLC

But we had a great meeting in which we opened up with the parable of the Sower. Crazy how when we just had a Mission Leadership Conference on that topic, it popped up again in General Conference haha! Inspiration. We also discussed the Gospel of Jesus Christ and focusing on how we can apply this to the missionaries, not just the investigators. So this conference just added onto the lessons I learned at MLC. Then the best thing happened....we played kickball. Haha yup President Cleveland told us to bring clothes for kickball as well! It was a blast. I felt bad for McCloud. For starters we were on opposite teams (so obviously my team was going to win because yours truly was on it). Haha Then it was the last inning and the score was actually tied. Ok so maybe it’s not that big of an advantage to have me on the team. We needed just one person to make it home to win. We had two outs. One of my team members went up to kick and popped it up. It was floating in the air and heading straight for McCloud. With his arms outstretched he was ready to embrace the ball, only to feel it slither out of his hands and bounce off the ground. The MLC just died right there, and President made him do pushups in front of everyone. Glad it wasn’t me haha.

After kickball, we headed back home with Elders Thayne and McCloud

Well anyways just wanted to say I love you mom!!

Ofa Lahi Atu!!

I got a Tongan name tag because I thought I had lost mine. When I ordered the replacement tag they asked, "What language?" so I just said Tongan. haha! Then suddenly my other 2 name tags showed up. Weird.

Elder Heimuli