Surprising Email...Just FYI: Tornadoes!

Got a surprising mid-week email from Elder H this afternoon entitled "Just FYI" --

Hi Mom!

So I don't know what has been broadcast on the news or whatever, but President has told us to e-mail home and let everyone know that we're doin fine! There were tornadoes and crazy weather last night but the missionaries are doin good! Alright, love you all!

--Elder Heimuli


Taken today after a tornado ripped through an Atlanta neighborhood. Read more at:

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/local_news/deadly-storms-tear-through-north-georgia-20110427-tm

Semana 19 - Temple, Harrison, Letter from Home

(Note from Mom: Can't believe it's been 4 1/2 months already. Elder H only recently discovered he could hit "reply" to my emails; up until then, he was creating a new message every time -- a remarkable feat considering he's not a typist...which makes us all the more grateful for his letters! In a departure from the norm, I'm attaching our letter after his, to help explain some of his responses.)

Hola familia!

Well, it's another week gone and another week has arrived. We just finished up the Open House for the Georgia Atlanta Temple. The last day was this past Saturday. I had the special opporitunity of going twice this week hahaha! Lucky me! I spent all day at the temple Thursday from 8am-5pm just standing and parking people. Man my body was sore after that ha but it was all good. Of course, I went through a tour after. Oh sorry, I meant Friday, not Thursday. Then Saturday we went with this huge group of people from our branch through another tour. Our investigator Elizabeth was there and some of her family (i think...). She loved it and we are gonna try and set a date with her tonight. (things haven't been going as planned the past week, sad to say.) So yes, a lot of temple again this week. I met a lot of really cool sisters from the North mission there! Three polynesian sisters, one went to East High, and another lived on Oahu next to the Pearl Harbor area. Too bad all the Elders in the North mission are lame (hahaha just kidding Tolu).

I think I might be able to go to the giant activity thing on Saturday and the rededication on the 1st. It's gonna be sweet! I'm really excited for that. And then i'll be able to GO TO THE TEMPLE!!!! Hooray!

Did Harrison get the card I sent him??? It was a really cool one and it'd be a shame if it got lost in the mail. I'm glad to hear that he still remembers his number one brother (me, not Hema). I don't know what possesed him to say "Hema..." THEN "...Helam" but he'll get it right soon hahaha! He's just a little confused, that's all--he's one year older and wiser now:)

My Easter was good. In fact it was exactly like any other Sunday! I actually forgot it was Easter until about 7 o clock last night. We only had Juan come to church. Elizabeth was sick so she didn't make it. Our biggest focus this week is just getting members married, i'm sure i mentioned this last week. We have 3 and possibly 4 families that need to get married and we want to do it all this week. Wish us luck haha!

Morris is good. I'm learning lots from that swell guy.


Right now i'm working on how to teach 'con prisa y con confianza' in my lessons. It's a motto i came up with cuz too many times missionaries drag out lessons and the Spirit leaves or they are too timid and the investigator gets bored and stops caring.

I need to go now, but i love you all! Thakns for everything you do and I am working hard for you guys! I may need contact solution...and anyting else your mothers intuition says...but other than that i am dandy!

Love you all

--Elder Heimuli

***

Hi Son,

How was your week? We just walked in the door from the Heimuli meeting at Uncle Hema's house. The girls (Nei, Melisa, Lisa and Laveni) planned a fun Easter egg hunt for all the kids. It was great! Everyone liked your letter, scripture, and Sifa did a great job of sharing an experience from his mission. Hema and Norma couldn't make it because it was the 4th Sunday which is Norma's family meeting. Easter Sunday was great except my class was hyper from all the candy. Now that we have church from 1-4pm, Harrison's often grouchy and sleepy, but at least he doesn't throw things at the back of my head anymore! Haha.

Did you get to go back to the Open House with your other investigators? Are you going to be able to attend the Cultural Celebration on Saturday, or the dedication on Sunday? What a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

How was your Easter? Did your investigators come to church today?

Any more tornadoes this week? How is Elder Morris? Tell him we said hi! I would love to touch base with his mom if you can get me her email address. If not, that's okay.

