Levi's last 6 weeks!

so yea, I said new companion. but elder Hendry isn't the one being tranfered. im getting transferred. for 6 weeks! yea pretty dang crazy. I did not expect that to happen at all. I was actually thinking it would be cool to go be in one more area for 6 weeks but I didn't expect it to be in this ward. so the new ward im gonna be in is in rocklin. its called granite bay 2nd ward and its the ward that the mission president lives in. so maybe i'll be having dinner with the mission president and his family haha. that would be cool. but im still a zone leader. its just really hard to deal with leaving the people here in auburn after I was here for a while and worked hard for them and their salvation. its like a super bitter sweet situation. im having a really hard time with auburn especially because I didn't have any baptisms here and I didn't really see any body progress really far so im having a hard time thinking if I did what the lord wanted me to do here. I remember my mission president telling me in an interview right after I got into this area "elder heward, I really need you to dig your heels in here". that hit me like a ton of bricks. this zone has been struggling with success and helping people get baptized and it still is and I just felt like that if I dug my heels in the ground like president Weston said then the baptisms would increase and the success would go up and everyones faith would increase. thinking about it now though, the lords success is different than what my idea of success would be. maybe I wasn't supposed to help any body get baptized here but just to prepare them for the next missionaries. whatever it was I really hope to have the spirit confirm to me that what I did here was acceptable to he lord. we'll see. I been learning patience so I will just keep waiting patiently. theres a difference between waiting and waiting patiently. weird huh? kinda hit me this morning. well it doesn't matter when the lord will bless you but that you stay faithful so he can bless you when he sees fit to do so. Love Elder Levi Bowen Heward

Amber's Closing Quote

I would like to thank EVERYBODY who has been a part of these last amazing 18 months of my life. You have been such great examples and teachers to me and have always made me feel loved. I will never forget the lasting friendships I have made. One of the many things I have learned is that we cannot find any greater happiness then by SHARING the gospel and LIVING the gospel. Just like Alma, "I do not glory of myself....this is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance, and this is my joy." (Alma 29:9) I have the greatest blessing of seeing one of my recent converts receive her endowments and then 2 weeks after I get home, I will see her be sealed to her husband. There is no greater joy then this. Do all you can to keep sharing the joy of this gospel with EVERYONE around you! -Sister Amber Heward

yea this past week was really awesome. we set a baptismal date with one of our investigators for june 1st. if she keeps all her commitments and reads and prays then she will for sure be ready to be baptized by june 1st. it was so cool though because we weren't planning on having a lesson with her or even setting a date but it happened. it was such a testimony builder to me that this is the lords work and when he wants his work to progress then it will progress regardless of what other people choose to do. in doctrine and covenants, in chapter 3 it says that it is not the work of god that is frustrated but the work of men. it truly is. we are the ones to choose not do be obedient to the rules or to spread the gospel but the work of god will move on. anyways, I was able to go to the chiropractor this morning to get fixed and all that good stuff. don't worry, nothing is wrong. I just felt completely out of place and we have a chiropractor in our ward so I thought what the heck. so anyways, everything is going awesome. so we have this place in our area called the greens and it is completely full of Mexicans. there used to be a Spanish branch here but it got dissolved into the ward and now there is just Spanish classes. we had dinner with a Mexican lady last week and it was so awesome because it was like I was a Spanish missionary for a little while except I didn't know Spanish at all. well I love you all. thank you for all you do and I hope you all have an awesome week! Love Elder Levi Bowen Heward

Sister Heward's Coming Home!

