...100% obedience mixed with Hard and Intelligent Work, and following the Spirit, is the key to Success.

Hey fam....

Back at the offices.  Time is flying.  Each week goes by faster than the last. 

This week I was with Elder Meraz.  He is a stud.  He is 26 years old from Torreon, Mexico.  He is already a licensed international lawyer, but decided to serve a mission and is really here for the right reasons.  He actually was supposed to start the mission the same time i did, but he got sick in the CCM and had to wait over a year.  He is one of my favorite comps that I´ve had, even though I was only with him a week.  He says that I should do law school so we can be associates in Salt Lake.  haha  He speaks pretty good english.  My first night with him he came in while I was unpacking and gave me a new tie and a soccer jersey.  He said that he always likes to welcome his new comps. with somethin to show his appreciation for them.  President is plannin on moving him up as a zone leader this next change.  He deserves it.  He has baptized every week this change and his district is leading the mission right now.  Before the week started, President just told me to go teach him how to take control of a zone and have success as a leader.  He´s a great teacher and is always excited to help people learn of the gospel.  I learned a lot myself.  It was a great week. 

A lot of things happened this week also.  Elder Meraz is in the area of Ciudad Labor which is right next door to Valle de Tules.  We started working and to my surprise he took me to the street of Maria and Jose Antonio (my converts from over a year ago)  We stopped by real quick to say hi and to see how they´ve been doin.  They were way excited to see me and Hermana Maria started screamin when she saw me at her door.  She screamed to her husband ´´it´s Heap, it´s Heap!´´  They havent been going to church the last couple months because they have been visiting Jose Antonio´s dad on the weekends.  He has been sick.  We invited them to go to church in the Ciudad Labor ward (with the new division of the 2 wards, they now are supposed to go to that ward anyways)  She brought her daughter, Brenda, who isn´t a member so Elder Meraz is going to start teaching her.  Elder Meraz told me that he´ll call me if she decides to get baptized so I can go and baptize her.  That would be way sweet.  It´s in my plans to go visit them when you guys come down to pick me up.

This week we worked extremely hard.  100% obedience mixed with Hard and Intelligent Work, and following the Spirit, is the key to success.  I think I was able to help in a few little things. 

My next assignment, I will be in Cuautitlan.  I´m going to be with Elder Carrillo and his comp Elder Leon.  It should be fun.  President also has plans to move him up as a zone leader this next change.  It is almost the same assignment as last week.  I will be with him just one week. 

Tomorrow we have a future leaders training meeting.  Over 50 Elderes are comin here to the offices tomorrow.  It will be a good meeting.  We are basically just goin to divide up into 4 groups and do pracitces and teach all the future leaders.  We are also going to focus on OBEDIENCE.  Right now, the mission has takin a little dip down in its´ obedience level so President Nancollas has a presentation on that to help us all see the importance of being 100%. 

Yesterday I hit the 22 month mark.  That is pretty crazy.  Elder Molino freaks me out every Sunday when he calls me to say how many weeks we have left before going home.  It freaks me out thinking that the weeks I have left fit on the fingers of my hands.  I remember when Elder Romney had the time that I had and the weeks just flew by.  Now he almost has a month being home. 

Today has been fun so far.  We had our meeting with President Nancollas.  It is sweet that he has such confidence in us to make pretty big decisions.  We pretty much just council about missionaries and look for solutions to help the mission improve as a whole.  It´s a lot of responsibility.  We plan for future transfers and the division of the mission.  We make phone calls and email the stake presidents.  We take numbers from the zone leaders.  We put together Excel spreadsheets with the averages and numbers of the mission.  We look at tendencies and correlations and then make plans and pray about what we need to do to get answers to fix the problems. 

I´ve been learning a lot.

Well I´m glad everything is good at home.  Prom looked fun Bead.  Send pictures Car Car.  Brooklyn looks like an amazing (and very cute) coach-pitch player.  That sounds like a sweet opportunity for Brad Gulbrandsen.  Tell him I love him.  Elder Christensen is coming to the offices tonight and we are going to plan this itinerary thing so that you dont worry mom.  I´ll send it to you tonight, or next week.  In the meanwhile, I´m going to get my camera downstairs to send ya´ll some pics.

Well fam, I love you all.  Keep the faith and trust in the Lord.

