Week 60 - My Name is Elder Perez

Hi mom!

So I logged into my account this morning and apparently I am now in the Brazil Rio de Janeiro Mission. And my name is Elder Perez.

A lot of people think I'm Hispanic. Including the Church haha. Speaking of Rio, how are the Olympics coming along? That's hilarious that you're all staying up late watching it, I remember watching it all the time and even going to the Olympics way back when the games came to Utah. Fun times. 

That is so awesome for Aunty Lani that she received her masters degree! What a great example and accomplishment while she's fighting cancer. I am so proud and happy for her! Tell her congratulations for me the next time you see her please. How's Dallin doing in Papua New Guinea?

How was the family BBQ? Was it good? 

Things in Indiana are good, too. This week has been crazy busy but what has been really great was we have had the opportunity to go to the temple again and again and witness some recent converts (Elder Wimmer taught) get sealed as a family. After the ceremony the husband looked into his wife's eyes and said, "We did it. It's done."

And they were crying. What an awesome experience for them and for me. It made me think about how great the Plan of Salvation is. And how much God loves His children that He gave us temples. I hope that people who are looking for joy and looking for happiness can find it because I know I find it in the temple.

This week we also had Mission Leadership Conference. So it was pretty busy. After MLC we played Kickball. Every once in awhile we do that so we can give the missionaries a little break. So that was loads of fun.

Me with Elder Pau'u at MLC

After MLC Elder Wimmer went with his old comp Elder Woolsey to go to the temple with his RC's, and me and Elder Woolsey's comp, Elder Clark went PCing and Tracting. It was pretty cool, we were downtown PCing when I went up to a woman who was eating ice cream. I thought, "Okay, she could use the gospel."

Just as I was about to speak I kind of got a little prompting not to immediately talk about the gospel and just ask how her day was. She was standoffish at first but then we started talking. She then started asking questions and I started answering as many of her questions as I could. Afterwards she told me that she was going to turn me away if I was just going to preach to her. Haha who me? Preach? But when I asked her about how her day was doing she was surprised and felt like I cared about her and her day. That's why she was willing to talk to me and was open about everything. So it was great. God always leaves little tender mercies all over the place. And it was good to be with Elder Clark. What a great guy and missionary. He just wants to go out and do the right thing. He works sooooo hard and we went hard until the exchange was over. Weird how good of friends you can become with someone when you're on your mission.

Luther from the YSA ward is a stud. He's headed back to Texas but he was awesome to have here. Gonna miss him!

After that we pretty much have just been busy with meetings, transfer plannings, and just overall work. But I am sooooo grateful to be a small part of it and here's a little thing I've been working on. 

At times I feel like we all hit a point when we just go through the motions. When we do that, things quickly lose meaning because there should be a purpose behind everything we do. For me, studies sometimes get that way. I get so caught up in looking for scriptures to memorize or I'm just trying to read through these chapters, I am not really making sincere efforts to build my testimony. And the saddest part is:  that's what the scriptures are for!!!!!!!!!!! The same thing happens with church and life in general. Things must be done with purpose. Though I'm far from doing this all the time, I am working on it. Putting a little more sincerity in everything I do right now is what I believe is the best way to accomplish this. So we will see how it goes :)  As far as our area goes, we are still working on it. God will provide. Just gotta leave it up to him. 

Haha yeah, oh my goodness it's Kincaide's farewell today! Tell him hi for me. That kid is a stud. I'm so happy to see him going. I need to write him back, but until then just tell him how proud I am to see him going. He is going to be such a great missionary. I bet his family is also happy to see him go, maybe not even realizing how much they will benefit by him going on his mission.

Oh and the Hydens are in Utah Mom:) so you should say hi to them when you can!!! Here's Kim's number.

Thank you for everything mom! Love you soooo much!!!!

Ofa Lahi Atu 

Elder Heimuli

PICS:



A member gave me a bunch of taro and wanted to have a taro cookout. Haha that's why I asked you how to cook it. So they made taro pudding. It wasn't as gross as poi. ;)



So back story to this. Elder Wimmer and I saw a lot of wasps in at our apartment and decided it was time to get rid of them. So armed with cans of OFF spray and Shaving cream we fought the wasps.... We won and we actually got rid of some of them, but it wasn't without casualties..... lol it was fun:)