For those of you that don't know, Sister Heward is flying in next week on the 14th! She reports on May 26th at 1 o clock So yes this week was pretty crazy...i'm sure this week will be crazier but oh well. So some pretty sweet stuff happened this week. First off, Wednesday was zone conference which is always awesome but even better was that night i got to go to the temple to see Jen get her endowments out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe that???? It's seriously like a dream. I honestly couldnt stop smiling and at times when we would get up and change our clothes and stuff she would turn and look at me and smile. Then even better was walking into the celestial room and seeing Jen right there come up and give me a hug and she says, "thank you so much. thank you. thank you." of course we both had tears in our eyes. And i said to her, "no, thank you Jen. There couldn't have been any better way for me to end my mission then this. I was so blessed to be there. And to think a whole year ago she was baptized. Gosh where does the time go. Then get this. We rode to the temple with President and Sister Godwin (yeah they were invited also so we felt pretty lucky to ride with them) and by the time we got out of the temple it was 9:30 (curfew time) and then as we were driving away sister godwin says, " honey do you think there is a frozen yogurt place around or something we could go to?" hahahahah can you believe that? Me and sister ott looked at each other in the back seat not sure what to say cause of course we wanna go get some frozen yogurt with them PAST CURFEW!! hahah so President totally drove us to a frozen yogurt place and we just sat and ate it together. Then we got to their house at 10:30 then finally made it home by 11. insane huh? It actually was really cool to watch though. Because i can't even comprehend how exhausted they are (cause zone conference was all that week) but they still wanted to make time for frozen yogurt with us. They really taught me to enjoy EACH day and don't let each precious moment or memory go by without making it the greatest. Even when times are exhausting, we need to make the best of it =) They are so awesome!! okay for our awesome miracle this week. So our zone leaders are really into encouraging us to find "seekers" or those who want to listen and be baptized right away. So after we had gotten out of a lesson with a less active that didn't go well at all, i was so frustrated. and as we were driving away i said "man i am so SICK of teaching people who don't wanna listen. I feel like we are just forcing it down their throat. What do we do to find seekers!?" haha so we looked at each other and said "alright let's put this to the test." so we said a very sincere prayer asking heavenly father to guide us to people who will listen. we both felt like we needed to tract and picked a street together. We made goals with each other and Heavenly Father that we would talk to EVERYONE we saw. We got to the street and i realized there was a former investigator on the street. As we were getting out of the car we noticed a less active, heather, had just walked by with her friend. Well we ignored that and walked up to the house and no one answered....we were down on ourselves thinking that was why we were at that street and then we both realized that we were supposed to talk to HEATHER and her friend. We decided to hurry and drive to see if we could find them (kinda creepy stalkerish i know haha) well we didn't find them and i just parked on a random street. Man we felt so bad and prayed again to heavenly father to apologize for not talking to them and asked for one more time to guide us to them or wherever we needed to go. We both felt strongly to stay on the street and tract it. Well i was getting out of the car and look across the street and you wouldn't believe what i saw......Heather and her friend getting our of a car and going into her friends house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was completely blown away! I quickly told sister ott to look across the street and she looked and then stared at me in amazement. I started getting tears in my eyes because this was no coincidence and i knew without a doubt we were really supposed to talk to these girls and something awesome was about to happen. Well we walked up and knocked on the door and heather answered (this isn't her house so we acted surprised that she answered) and we were like "wow what are the odds seeing you here?" haha then her friend walked up and started talking to us and began telling us how she has been wanting to go to church with heather but hasn't been able to and also her sister amanda has been reading the bom and wants to be mormon!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah it was pretty incredible and we totally had just found 'seekers'. Miracles really do happen. Also later that day we tracted into a girl named Ligaya who said right after we introduced who we were "I think i just prayed you here." =) sweet huh. She had just bought a house in eastvale and was really looking for a church to go to with her kids and had just prayed a little bit ago and then we knocked. man i love when that happens. Well i love you all SOOO VERY MUCH!! This gospel is amazing and i love being a missionary! see you all soon! -sister amber ruth heward

wow. sounds like everyone is just having an awesome life. I wish I was part of it. just messing. . its gonna be weird coming home to that stuff. anyways, yea so real quick. this past week was good. we got a new phone its a touch screen one and its so weird because Im used to the older ones and now theyre getting all hi tech with us. anyways, we have a pickup as well. I don't know if I told you that already. so we talked to everyone this past week. really. everyone we saw walking on the side of the road we talked to. it was hilarious. we would fake like we were tying out shoe so we would meet up with the person to be able to talk to them. its so great though when you get excited about the gospel and just want to tell every single person about it. anyways, we had a few really good lessons this week. my comp is a stud. we get along so well. we are both super obedient and we want to teach the gospel in the best way possible. we just recently had a really good dinner thought and the spirit was there so strong. it was because we fixed a teeny tiny thing that really wasn't that big of a deal but because we put effort in fixing it, the lord blessed up with an abundance of the spirit. so yea that is kinda whats going on right now in my life as a missionary. we are working hard. we are always tired. its kinda funny how tired but happy I am. well thank you family and mom for all you do and for the update on everyones life. tell kurt and zenna happy birthday for me. I forget until the day after. anyways, I will talk to you all next week. hope you have an amazing family night and an awesome week! Love Elder Levi Bowen Heward