I love the Savior.  I get to know Him more and more each day.  I know He lives.  I know He paid for our sins.  I know that if we will follow Him, we will be happy.  I know that this is His church and that He guides and directs it through modern prophets.  I know that He knows and loves us and that if we become as He is, we will be together forever in eternal happiness.

Con amor,
Elder Greg Heap

...Rested and Ready for a new week!

Today has been a good day.  I´m here in the offices again.  We are going to go to Wendy´s in a little bit in the van.  It is fun to be able to drive again.  I figure if I can drive in Mexico, I can drive anywhere.  The video games when I was little may have paid off.  Tell Preston to keep up the good work.  I just got back from playing soccer with Elder Christensen the other assistants, the secretaries and some of the zone of Tepalcapa.  It was way fun to get out and run around for a little bit.  I´m going to make this email quick, but if I have time tonight I´ll write another quick note.  We are going to go to a couple zone meetings tonight to make sure the zone leaders are doing their job. 

So I ended the 2 weeks with Elder Perez with a bang.  We brought 7 people to church for the first time and we found 3 people that had listened to the missionaries before, but for some reason or another they didnt get baptized so we put the baptismal date for this next Sunday so I guess we did pretty well in our 2 weeks together.  When I got there there weren´t very many investigators and now Elder Perez and his new comp are going to have a lot more people in teaching.  The Lord helped us out a ton.  We were able to find some people that are ready and prepared and that makes everything so much easier.  I think Elder Perez is excited and his district is more excited.  They should have a lot of success this next change.

This morning we had a meeting with President Nancollas.  It is way sweet to be able to help President Nancollas for the upcoming months.  There are a lot of changes and a LOT of missionaries going home in the next few months.  (including me)  On top of that, the mission is getting split up and instead of have the average of 180 missionaries.  We will be down to about 130 starting July.  That means that we need to make a lot of leaders for both missions.  We have to train a secretary and another assistant for the new mission and we have to make sure the mission is still baptizing week after week.  It´s a lot to think about, but President Nancollas is the man for the job.  It was also way cool just talkin to him for about an hour after the meeting about life and family and the gospel.  He is a good example for me and I look up to him a lot.  So we are going to have a ton of meetings in the next few months so that we can get all the future leaders prepared.  Apart from that Elder Molyneaux and I are going to keep going with the new leaders to make them as prepared as possible.

For my new assignment I will be going to the zone of Tepalcapa.  That´s where Elder Christensen is the zone leader and it will be nice because it is the zone closest to the offices.  The Elder that I´m going to train is named Elder Meraz.  I don´t know very much about him, but I do know that he has 27 years.  He doesn´t have that time in the mission, but he seems pretty mature and is a hard worker.  President has him planned to go up as a zone leader this next change so I think I´m just going to give him a preview of what to do, how to do it and how to help others have success as well.  From what I hear, he´s a way cool Elder.  We will see how it goes.  I´m excited.

Other exciting things.....

This morning I got to take a nap.  That was awesome. 

I did interchanges with Elder Farmer from my generation because he is in Elder Perez district.  In one day we put 9 baptismal dates and they all accepted AND went to church.  He is tearin it up.

I´ve been telling everyone in Elder Perez ward that I only have 4 months in the mission and they all say ´´Wow, how did you learn spanish so fast?´´  That is way better than hearing ´´¿Oh, so you are almost going to go home? What are you going to do when you get home?  (A lot of times when a missionary is going to end there missions the members use the term....´´Ya mero te vas a morir´´  Basically saying oh you´re about to die)  So I think it is better if they think I only have 4 months. 

Well I can´t think of anything else to say.
Thanks for the pictures.  Everyone looks great!  Bead....You probably should stop working out, your goin to rip your shirts

I love you all!
The Church is true!
Live the gospel and you will be happy!
Follow the prophet!
Love the Savior!
Keep the faith!
Have a great week!

Con amor,
Elder Greg Heap

....the work is true!

Hey family,                         Elder Anaya, Elder Molino, Elder Allen, and ME!

