Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Amber Dec 19th

Yesterday was a really great day & heres why. The primary pres told the 4 missionaries in the ward to go to primary & we werent sure why. so we got there & they had us all sit in the front then they begin bringing out 4 REALLY BIG bags full of gifts! one for each of us! i couldnt believe it. so the primary pres then said "Since the missionaries can't be at home with their families on christmas we want to help make their christmas great" So the ward all got together & got gifts for all of us & wrapped them all. It was the nicest thing ever! So the whole primary just watched us as we opened each gift! It was all things we needed....as missionaries....haha like nylons, food, paper, pens!!! hahah it was awesome & it made my day. I think every ward should do that to their missionaries! okay so the work this week has really improved! We have 3 new investigators!! YES THREE!! haha its awesome! i hope they keep progressing! one lady we just met saturday (Maria) has 13 kids!!! ughhh thats alot. We began telling her who we were & invited her to church. She was really excited & said she really wanted to come. She then began telling us how much she loves jesus & had such a stong testimony. "She should be mormon" Thats me & sister peavlers common phrase we say whenever we meet people. They totally seem like normal mormon people but they arent there yet ahaha. but they will soon :D We also have a man Dennis,i might have talked about before,(oh yeah the one that said hes okay with every religion but mormons haah) but hes really struggling with things. Hes about to lose his house in about a month & a half & we have been teaching him. He seems to really beliking it but the thing hes struggling with is joseph smith! WHY!!! haha joseph smith is TRUE!! i promise! haah thats what i want to say to them. but they need more proof & everything in the bible cause he was confused why it doesnt say anything in the bible about this coming to pass.ughh itscalled faith my brother! Well we have invited him to church a couple times & he isn't sure he can cause he doesnt work much except the weekends & he really needs money.We have promised him blessings over & over if he goes to church. Guess we'll just see. Patience is a huge part of missionary work let me tell ya. oh yeah so tell kyle & kurt that i met a man named Daniel who works for West Coast Customs & they are the poeple that do the shows Pimp My Ride & Trick My Truck!! We had dinner at his house & guess JUST GUESS who he had just spent all day with????? JUSTIN BIEBER!! Not kidding! I totally flipped out! haha The other missionaries & people at the house were laughing & making fun of me. I coulnd't beleive it though. He showed me pics of the TWO cars he was making for Bieber! They were sweet! ANyways that waspretty exciting haha. oh yeah so also this less active,Devin, who i think i talked about before. He had went on a mission & said he was just lazy now.Well he has gone to church with his wife the last 2 sundays!!!!! NOT KIDDING!! we were so excited.& also his wife isn't a member & so were hoping to start teaching her! Ilove you all somuch!!!!
-Love Sister Amber Ruth Heward

Levi Dec 19th

We went to a less active ladys house and she had a realllllllly realllly reallly hard time forgiving herself and i felt the spirit soooooo strong and it said to me pretty much "just start talking" so i did and i started crying and bearing testimony and telling her that its satan that tries to get us to feel like we're not good enough and i told her how i didnt feel adequate to go on a mission because of all the stupid stuff ive done. but it was really really spiritual. i love it. i also read the BOM ensign and i read the talk and testimony of Ezra taft Benson and it was by far the best thing ive read in an ensign. it helped me realize how important the BOM is. i knew it was important before but i didnt know how central it was to this entire church. its the everything. it determines our salvation basically. testament in greek means covenant so when it says another testamen of jesus christ on the front, its saying another covenant that christ has given to us that we must fufill. i always thought that you can read every so often and youll be fine but no, its evey single fricken day. never ever ever miss. if we will study it everyday and really study instead of just read then everything that happens in our life will just work. everything else will fall into place. if were having trouble, read the BOM, if were having a good time, read the BOM. Read the BOM every single day and a completely different spirit will enter not only in our lives but the lives of who we associate with, like family. do family scripture study and we wont fight anymore and eveybody will love each other. its that simple. i just cant believe i didnt understand that before haha. but anyways, we just started teaching a iranian lady who has two younger daughters who are members and she already knows the BOM is true so its just a matter of time. she started bearing testimony to us about the BOM and she started balling and all she could get out was "im so happy...im so happy" and then i said "i think we're good here. can we end in a prayer?" it was so amazing. but anyways again i hope everything is going well with all of you. well i love you all and thank you for everything. Love Elder Levi Bowen Heward

Monday, December 19, 2011

Amber's Christmas Card


Click on the picture to make it bigger.