so as you know (from texting aunt gail) haha we went to the temple today and it was wonderful!! Also on saturday i got to see kellie (peavler) johnson!! Words can't explain how excited we both were. it was one of those things where we didn't know what to say but just screamed alot and hugged each other for a long time but then the ward started coming and we barely had any time to talk to eachother. haha towards the end we were saying to eachother how sad we didn't really get to hang out and visit but it was still fun to see so many people. And she also said that her and cameron are planning on coming to my farewell AND also devon and jen =) haha they actually asked me if they could all stay at my house.......uhhh i told them yes but of course i'll need to talk to the head of the house. haha They said they would be willing to sleep wherever of course. Devon just kept saying how he just loved being at the farm and being with my family and jen loves you mom. They absolutely LOVE you guys. haha. Anyway it'll be a full house im sure. I can sleep on the tramp if i have to......hahahahah and kyle you can sleep with me ;) Also before i forget, dad i have some questions for you from Frank, my recent convert. He was asking about cows and he was wondering if there was a certain number of calves a cow can have or does it just depend on the cow and you try to have them have as many calves as possible? also what do you do with the cow when they can't have calves anymore? Do you just butcher it? Also here's some big news.....we set a baptism date with Edna!!!!!!!!!!!! halleluja!! She is so incredible and she keeps saying how she has changed so much and can't believe she likes the mormon church so much. About a month ago she would never be saying the things she's saying now. She actually told us the other day though that she is still really scared to leave the catholic behind but knows so deeply by the way she feels that she's supposed to be mormon. It's hard to hear that but we told her that not all good decisions are meant to be easy but they are scary sometimes but we need to make her understand that we are only adding happiness and blessings to what she already believes and loves. She'll come around. But we set a date for april 27th but i think it'll be moved back cause i don't think we'll have enough time to teach her all the lessons. We have to teach them ALL again cause we she was being taught them before she was WAY closed off and didn't care to learn at all (very prideful) so we taught her the restoration yesterday and it went awesome! Her 2 daughters also sat in and their son-in-law and one daughter was asking question after question. i love her! and she kept saying "so i just think it would be good to learn about mormons but i don't think i'll ever change" and then edna goes "that's exactly what i said and look where i am now!" haha and also we were talking to the son-in-law and he was saying how his grandma had died and that's when he stopped believing in religion so i bared my testimony on how our church is centered on families and that we believe families are meant to last FOREVER and we are blessed to have a knowledge of what happens after this life and that WE WILL see our loved ones again. And then the daughter began telling us how that is the only thing she has really questioned in her life, "if there really is life after death" We told her we can teach her how we KNOW that there is and it's because we have prophets who give us modern revelation and also the AMAZING BOM that gives us more knowledge on doctrine. it was such an incredible lesson. I'm so excited for the whole family! Well i have to hurry and go email some more people but i'll be emailing you soon again on monday! I love you all have a great week! love sister amber ruth heward pics: of the temple, a sunburn i got....on my neck, and also my funny 17th month mark pic...

FAmily! . So Wow! it sounds like an awesome week! I was a little bummed about state when i heard cause i had full confidence they could do it but it's fine kyle. You still have 2 more years. Just think how much better you all will be by then. And i'll get to be there!!!!!!!!! :) That's so fun you all got to be together with the twins and shay and kira and everyone!! ok so kyle i just have to say "dude YOU DA MAN" for fasting for your friend! Fasting is incredibly powerful. So i was pretty impressed when i heard that. Way to go man. I know for a fact that the Lord is aware of that and things will happen the way they are supposed to. You can have confidence in that....even if it doesn't go the way people would like. There is more strength in the spirit to trust the Lord when you fast. ps I really really do LOVE my comp!!! For real she is so awesome!! I feel like i can be my complete self with her and that's what i love most about getting companions! Cause then i teach investigators and people very calmly and it flows easier. Sister miles was kinda like an old soul in a young body. haha She is awesome dont get me wrong but im more of a go with the flow and enjoy the ride kinda person. That's how sister ott is. We had the funniest thing happen a few days ago. We went to try and visit this man but he wasn't home so we decided to tract a street that was right by the street and when we drove up we noticed some j-dubs (jehovah witnesses) were about to tract that street so we went to the next one over. We hurried and started tracting knowing they would be over to this street sooner or later. Well we were knocking and NOBODY was answering so we decided to turn around and do the houses on the other side but THEN we noticed the j-dubs coming around the corner and there up ahead of us was a man walking to his truck and we were like "we totally HAVE to talk to him" so we sped up our pace and noticed the j-dubs had the same thought. So i just kept focused walking to this man 'NO BACKING DOWN!' haha and then sister ott decided to smile and wave at them haahahah so the lead j-dub man waved back and we all kept walking towards this man. This poor man looked terrified like this war between j-dubs and mormons. Well guess who won............of course we did :D we got to the man and started talking to him but sadly he didn't speak english. hahah it was a bummer but we felt accomplished we had beat the j-dubs. Thats prolly not the best attitude but it gave us a good laugh. So we have this lady Rita Dean that we are teaching and we actually set a baptism date with her on technically the FIRST lesson. The first time we met was just a get to know you and brief introduction, but It was insane. I couldn't believe she actually said yes. I just hope she is serious about all of it and there isn't any other motives. We'll see how things go. She even came to church before we even taught her the first lesson. But anyway she is hilarious and so funny. She is this southern black baptist lady. She cracks us up. Have a wonderful week! I love you all! This church is soooooooo true!! Love sister amber ruth heward the one with the food is today we mad german pancakes and cookies :)_