Time is Flying by

To the Fam:

This week was pretty sweet. Not because we had a whole lot of success (in my eyes) but I have been able to enjoy just doing the day to day activities. Sometimes It feels a little monotonous (sp) being in the same area for quite some time (even though its been less than 2 months). Everything is going great though. We found a couple sweet families this week and now its just a matter of seeing if they progress.
I have been studying a lot lately about the life and mission of Our Savior Jesus Christ and I think that has really helped. I almost finished with JESUS THE CHRIST, I read every morning and night and the short 800 page book needs to be longer. I am thinking im going to read it in Spanish after I read it in English. Get a little Spanish practice (as if I don’t get enough constantly). Haha

Hey Dad, I decided that you and Todd need to learn Spanish so that all of us guys in our family can talk behind the backs of all the girls in the fam. And I figure that Brad still has the opportunity to go Spanish speaking so he can wait it out. Use that program that I had on my lap top and talk to your Mexican workers a lot. That would be sweet.
Well, im pretty sure we have Zone Conference this next week. There are going to tell us in our District meeting tonight, that we have every Monday. Im excited for that, Pres Nancollas always gives us an extra boost to make sure we are working as hard as possible and being obedient.

The time is flying by and I complete 8 months this week. I feel like since ive gotten here to Mexico, the time has just flown. The MTC was a never-ending 2 months, but the last 6 months have gone by way to fast.

We should have a baptism this week. His name is Ismael and he is a boyfriend of a miembro. He has gone to church almost every week since Ive gotten here, but still doesn’t have the desire or feel the need to get baptized. We are going to focus on him this week. We also are working with Hmna Maria and her husband Jose Anonio. They are awesome and are already planning there wedding so they can get baptized. The other day Antonio was saying to us that everything in the Catholic church is about money. He was asking us if we make them pay to get baptized. We were like ¨NO WAY¨ Then he went on to say that, the true church shouldn’t make you pay anything. Then he said, ¨Well you should have to pay your 10 % because that’s a commandment, you gotta pay your tithing¨ We have yet to teach them about Tithing so that was pretty sweet to have accepted to pay his tithing before we had even say anything. We explained Tithing and how everything you pay is for edifying the church and strengthening it. He was like, ¨YEA, that’s what the true church of Christ would do¨ then he turned to his wife and said, ¨so when are we going to get baptized Maria?¨ We were pumped and expect pictures of Jose Antonio and Maria in all white in a couple weeks. We are going to work with their kids as well (they are grown up with young kids) We haven’t talked to them yet, but Maria wants us to talk to them. It would be sweet to baptize their whole family. That’s the goal, to bring familias unto Christ so they can live forever together in the presence of Our Father in Heaven.

Well, this week I learned how to weld. Its pretty sweet. An Hermano in our barrio was teaching us last Friday and then we went over to his house today in the morning to help him finish. I didn’t really understand what he was building when he was explaining it to us, but it looks cool. Ill send pictures! The Hermano is tight. (ill send pics)
Random comment: How are the Suns doing? (please tell me they are doing better than the Lakers)

Oh and I think I forgot in my letter last week to wish Ashley Happy Birthday! From your pictures that I got she looks like she is still 21, so I don’t know why she is still having birthdays, but I hope you had a good one Ashley! Happy Birthday from Mexico!

Oh speaking of picking oranges and juicing them…..(in your email) Every morning we pass by this juice stand where they sell the best orange juice. They juice the oranges right in front of you and poor it into the glass. Its delicious and it reminds me of picking oranges and juicing them with Carli and Bead. (Even though Carli would sometimes get mad at me for being in the Kitchen) haha just kiddin Carli LOVE YOU! : )

Oh and this last weekend it rained pretty hard and then it cleared up yesterday. The climate down here is a lil crazy. I took some sweet pictures off my balcony when all the sky had cleared up.

Well that’s about it for this week. I am healthy and happy in the service of My God and I love being a missionary. I thank my Heavenly Father everyday that I have this opportunity to serve him and the people here in Valle De Tules.

Thanks for all your love and support! Les Quiero Mucho!

Con amor,
Elder Greg Heap

Love being a Missionary!