Well, Harrison turned 6 on Thursday. I had meetings all day, so Hevynn and I did the whole birthday poster/presentation/treats in his class on Wednesday. Yes, we worked our tails off for that cute little guy. When it came time for his class to ask questions, one girl asked, "Who is your favorite person?" What do you think he said? Probably his mom or sister who worked so hard to make his special day extra-special, right? Wrong!

He said, "Hema and Helam." Then he saw me looking at him, so he added, "...and Mom." Then he saw Hevynn glaring at him, so he added, "...and Hevynn." Can you believe it?! You and Hema are obviously who he looks up to. That 6-year-old rascal! He's so cute. Dad bought him 2 pairs of nice shoes which he said were "just like Hema's and Helam's!" and he had a lot of other gifts. Spoiled.

Hevynn has UVU finals this week. Then she'll start Summer Term. We are so proud of her.

Houston's busy with school and soccer. He's such a good young man -- the YM all sang in Sacrament Meeting today, and Jesse Scott played the cello (he was really good!) and Atticus Wolfgramm sang a solo on one of the verses. I was impressed.

Sifa finished finals last week and is busy with his Institute calling. The companion he had on that outer island finally came home, and Sifa attended his homecoming this morning.

Dad is still by far the hardest-working man I know. We are so blessed and so lucky that he takes such good care of us.

Hema and Norma are working hard, too. They love and support each other, and have fun doing it. It's nice to see what a wonderful husband Hema is (but no surprise at all!).

Let me know if there's anything you need. I need to send you a box this week some time, but need some ideas of what to put in it.

Stay obedient to every rule. Don't waste a minute of the Lord's time. I know you and your comp are working hard to change the reputation of the Spanish-speaking missionaries, and you will do that through your great examples and your willing and exact obedience. Not to mention the many blessings and increased measure of the Spirit you (and us, too!) will receive.

We all love you very much!

Love,
Mom
Xoxoxoxoxo

Semana 18 - I Love to See the Temple! Important People in Marietta. How did the package get there anyways?

Que pasa?!

Don't worry, I got the package! Thank you guys so much! You definately know you're a missionary when out of all the things you recieve in a package, the things you're most excited about are g’s and "Jesus the Christ" hahaha! But yeah, those DriLux are a life saver, now I won't sweat just walking outside!

How did the package get there anyways? Did you guys just ditch it at the door? I'm sure it would have gotten to me safely--there's a guy that lives near us, his name is Eddie, and he always watches packages that get dropped off at the door for us haha. He calls me Big H!

I'm glad to hear about the temple experience! It's such a beautiful temple! I've been on 2 tours already and I'll probably end up with 3 or 4 more before the Open House is done! Last week we worked at the temple, helping with parking. We stood outside for 8 hours! A couple of the Elders got sunburns...Elder Henderson got the worst of it. His face was totally red afterwards! ... now it's just all peely...eww ;) But yes, worked last wednesday and then Saturday night Elder Morris and I went with Juan, Emily, their kids, Emily's sister and her boyfriend, and their mom with a couple more kids. La jira fue todo en espanol. Nuestro guia fue un hombre que servio su mision en Chile, como hace veinte anos! Que viejo! jajaja (tribute to Mr. Hema). I met a lot of sister missionaries there and one of them is from Payson that knew Heimulis...do we know any? She says she just loves Tongans...man, who doesn't?

So the people you met at the Open House are from my area. Smyrna is right next to Marietta, if you guys didn't know. If they were members they would go to the same chapel that we do! So maybe I'll have to look out for a Bonnie and David!

Ramon is doing well. Andres I haven't heard from since. Juan and Emily--we're still trying to get them married...along with 3 other couples in our branch. Elizabeth came to church but Eva didn't. We are gonna try and see them every day this week to try and set a date. This past week I've used my Priesthood a lot, it's been a cool experience. I helped confirm 4 people (oh yeah, the other elders had a family baptism this weekend. The mom and three of her kids). Gave the Dad of those kids, Ernesto, a blessing. Blessed two women on Sunday. When we were at the temple Saturday night, I blessed a little girl. It was in English and for the longest time I couldn't remember how to say anything!



I haven't been able to go to Evan's house. It's out of our mission I think...

I am definately enjoying serving with Elder Morris. He is a really cool guy and we get along great. We just keep working hard! We're not the perfect missionaries, but we try to do better every chance we can!