I feel exhausted.  I dont think I have ever put so much energy into one week of work like this last week.  I have been working in Nicolas Romero.  It is the bottom corner of the mission and it is in the same zone as Valle de Tules.  Its crazy to think I was there more than a year a go with Elder Torralba.  It is cool to see how much improvement and experience I´ve gained since being there.  I have been working there with Elder Perez who hasn´t been a district leader before.  He feels a lot of pressure and I think I´ve been able to help him with the adjustment.  We have been workin like locos.  Its been pretty fun though contacting everyone.

In our area we did ok.  We found some people to get baptized at the end of this month, but there is still a lot of work to do.  I think I am going to stay with him one more week to make sure he has the hang of everything.  Then I will be off to Tepalcapa (a zone that I´ve never been in) with Elder Meraz.  He is really a great Elder.  He has like 27 years old and works really well.  I´ll probably just be with him for a week and then I´m not really sure.  Tomorrow we have the zone leader council and we are going to plan it in a little bit with President Nancollas.  It should be fun.  Then tomorrow after the council we will have another meeting with President to let him know how its going and what are the plans for the next few weeks. 

Another cool experience this week was on Thursday.  The training meeting with all the American greenies was awesome.  It was really hard though talking about missionary things in english.  The whole time Elder Molino and I were struggling for words.  We did a lot of practices and they motivated It was a great meeting.  President Nancollas is the man.  He is doing so many changes in the mission and with all the changes it is necessary.  He has a lot of confidence in Elder Molino Elder Anaya Elder Allen and I.  He said that he hasn´t known 4 missionaries that he had more confidence in than us 4.  It made me feel great and it made me feel like the Lord is happy too.  The whole mission has changed a ton in the last 3 weeks and everyone is so pumped.  A lot has to do with all the missionaries that are going home with me.  Most of us are leaders and we all motivate each other to have great zones and districts.  It´s going well.....

I also felt one of the greatest things that I have felt my whole mission this week.  I dont remember which day it was, but he called me to say that Javier, Laura, Abraham, Xochitl and Tomas were going to get baptized on Saturday.  I got to talk to all of them and they were so excited. Elder Memmott said it was a great experience and that it was amazing on Sunday.  He said that in the priesthood class, Javier shared his conversion experience.  Memmott explained the story to me and it went more or less like this.....that he went to pray and was praying all day to receive an answer if the church was true because he was confused.  He came back from work meditating and praying and when he got home and opened the door he saw Elder Memmott and I sitting on the couch teaching his wife and his son.  He said that he felt his heart get warm and was filled with joy and he knew in that instant that the church was true and that he needed to get baptized.  On Sunday I got to talk to all of them again after church and they said that they wish I wouldve been there.  We are totally going to visit them when you come down. ¿va?  I´m really happy just thinkin about it.   Acutally, in a year, Elder Memmott and I want to come back together to go to their temple sealing.  That would be sooooo tight.

I cant really think of what else to write.  My mind is just wasted.  I cant stop thinkin about the next step, the next plan, the next change I need to make.  I love it though.  I feel like I´m progressing a ton.  I love you fam.  You are the best support I have.  It will be great seein eachother soon and to be together in the kingdom of God.  The work is true.  Heavenly Father loves us and wants our happiness.  As we are obedient to His commandments and in helping others reach eternal glory we receive this happiness.

I love you all!

.......one of the craziest weeks of my mission!

Hey family....

Probably one of the craziest weeks of my mission.  As of right this moment I haven´t slept since Friday night because of all the craziness, but after I finish this email I´m going to bed until tomorrow....
Well Elder Memmott and I finished out strong.  We had the baptism of Fabian.  He is great.  He is already attending institute and has already gone 2 to single adult activities.  He is way sweet.  He is already in Alma in the Book of Mormon and I´m pretty sure that he loves reading it.  His baptismal service was yesterday after the afternoon session (I got to see all the sessions)  The room where the baptism was held was overflowing and Fabian had a lot of support.  It was great and he is going to be way strong.

It was great also to see Javier and Martha, Paty, Luis, Josefina, Karina, Javier, Laura and Tomas and a few other new investigators at conference.  Especially since right after the baptism I got my bags together and took off for the offices of the mission.

I guess I´ll rewind a lit bit in the week.  Elder Memmott and I had a rough week being ´Holy Week´ down here.  We worked way hard, but there were a lot of people on vacation and we didnt see too many fruits, but it felt good to have a strong week.  We did a few interchanges and were figuring out solutions to all the problems in the zone and it was very gratifying to see some of the problems get fixed immediately in this last week.

