Single's Ward!

Dear Family,

What could be better than me being assigned to a Spanish area? Being assigned to a single's ward! Oh my goodness I love my new area. My companion is Sis Sorensen and she is so awesome. She trained Sis Probert (who happens to be not very far from us. Can you say freaking awesome P-days?) Anyway, some of you may not yet know what a single's ward is, or you may not remember. So I'll tell you about them. Single's ward- where a talk on the atonement means a talk on breaking up with your boyfriend; where you get lectures from your bishopric on sleeping more and getting married; where drama and rumors run rampant concerning who is dating who and who is free; a place where everyone is horrified that they are having trouble getting married, yet they are all terrified at the thought of a commitment that means eternity. Oh, how I love it.

There are about a bajillion returned missionaries and they all want to help us. Last night we literally went party hopping and walked out each time having done a ton of missionary work. I love Mount Bonnell. We cover the entire Austin stake which is crazy. Also, I love Austin. It reminds me so much of Moscow (Idaho). It just has this weird, hippy, big city feel to it that I absolutely love.

I love you all,

Hna. Heeder

If You Have Any Poo, Fling It Now

Dear Family,
Well I admit that I didn't see it coming, but Sis Fitzgerald and I are getting doubled out and Converse is being closed for one transfer. It's kind of bitter sweet because we finally got a solid investigator with a baptismal date and now we're leaving her. The Elders in the ward next to ours are going to finish teaching her and get her in the water. Her name is Aliegh and she is the cutest thing ever! she's 16 and her friend brought her to church starting back in January and she's been coming for months. We are teaching her in her friend's home and this friend's dad gets really excited about missionary work. It took us 2 hours to get through the first lesson because he kept going off on wild tangents and pulling out these weird scriptures from Isaiah. ugh. it was a really good lesson though and the spirit was really strong. (It was even stronger when obscure passages from the bible were not being shared and the missionaries were able to teach simply and testify.) Silly members, they just aren't quite sure what they're doing sometimes, but we're sure grateful for their help.

Where do I think I'm being transferred? Riverside. I want to go to Riverside so bad. It's a Spanish area and I would just about die of happiness if I went there :) Here's the Mission Office address.

Hermana Morgan Heeder

Texas San Antonio Mission

404 E. Ramsey Rd. Ste #105

San Antonio, TX 78216

Other news for this week: Jessica, I got your package and I like it quite a lot. bow ties are cool. haha :) I've recently finished the book of Acts and I'm waging war with Romans. I'm pretty sure Romans is on crack. I'm lucky if I understand 5% of what it says. Luckily it's not a very long book and there are things here and there that stick out. I much prefer reading in the Book of Mormon. it makes so much more sense. How can anyone say it's not true. Silly people just don't understand. We had a ward party on Saturday and it was really fun. The Converse Ward needs ward parties. That’s all there is to it. These people go to church together every Sunday and so many of them just don't know each other. I was so tired by the end of it I just wanted to lie down and die. Luckily it went late enough that we didn't have to try to go out and tract after that. I'll attach some pictures.

Also, if you're wondering why I'm making that weird face and pointing at my arm, well... we went to visit this 19 year old girl who just moved here and the Relief Society president asked us to go meet her. Anyway, she was not there, but her little sister was so we talked to her and she asked if we wanted to see her dog. We said, "sure," and next thing I know there's a pit bull running at me and jumping all over me. He never calmed down so she held him back as we escaped out the front door. When I looked down at my arm it was covered in white, foamy, pit-bull slobber. Gross.

Oh hey, I hit my 6 month mark on Thursday. That means I only have 12 1/2 months left. How crazy is that? Also, I've filled up one of my memory cards so I'll try to send it some to you sometime soon. You could probably just dump it onto my computron and onto your computron. That way they won’t get lost. (hopefully)

Dear Geandma and Geandpa. I love you a ton. I would like to get your address so I can write you letters. I hope everything is going well and that you are both feeling better. I need to get Arlin's mission home address too so I can write him too.

Youngest sisters, how is life. You never write me. are you being nice? Summer is almost here. Just hold on.

Oldest sister. I miss school so much. I'm super jealous that you're in school and I'm not.  Of course, you're probably jealous of me too. At our dinner appointment we were telling this family about what we were like when we were human. Oh to be human...