It was a relatively good week. We knocked a lot of doors, we taught a lot of people, and I felt the Spirit a lot. What more could I ask for. Im just loving being a missionary and I cant think of a more fun thing I could be doing in my life (even though dinner with Preston Kyle and Brooklyn looked pretty dang fun) Hermana Guillermina and Gustavo have been going to church every week. Hmna Guilla keeps asking me for books cause she wants to learn more and more. (even though she doesn’t know how to write, she can read though) I gave her my Principles of the Gospel book and I think she will use it more than I would. We should have at least 1 baptism this week, possibly 2. Ill inform you more on them later. We have a lot of people to baptize, but I usually don’t like to baptize the people unless I know they have a testimony. If we baptize the people and then they go inactive, we are just condemning them. So I would rather save souls then condemn them. The work is going great though. E. Torralba has had a change of heart and we listen to church music every morning and night (the cds I brought are coming in handy)

What else is new. Oh, I started Jesus the Christ, by James E. Talmage. I started it on Thursday night and im already on page 145. I figured that if Im going to be representing Christ, I want to learn all I can about Him. Its an awesome book and I highly encourage reading it.

Oh mom, you are going to be very proud of this next comment. I guess for the mission I have had a change of heart about writing in my journal and Ive been doing it consecutively since I left home. I am actually like 20 pages from finishing and I was wondering if you could send me another journal. You know one of the navy blue ones that says Journal on it and then the first page is like a family tree. Well yea, one of those. I want to have like 3 for my mission so I need to start writing more. I am coming up on my 1/3 mark and I want to finish my Journal by then so if you could send me one that would be great! Thanks!

Well this week there was a lot of ups and downs. Mostly ups though so im pretty happy. We found a way awesome couple that went to church this week. She was asking about being baptized and was concerned that she isn’t baptized in any church. We taught her the first few lessons and she was so excited that she made her husband go to his work late and go to church. We have to get them married, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I have a little bit of experience in that area. There names are Maria and Jose Antonio. She came to church last week as well. She just showed up alone and wanted to learn. She is what you call (golden) even though she isn’t going to be able to go to church this upcoming week. Im thinking an early March baptisms. This next lesson we are going to mix in Temple Marriage and hopefully they can get married in the temple in 1 year. (ill still be in the mish so ill get to go to the temple ceremony, that would be sweet)

Don’t worry mom, we stayed clear of the dangerous part of our area this week and I didn’t see one drunk all week. (pretty rare actually)
Oh funny story. So we were walking down the street the other day and a cow goes running by. Then follows 3 mexicans chasing it. The cow was huge. We decided that we were going to help them out. Apparently after talking to the guys there was another 1 lost as well. Well we ended up backing the cow into a corner and one of the Mexicans lassoed (sp) it. It was pretty tight and they were pretty thankful for our help. It was so random though. A cow running through the middle of the city……Then later on that day we were walking by and found another cow, also huge, just chilling in a little empty lot, eatin grass. We thought we would take some pictures with it before we went for the owners. So ill send some pictures. (Kurt, im on the look out for a huge Toro like the one in your picture you sent me) But for now, this will have to do.

Well that’s about it for this week. I want you to know that I have a testimony of this church. I know that we have the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and that He lives. I know that God lives and loves me and listens and answers to my prayers. I know that this is the work of the Lord. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God and that He talks to God face to face. I know that The Book of Mormon is the word of God and I know that if we follow the council in it, we will be able to obtain our eternal Glory. I know that My Heavenly knows me personally and leads and guides me each day.

I´m so thankful for my family and friends. Each one of you has been such a strength for me in my life and I will be eternally grateful to my Father in Heaven for blessing me as He has.

Hope ya´ll have a great week and I have you all in my prayers. Thanks for your love!