As for the Heimuli Clan, just tell everyone I love them and I pray for them. I know that they're all doing what they need to and if they ever need help with anything, our Heavenly Father will be more than happy to help his children that ask.

Like we read in 3 Nephi 13:32: "...porque vuestro Padre sabe las cosas que necesitais antes que le pidais." Also, when you call Hema to ask him to translate this, can you also tell him to talk to the family really quickly about how he experienced this in his mission, and tell Sifa too, and anyone else who has served a mission. I know that God knows what we need, maybe even before we know it. If we need help through a trial, or need comfort, or need strength, or anything like that we just need to ask. We need to show our faith in our Heavenly Father by humbling ourselves, and he will help us.

I'll let you guys know about Mother's Day. I'm sure I call you, but you guys need to calm down, we still got 3 weeks hahaha!

Love you guys! Pray for most of you!

Love, Elder Heimuli

ps. I pray for ALL of you hahaha!

Semana 17 - Jajaja, Translados, A Little Glimpse

(Seated: Elder Heimuli's new companion, Elder Morris, from Mesquite NV)

Querido familia

Wow, it sounds like you guys have been kept busy this past week, almost as busy as a missionary hahaha (Just a side note: i'll be using the "hahaha" because "jajaja" isn't really that funny to me. Nobody uses it here...I guess it's just a weird Ecuadorian thing...) And please tell Grams Happy Birthday from me and 'suerte' with the training.

The weather here has been really hot recently, probably mid 80's with humidity. Thank goodness we're allowed to take off our suit coats now or else i'd be dead. I'm glad but sad to hear Pope is goin to Brazil. Why you ask? Well, in about two months the Macon Mission is dissolving and we get a big chunk of it. I was hoping to serve with him...but now, negative!

When Dad comes, do you think he could bring some normal garments for me? I'm dying here in the 100% cotton and spandex. Maybe some good breatheable material? Ask Hema, he has experience in the super humid climates. No Spam thanks, we still have a ton! Thats it i think...thanks mom! Oh, and maybe the book "Jesus the Christ"

So, this week has been a pretty busy one, and very exciting actually. First, TRANSLADOS! This Wednesday we had transfers and I guess it was time for my dad to leave the nest. I'm still doing work in Marietta with my new companion, Elder Morris. If you didn't already know, Elder Morris has been in my same district and I've worked pretty closely with him already during my first transfer, so I was pretty excited to hear that he was just moving about 2 miles from the Smyrna area to ours. He's a cool guy. He is from Mesquite, Nevada and went to high school where their mascot was the Bull Dogs. He played football, basketball and baseball in high school. He has been in the mission for a little over a year, and when he gets home he'll play baseball for SLCC (who is #1 in the nation last time we heard.) Yes, Carpenter left and was replaced by Elder Henderson who is from Pocatello, Idaho. He has been in for 20 months and he's a cool guy too. Elder Haight and have been working around each other for the past 16 weeks, weird huh?

I have a couple cool experiences this week...well, that happened in the last 5 days or so. Thursday we went to lunch with the Celedon family and there was a lady there by the name of Elizabeth. She was cool and while we were talking with them, we shared a scripture thought with them all (sorry, i forgot the reference) but then Elizabeth just straight up asked us how she could be baptized! So, what would good missionaries do? That's right, take her to the nearest river and baptize her! Hahaha just kidding, but we did set up an appointment and we've taught her twice already. When we taught her last night, her son Leo was there and he was very interested in what we were teaching. So, we have two new investigators from that one experience. She came to church on Sunday.

Then Saturday we spent ALL day tracting. Not much fun, but it had to be done (haha i didn't mean for that to rhyme). We found quite a few people and even found this family of 3 women: Eva and her daughters Eva and Claudia and then like 2 or 3 of their kids. We had a lesson with them and them invited them to come to church. Come Sunday, Eva came! Eva the younger (missionary humor...) and Claudia didn't come though cuz they were sick, but we talked with Eva and she said she wanted the two of them to come next week. I hope that happens!