I love you all and hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Always keep the true spirit of Christmas in your hearts and remember our Savior Jesus Christ. He was the greatest gift given to us from our Heavenly Father, so lets share that gift with others.
Love, Sister Amber Ruth Heward

Amber's last week post

This week has actually been a very good week! We are starting to really get to know people & have some new investigators too! So i did get to go to a baptism in Apple Valley on Friday cause there was somebody getting baptized that sister peavler taught there before she got transferred. It was really cool to get to see. It made me alot more motivated to get out & tell people to get baptized. The spirit was so strong & i was once again confirmed through the spirit that this church is true! So we also went to this mans house yesterday who is a less active (of course) & we were just talking for a little while then i asked him so why have you stopped going to church & he explained how he has to work now every sunday but is a massage therapist so he gets to choose his days he works & has monday & tuesday off! He then went on explaining how he believes the only thing that matters is his relationship with heavenly father & thats it. uhhhh what??? yes thats important but how do you strengthen the relationship to him & how do you show your faith & love for him? Anyway he started saying how he has so many people come in for massages that are different religions & he talks with them alot about their church, like jehovah witnesses & catholics (there are a ton of catholics).I then asked him so is there anything else that would really be stopping you from going to church other then your job? He went on saying well yes kinda with joseph & all and then changed the subject by talking about another church he learned about! I was so frustrated cause i wasn't there to learn about other churches but to figure out why he stopped going. I really think he has a problem with joseph smith being a prophet & thats HUGE cause if he doesnt believe that, then he doesnt believe in the BoM & then he doesn't believe in this church. Sister peavler did bear her testimony on joseph smith & i could feel the spirit so strongly but his reply to that was "well theres alot you could say to that statement" then began talking about the jehovah witness's prophet moses. I was kinda frustrated but it was a good convo. Very friendly man & we will go back with a member who is genius with the bible. haha Well today is the sisters activity at the mission home with sister godwin. It should be fun

To become like Jesus Christ & our Heavenly Father. Jesus Christ IS the savior of the world & i KNOW that to be true. He showed the greatest amount of charity towards EVERYONE through the atonement. I heard that "Charity is the atonement acting within ourselves" & that is true. Like it says in Moroni 7:46 That we are NOTHING without charity & when we have charity we will never fail (summarized) Thats how big charity is! It is how we become most like our Savior becuase charity is the pure love of christ.
Love , Sister Amber Ruth Heward

Levi's Post from last week

sooooo my bike wreck haha um i was turning a corner and i turned it too close and my handle clipped a little pole and it turned my tire into a curb and i flew off the front of it and then when i landed my leg was twisted up in my bike and then to top it all off, the back tire came up and hit me in the head. good thing i had a helmet haha. it messed up my leg though. i have some sick bruises
so this last week we taught a guy and i was on exchanges with the zone leader and it was by far the best lesson i have ever had on my mission. the spirit was there so strongly and we said everything we felt that we should say and he said he would love to have us come back and we asked him to be baptized and it was the very first time meeting with him and i really felt genuine love for the guy. im starting to realize the saying "love the people". it makes it easier to talk to strangers by the way when you wanna bless their life with the gospel. oh and just so you know, i am talking to people ive never meet before so im gonna be really wierd when i get back. Just warning you.
The church is true. I love to the Book of Mormon.
write you all later
Love, Elder Levi Bowen Heward

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Update

Amber has a new address. You can now find Amber and Levi's addresses on the side bar to the right. I will always try to keep them updated.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Amber's Post