Con amor,
Elder Greg Heap

The Lord continues to watch over His Servants

Well fam, Its oficial, 6 more weeks with E. Torralba here in Valle De Tules. The next change wont be until March 22nd. I am pretty excited though. Now that I have gotten E. T. to get rid of all of his stuff (cell phone, movies, etc.) we have been able to focus even more as a companionship on why we are really here. We didn’t quite have the success that we wanted this week, but we were able to find a couple really awesome nuevos. We have been walking a ton though lately, climbing up to the very tips of the mountains basically, just to find inactive members. (Oh and mom im wearing the insert things from Dr. Ray, not because I need them, but because the soles of my shoes broke, I haven’t felt that much of a difference, but at least you can feel at peace that im weaing them) Anyways, most of the families just say that its too big of a sacrifice to walk to the church every Sunday and its sad to see the familias miss out on blessings, but all we can do is invite. That’s about it on the mission stuff. I am sure you want to here some awesome stories tho right?!
First of all, Mom, don’t freak out, it wasn’t that big of a deal, and my area is really really really safe ok! : ) Having that in mind ill start my story. Ok so Tuesday we were searching for these inactive families on top of this mountain and we get to this house with some guy (really drunk) screaming at his wife/girlfriend) We were like uh, what do we do. She was all scared that he was going to hit here and stuff and she saw us and ran outside and started asking us for help. So the drunk (his name is Daniel) came outside and changed his attitude real fast, yelling, ¨Gringooo, wat ah u doin¨ He had a big smile on his face and came over to shake my hand. He was trying to talk in English, but it was pretty hard to understand, (it sounded like when mom tries to speak Spanish…..completely impossible to understand) He was really happy and was asking me why im here and I think he totally forgot that his wife was even there. Anyways we were telling him how he shouldn’t drink and how he needs to be a good husband and all that. It was a great conversation, let me tell ya. Anyways we started walking away and he yelled. ¨Gringoooo I need u money¨ He began to walk quickly behind us. We stopped and we told him that we didn’t have anything. I think I had like 50 pesos in my pocket which is like 5 bucks. He started to bear hug me and was checking my back pockets and my companion was freaking out. He was a bigger guy (for a Mexican) and I started to get a lil nervous as well. He started to get more and more mad with his arms still tight around my waist. I didn’t really know what to do. I started pushing him off a lil, but he wouldn’t let go of me so I didn’t really have many choices. I put my foot behind his leg and shoved him as hard as I could and he fell straight on his back. My comp was yelling (vamanos, vamanos….lets go) and so we took off down the mountain. Luckily the drunk guy could hardly get up and could barely walk straight so it was pretty easy to get away. But it was definitely 5 minutes of intense action for a missionary. Our mission Pres. Always tells us not to fight back if people try to rob us and stuff like that, but I didn’t have much of a choice. He wouldn’t let go of me. So yea, that was pretty sweet.
What else exciting happened this week. Oh Elder Allen and I (Elder Allen is in the next area closest to mine and his ward meets in the same church as we do) started English classes and we had a pretty good turn out. We have them every Friday at 6 and it’s the second week that we have had the class. We had like 20 people come this last week and 8 of them weren’t members of the church, pretty tight. We got 3 of them to come to church this last week as well so it’s a pretty good way to find people so far.
As for the birthday package, I don’t really need anything special, just like ties, like I had mentioned. All the members always ask if I will give them ties when I leave the area and I only have like 15 ties. I should have brought more. I need like 50 haha.
Oh another crazy thing happened yesterday at Church. One of the people that was supposed to give a talk didn’t show up. So when the Bishop was announcing the people to give the talks he finished with, ¨Y si Elder Heap nos puede ayudar con un discurso para terminar antes del Ultimo Himno ¨ a.k.a. He asked me to speak which I was not prepared to do. Keep in mind he asked me from the pulpit AFTER The Sacament. My companion just smiled and said Buena suerte (good luck) I was praying so hard that I would know what to say. I hate speaking in front of lots of people. So yea I prayed for the next 15 minutes and My Heavenly Father definitely answered my prayers! Luckily for me, the 2 other speakers went way over time and I didn’t have to speak! Yeeeeeah! I was very relieved. I think as a missionary I have learned about the power of prayer more than anything. Everything I ask my Heavenly Father for, happens. It is pretty awesome actually. I mean I had always said my prayers before the mission, but I had never really learned the importance or the powerfulness of praying. As a missionary, if you don’t have prayers, you don’t have anything! I am so thankful for my Father in Heaven and the opportunity I have to pray all day everyday and communicate with Him.
That’s it for this week, I love you all and I hope everyone has a great Valentines Day (can you believe, its already February…..LOCO) I love you all very much, thanks for the love and support!

Con amor,
Elder Heap

A Lesson in Running.....

