Week 80 - Best Time of My Life

[Note from Mom: Been out of touch for a couple weeks while attending a family reunion in New Zealand. Just walked through the front door. Dropped my luggage and now trying to catch up on the letters received from Elder Heimuli since we've been without electronic devices.]

January 2, 2017
Hi Mom:)

Sounds like the trip to New Zealand is going great :) Haha did everyone make it there okay and safe? Not gonna lie I'm pretty jealous of the fact that you are all there! I remember being 8 and having the best time of my life there. Also, I'm sad to hear about Coach [LaVell Edwards]. He was a role model to me because of how much Dad revered him. Like you said he has touched many people that way and I hope that I can emulate something similar as a missionary.

Well here is the low down on what happened this week.

Mon- Meetings. Mondays are boring that way, haha! 

Tue- We went on an exchange with the Franklin Elders Tanner and Elder Coon.

Working out with Elder Tanner

Both are very good missionaries and very athletic. In fact Elder Tanner is going to play for BYU when he gets home. I told him he will be more than welcome to come train with me because I have the best coaches back at home :). It was fun though. We got to train in the morning then we just hit the grind all day. Not many appointments but there are a lot of days in missionary work where there's nothing else to do but tract :) So that's what we did! After that we went back to the mission home and we began our transfer planning. Transfer planning and preparation usually take up the whole week so you can imagine what the rest of this letter will look like lol. Also we planned for specialized training which would be held the next day. 

Wed- Specialized training! It went well. As usual, I look at these new missionaries and I think, "They are way better than me, and I've been out way longer!!!" It's apparent because of the spirit I feel in the room when they teach. We trained on finding and how to contact, and then we trained on extending heartfelt invitations. Elder Redmond observed a group of missionaries and brought up a really good point when it comes to teaching and understanding the message. He told the missionaries to make the lesson unique. What does that mean? Well the gospel is meant to edify and to uplift. However there is no edifying when the message is just being rehearsed. Just like when we read scriptures. When it doesn't mean anything to us, when we don't try to make it unique, we get nothing from it. So when we teach, we need to make it unique and relevant so that the one we are teaching actually receives the message and wants to act on it. For me personally I took it as 1) I need to make my studies relevant and 2) I need to make my message relevant and unique. Anyways specialized training ended late so we just finished some more transfers work then went home.

Thur- We ran errands all day :( We traveled from Lafayette to Bloomington...it sucked haha! I hate driving everywhere but it just needs to be done. We were running supplies, license plates, baggage, etc., to many missionaries. So nothing exciting that day.

Fri- So we actually had time to work our area a bit :) We had two lessons, 1 with an investigator in Crossroads and the other one was with a recent convert in White River. The lessons both went great. The investigator's name in Crossroads is named T. Now T had been investigating the church for a decade. In fact he is pretty much a member, but whenever his date approaches he always finds a reason or excuse not to get baptized. Elder Redmond taught him while he was a ZL there and finally Redmond just told him that he cannot procrastinate any longer and said something very profound. The spirit will always testify of what's true and it will always bring comfort, but it cannot be there at all times. Think about it this way, God wants us to make the right decisions but will not force us. So when it comes down to choices the holy ghost cannot tell us every little choice we should make because that would violate the very reason why God made this plan. Agency.  So when we make choices we have to make them on our own based on the knowledge we received from God and the Holy Ghost. But they cannot force us to make the right decision. And although it's hard to make the right choice sometimse, we know what we are supposed to do is right but that still doesn't make it any easier to do it. But God promises to deliver us from temptation. All it takes for us is to take a step in the right direction. If we can take that small step, God will carry us further. It was an amazing lesson, then we also talked about the parable of the ten virgins and that was great too. After that lesson we shot straight over to the White River chapel for our lesson with M who was baptized about 2-3 months ago. We were teaching about temples to try and get him to the temple. Anyways the lesson went well and he has committed to coming to the temple to do baptisms for the dead on Jan 28th. We are excited for that. 

Sat- We went to a baptism in our branch for someone the sisters taught. This guy is cool and has one of the strongest testimonies!

After the baptism we left to do our transfer calls. Transfer calls is when we call individual missionaries and tell them what's going with them for transfers, so that took up pretty much the rest of the day. So if you're wondering why I didn't write on Saturday, it's because of transfers. After doing those calls we worked on reorganizing zones and areas because of the boundary changes within the stake. It was a lot of work. Due to the changes, we are opening a new area in the mission called Noblesville. It's not easy to open a new area but we have some hard workers in our mission. Pretty exciting!

This is Elder Sedlacek. He's from Bountiful! And he is one of the missionaries in Noblesville.

After that we just worked on transfers and then called it good for the day.

Sun- We went to church which is always great and then we had final meetings for transfers and any last minute preparations.

Today- I texted you from Sister Carlson's phone, a picture of me with a lady named Renetta Larkin Carlson. I know the last name sounds familiar since it's my Mission President's daughter-in-law, but what about her maiden name? So her dad is Elder Larkin. The very elder who served in Tonga long ago and to after whom Dad was named. I met her as we walked into the mission home to bring in the new missionaries! It was such a tender mercy to meet her.

With Elder Larkin's daughter 

So that's where we are :) Love you mom! We are heading out to pick up the new missionaries so I'll write you a bit later :)

Ofa Lahi Atu

Elder Heimuli