Sunday Me, Haight and the new greenie Benedict gave talks. They told us Saturday night because the family that was supposed to do it couldn't go or something, so that was fun trying to scramble a talk together in no time. That was pretty ok, but at least i found that my spanish is improving, so that was good! Now, one of the coolest things was that (besides the 3 investigators that came to church) Ernesto Perez and his family came. Now, I don't know if i told you about him but here's the skinny:

Hermano Perez is an endowed member. He and his wife had been living together with their kids for like 7 years and they finally got married about a month ago. Ernesto wanted to baptize his family but because he was endowed and had been living together without being married, he ran into some problems. The wife and kids were going to be baptized but two weeks after their marriage, the day before the baptism, Ernesto calls Haight and Carpenter and says that they're getting a divorce, and he's moving to Texas. They were so sad after that.

So, when the Perez family showed up sunday we were all so happy! Ernesto said the opening prayer and even passed the sacrament. He passed it on the stand where we were sitting. When he got to us, Elder Haight was on the verge of tears. I could really feel the love Haight had for the Perez family, and I understand now the deep love missionaries have for their investigators, and maybe even a little glimpse of how Heavenly Father feels when we make the right choices and do all we can to follow him. It's really a unique feeling and I'm glad I get to experience it.

I'm happy to hear about Kalea’s baptism. Good that her dad got to baptize and confirm her and good that Ben was there too. I'm very happy because that means that he is doing everything necessary to be able to baptize others in just a few months. I know Heavenly Father is so happy with him.

Well, I don't have a scripture handy...sorry, but i'll send 2 good ones next week, Cool?

Love you all! I'll pray extra hard for you this week!

Love, Elder Heimuli

Mission Pix!

Finally received some pictures after bugging Elder H for some time.

After a P-day workout with Elder Carpenter. Everything looks so calm. Elder Carpenter has no idea he's about to be victimized!


Elder Heimuli baiting a SPAM trap for Elder Carpenter...


...Wait for it...


Got him!!!


Elder Heimuli at the Spidey jumpy-thingy with los hijos (sorry about Spidey's head -- couldn't help myself)

Semana 16 - Conference/Baptism Combo-Supreme!

Hola, hola, hola!

Well, another week down and what a great one it was! ...well, the weekend anyways haha! So I didn't get any packages yet, so maybe today! If not, I guess that means i'm getting transferred haha! That's right, this week is transfers and it's pretty exciting. Tonight is when we get the calls to see where we all end up. Elder Carpenter is leaving for sure, but as for my companionship, tonight will be the night. Which reminds me, thanks for the contact--I'll try my best to see what's up but if i get transferred i'll try and refer him to some good english elders!

We were hit by HUGE rainstorms almost every day this past week...by Utah standards. Here, flooding and getting hit by sheets of water are a pretty regular occurance and the lightning and thunder here sound like explosions! Really cool.

Now, my weekend was full of some pretty neat things. One of which was the Conference/Baptism combo-supreme! That's right hermanos y hermanas, a soul was brought unto the kindom of our father! Ramon got baptized Saturday in between conference sessions and I had the opporitunity to baptize him...pretty sweet. Last week, after i emailed you guys, we called President Satterfield and recieved special permission to go through with the baptism even though he had only attended one week at church. We ALL felt like Ramon was a solid guy and that Satan would be trying very hard to get him if we didn't baptize him soon. So, all is well. As i said, the service was in between sessions and it was all held at the chapel. Of course, I did miss a bit of the saturday morning session because we were running around trying to get everything together because a girl named Yesenia was baptized too by the Smyrna elders at the same service. Two for the price of one! It was a really cool experience, and I'm only a greenie! That just means there is much more ahead for me and in my time as a missionary.

I LOVED conference this weekend. Probably the best one yet...maybe becuase i stayed awake for all of it...nah, that can't be it;) I took down a lot of notes, and a lot of profound things were said that i hope you were all able to catch. One of which was said by Russell M. Nelson, "it will not be easy or popular to be a latter day saint in the future." This is so true and getting truer every year. The world is gradually descending farther and farther from God and we need to stay steadfast. Having our very own testimony is so important, and it's kind of a scary thought that we will be faced with persecution and such but we are reassured by the quote that Elder Nelson shared by Pres. Monson, "the future is as bright as your faith."

Rememer that the words of the prophets are for US as individuals, and as you hearken to them, you will always walk in righteous paths and god's promises will always be there for you.

Well, that's it for now. I love you all and i pray for you all!

--Elder Heimuli