heyyyy!!
alright so first off my companions name is kellie not shelby but shelby is her older sister!!! hahah so crazy!! its such a small world in mormon world. I just love my companion so much! I was so blessed to have her as my trainer! We haven't had any problems one bit! It just makes me sad to think i'm gonna get a new comp in a couple months. ! It seriously doesnt feel like christmas here at all! NO SNOW!! me & my companion decided we wanted to pray for snow so hopefully it comes on christmas day! That would be the best christmas gift ever, except talking to the family of course! We also made a christmas count down chain & hung it in our room & on each chain theres a scripture about christs birth. Its great! We also have a 'miracle wall' we're doing in our room. Its where we write little miracles down that go on throughout the day & & put them on the wall. I'll tell you a little miracle that happened....A couple days ago for dinner we had it at this member's home that lives in Muscoy. Ok so muscoy isn't really a safe area & they tell us not to go there past dark, but on this day we had dinner at 6 & it gets dark here around 5:30/6ish so it was dark when we went looking for the house. Well it was really hard to see the numbers on the houses & usually we would just park & walk down the street a little till we saw the number but we didn't wanna get out of the car so as we were looking for the house from our car we both saw one house that had numbers on it but all the rest didn't & we both said outloud "Please Heavenly Father let this be the house were eating at!" We got out of the car & went up to the house & when we saw the number is was the house we needed!! We both were so thankful! I don't know what we would have done if it wasn't the house we were eating at.
So i'm warm now with the blanket grandma gave me. I have a total of 5 blankets that i sleep with at night & then i also where my sweatshirt to bed. haha so i'm loaded with layers so im good now. (The member Amber lives with keeps her house very cold)
So things with teaching have been really slow to be honest. Since we were white washed into this area we are SLOWING starting to find people to teach. Tracting is NOT easy but we're trying & we are finding people so i think it will start picking up soon. Most people here are less actives which honestly kinda irritates me! but oh well i'm gonna do what i have to do. SO yesterday we went to this man's house & when he opened the door he yells "oh my friends!!!" ahah hes like come in come in! so we walk in & start talking to him. He tells us that he has a ton of friends that are mormon & just loves them. He then explained that he was muslim.....uhh what? haha He was from Lebanon but moved to cali like 26 years ago. His wife converted to muslim around the time she met him & then he told us that he is a professor that teaches muslim religion!! yeah i don't know how you work with that & it wont be easy converting him but we'll try our best. I asked him about what muslims really believe & its actually very similiar to mormons but they worship muhammad & we worship christ. They don't believe he was the son of God! hmmmm i don't get it. ANyway we also met this other man when we were going to this ladys house & she wasn't home but he was there & we started asking him if he was religious at all & he said well no not really just christian then he says "honestly im okay with every religion out there except the mormons" hahah me & my companion then smiled & he goes "oh no you 2 aren't mormons are you?!" we both said yes but said we weren't offended at all but wanted to know why he wasn't ok with our religion. He told us that he had an x girlfriend once who was mormon & she told him some crazy stuff about our religion that wasn't even true! we told him how people can spread rumors & they aren't always true but you need to always find out for yourself what you believe. He then instantly said he would be okay with trying our religion & we were like uhh wow okay i guess we''ll come back sometime & talk with you more. haha he was a good guy.
Oh yeah so the lady i live with is Sister Adams & she is so great!! Really i love her a ton & we just love talking with her but her son is in Melanie & reys ward!! Cool huh. Also another one of her daughters had a son that served in Guadalajara mexico & it was the same time that adam served there but i can't remember what the last name was. Hopefully i'll remember next time & let you know. Well today for p-day my zone is going on a hike! WOOT WOOT! It's like i'm in Idaho again! It should be fun though. I really like my zone. So yesterday was the 1st Presidency Christmas devotional & i hope you got to watch it cause it was good. Well things are going great here & I can't believe i have been out for already a month! :D There are so many troubled families out there & i have never realized how blessed i have been to grow up in a family where my parents actually taught me correct principles & gave me good examples to follow & have brothers who all set a good life & example for me. It's amazing to be in a family where i'm the 6th to serve a mission & i love it!! I couldn't have asked for a better family. I love you all & thanks again for your prayers & could you please ask a specail prayer that we can find people to teach & Be guided by the spirit to places where we can help this area grow spriritually! Thanks!
Love, Sister Amber Ruth Heward!

Levi's Post

gosh dang it. stupid kimberly haha.(referring to Kimberly beating Declo in basketball last week) but yea this week was pretty nice. we had a ward christmas party and they had steak and it was awesome haha. but yea this morning it was pretty cold but not as cold as idaho haha. no snow either. oh i also wrecked this week haha. it was a pretty big biff so my leg has been handicapped for a couple days but its all good. but yea we have a little christmas tree thats like 6 foot that a member let us borrow and i took some pics by it and a video of it so look forward to that when i send the chip home :) but yea we had a baptism three weeks in a row haha. pretty insane what happens when your obedient haha. my testimony is growing so much and its just awesome being out here. thank you for the prayers. Love Elder Levi Bowen Heward