Hola Familia,

Alright, i really dont know where to start for this week. A million things happened, but ill start from the beginning.

First of all, last Monday night the assistants raided our house (I had told President that my companion has a cell phone and he send the assistants to come get it) They left our house with about 50 dvds that Elder Torralba had and TWO cell phones. I didn’t even know he had the movies or the other cell phone. So yea, it was crazy and the assistants were like yelling at Elder Torralba. Pretty intense. I think there were words that probably shouldn’t have been said on the part of E. Torralba and as a missionary. I was thankful that I didn’t totally understand all of the bad words being said. So that night E. Torralba was basically crying thinking that President is going to send him home. I was like ´´ELDER GET UP….. WE ARE GOING RUNNING´´ He was confused I think, but I wanted to run it off. I knew if we didn’t, neither of us would be able to sleep. We ran to the corner of our area and then walked back. We talked about a lot of things and why he is on the mission and had a good talk. Then when we got back we went on our roof looking over all of our city and just sat there. It was a craaaazy night! Elder Torralba was nervous because we had interviews with President on Thursday. He was thinking all week that he was going to get home. I told him when we were sitting on the roof that if you change your attitude and if you work hard with me until Thursday that I will support you and that I will try to talk President into keeping you here.

In the week we worked extremely hard. We walked so much and I just crashed on my bed every night. We ended the week with 18 nuevos (our goal was 15). E. Torralba has woken up with me every morning at 630 since last Monday and we can totally tell the differences in our lessons. We had some pretty awesome lessons this week where the Spirit was so strong! We had 8 people in church this week, 4 of which are new. It’s a family of 6 that surprisingly aren’t Catholic. Only the 4 kids went because the parents had another compromiso, but they all liked it a lot.

Ok so then on Thursday in the interviews, E. Torralba went in with President first and they took like 45 minutes (all of my interviews are usually like 3 minutes haha but I think that’s a good thing) Then it was my turn and E. Torralba had tears when he walked out of the interview. I was thinking for sure E. Torralba is going home. Then in my interview, President acted like everything is cool and after the usual 3 minutes, he said ´´well Elder, do you have any questions for me´´ like he says every time. I was like´´YES, whats going on with my companion´´ He told me that he really felt something special with E. Torralbas interview and that he is going to remain a missionary. I was so happy. Then President NAncollas told me that he had plans to move me up as district leader this next change (changes are on the 8th) but now he thinks he is going to keep me with E. Torralba one more change to help him out. I was cool with that. President told me the E Torralba asked if he could be my companion for another change so I expect to be here with Elder Torralba until March 22nd when the next changes are.
Ok so that’s that for the interview. It was a pretty stressful week not knowing whats going to happen with my companion.

Other great highlights of the week…… I had the opportunity to do 4 blessings this week. My testimony of the Priesthood has strengthened so incredibly much on my mission! I feel so blessed to have the priesthood in my life. Out of the millions of billions of people that have been on the earth, only a select few have the opportunity to bless the lives of people around them with the Priesthood.

Oh almost forgot one of the best parts of the week. Guillermina got baptized (Gustavos mom) She was so excited and Elder Torralba baptized her and I did the confirmation. It was the first time ive ever confirmed someone. Pretty neat! She loved it and I think she is going to be a great missionary too. She brought a friend to her baptism and she gave big hugs to the investigators that we brought. Haha she is tight! I just pray for her that she will find a job soon. She hasn’t had a job for a few weeks and they are living off the few savings that they have eating beans and tortillas and water all day every day.
Well, that’s about it for this crazy week. Next week are changes, fortunately I already kinda know that ill be here at least another 7 weeks with E. Torralba. Im glad though, ive seen a major difference in our work and I know we will have a lot of success.

Well, I don’t have much time to respond to your emails, but sounds like everyone is doing great! (oh and mom when you send me emails, I cant really see the border stuff and I usually just copy and paste all the emails into word so I can print the letters smaller so its cheaper haha. Sorry…. I was disappointed to hear that the Cardinals lost barely. The Hmno (where we go to wash clothes) told me this morning early and I was a bit sad.

Well, I love you all, sorry I didn’t get to respond to your questions (actually I haven’t read your emails yet) Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Con amor,
Elder Greg Heap