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