Another cool thing that happened was that of Javier and Laura´s family.  Even though they still haven´t gotten baptized, we have recieved some huge news from Xochitl.  They would have gotten baptized on Sunday, but Xochitl and Abraham left on Friday.  Before leaving though Xochitl called us over and told us that she had some big news for us.  She said that she has decided to get baptized with her family and that she will get baptized this month.  We were some pumped after working many weeks with them.  I was filled so much with happiness even though it´s possible that I might not be there for their baptism.  They are going to be great converts.  The rest of the fam enjoyed conference and were tellin us how great it would have been to get baptized on conference Sunday.  I´m going to try to pull some strings to go to the baptism, but the only thing that is holding me back a little bit is that Queretaro is way far.

Sooooo....... I had been thinking since my interviews that I would go back to Atotonilco to finish my mission there in that zone.  It was the first time in my mission that I was way off.  I got a phone call from President Nancollas on Thursday.  He told me how many challenges there are in the mission, how many leaders are going home in the next few months and the need the mission has to get future leaders prepared.  He then told me that we were going to have some major changes in the mission because of the division of the mission in July.  So, for my last few changes I´m going to be what President Nancollas calls ´´his personal traveling assistant´´  I didnt really know what that meant on Thursday, but I got a little taste of what that means today.  Elder Molyneaux (Molino) and I were both call to that assignment and basically we are just going to be taking 1-2 weeks with a lot of the future leaders to help prepare them to be better district leaders and zone leaders.  I wont have an area or a zone.  That part is kind of lame, but I´m excited for the opportunity.

As part of my new assignment I had to come last night to the offices because at 2:30 a.m. we had to go take the missionaries that were going home to the airport.  Among them was Elder Romney and Elder Arnett.  That was pretty cool to go drop them off in the airport.  I took some pics.  What was not cool was the fact that my bus from Queretaro to the offices took 5 hours because of traffic and a wicked detour.  I finally got to the offices by myself after searching for a taxi with all my bags at 11:00 at night.  Anyways back to the other fun activities without sleep..... At 4:30 a.m. we went to the Mexican MTC to pick up the new Mexican Elders (and 1 sister misionera)  Then after attempting to sleep for an hour without success, the greenies got in the vans with their luggage and we took them to President and Sister Nancollas´ house for there training meeting and so President could assign them to their new trainers.  It took forever.  We gave them examples of how to put baptismal dates and invite people to church and other funny situations (like if your trainer has a cell phone when he shouldn´t, etc.)

So I am super stoked for the next few weeks.  A few of the Elders that I might train will be Elder Golledge (who is training and is a district leader now) Elder Carrillo (also a district leader)  and Elder Perez from Guadalajara who was in my district in Queretaro for a change.  There are a lot of others too, but those are a few that you probably know.  It is going to be fun.  Today after the training meeting for the newbies.  Elder Allen, Elder Anaya (the office assistants) Elder Molino and I had a meeting with President giving advice and counseling together to figure out what would be the best options to do in the next few weeks.  We are probably going to go with Zone Leaders as well so we have a lot of work to do.

Right now I am in the offices.... Im not sure if Im going to go directly with some missionaries tomorrow or wait for the American missionaries to get here to do the training meeting for them.  It will be an adventure every day and I´ll probably end up working in every zone of the mission.  It will be great!  I´m afraid that I´ll blink and my mission will be over.  Im just going to fight and give it all to the end.

I loved conference.  Priesthood session was AMAZING.  Elder Eyrings´ talk was awesome.  President Monson couldnt have been more direct and I loved it.  That is pretty much how we have to be with the people so that they really understand and change their lives.  The Prophets and Apostles are such great examples.  I also thought it was way cool about the Forrest family in Elder Andersens´ talk.  I enjoyed Elder Uchtdorfs´ talk about love.  Elder Rasbund (sp) talk on callin missionaries was way awesome too and I know that God has called me through one of His servant´s so that I can be here where HE wants me to be.

The work is true.  God lives and directs it through a living prophet and servants who guide us.  Jesus is the Christ and the Savior of the world.  Love you!  Have a great week!

Con amor,
Elder Greg Heap