Next younger sister, how are you? When do you leave for Sweden? You should send me some pictures sometime :)

Oldest parent, Hi Mom :) hehehe. Sorry, I didn't mean to call you old :) I got your letter this week. I don’t remember at this time what it said, but I remember that it was good and that it's the only letter I got this week. (nudge nudge rest of family ;) except for oldest sister of course b/c  she sent me a cool pin)

Younger parent, hi dad. how are you? how's the gardening comming? I miss it. I was in Wal-Mart (I just looked back through and saw that I had written "walmard" which I thought was really funny but I didn't want y’all to think I had gotten dumb so I changed it.) the other day and I saw that they have these little crabs that you just keep in a fresh water tank and I wanted one so bad, but sis Fitzgerald said it was against the rules (which it is) and wouldn't let me get one. Sad day. It's most definitely a good thing I have a companion or I would break all kinds of rules for the sake of awesomeness and fun. I already kind of do, but not really :)

"Friend" who never writes me, what's up? did you get me hate mail? Just wanted to let you know I don't hate you all the time :)

"Cousin," jk you really are my cousin. If you read all the way through this just to get to the part about you, wow. this is a pretty long email. Como es Argentina? Como es su español? lo mio no existe pero. espero mucho que voy a un area espanol. ahora tiene my direcion, entonces escribeme. yo se que la gramatica en estas oraciones es mal pero hago lo mejor que puedo sin un "key board" en espanol. Tenga una buena semana.

Ok I love you all! that's it for this week, but I'll let you know as soon as I can where I end up. Tenga un buen dia.

Hermana Heeder

Corpus

Dear Family,

What a week. On Monday we got to go to the zoo and it was so much fun. I love zoos! I attached some pictures :)

On Tuesday we went to Corpus Cristi and got to go to the beach- also way fun. On Wednesday we went on a tiger hunt with some members because they wanted us to meet one of their non-member friends. On Friday we trained Dragons and rode them into battle against the JWs. Ok I am so full of crap. This was a super boring week. We spent half of it inside because I was sick. And the rest of the week was spent going to appointments that fell through. In other words, I don't have much of anything exciting to report this week. Sorry about that.

We did get to go to the zoo though. That part was real. See if you can find the theme in my pictures. Ok I'll just tell you. I have the most ridiculous face in almost every single one of them. I really need to work on that or my children are going to think I'm a freak same as everyone else. Yeah, wow, this email is going to take forever to open. Not my fault, ok well it kind of is. You’re welcome.

I'm really bad at writing emails...dudu do doooo.  I sent you some really cool pictures though so that should make you happy. I sent you some really cool pictures though so that should make you happy. oh, wait. Now I'm repeating myself.

Transfer calls are on Sunday and I'm really excited to see what happens. I feel like I'm going to be in Converse forever!!! Please remember at this time that there has only been one baptism ever in the history of the Converse ward and our only investigator is on probation. If I stay here another transfer that is going to have to change or I will go insane. This week is going to be amazing because we aren't going to get sick and we're going to work really hard. My ex-companions, Sis Major and Sis Jesperson both have had the flu for two weeks and haven't been able to work. I would die if that happened to me. I go so stir crazy when we're locked up for even a day.

I love you all. Have a fantastic week. :D

Love,

Hermana Heeder

Drawing

Add caption

ZOO DAY

Dear Family, Happy Easter!!!

I don't have a ton of time because we're going to the zoo today, and we're trying to get our emailing done quickly. But anyway, I had an awesome Easter. Sister Fitzgerald and I sang in the choir, and after church we went to a member's house to dye eggs and eat. We made confetti eggs and got in an egg fight with their kids. It was way fun and I got some good pictures of us smashing eggs on each other's heads. The members gave us so much candy and that we gave it all to the elders so we could eat more barbeque and not have to justify it to ourselves :)

Other than that, the week mostly consisted of knocking and me feeling like I'd been punched in the face because my allergies are so bad. Don’t worry, I bought meds.

I recently bought a device that adapts my SD card to a thumb drive, so I'm sending you more pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

I love letters the letters you’ve been sending, and I'm so happy that writing to missionaries was mentioned in conference. It's so true that getting letters makes the life of a missionary so much less stressful. Plus it's just fun to hear how everyone is doing. Thanks for the Easter card by the way. Those bookmarks are so cute.

Sorry I don't really have a ton to say but it really wasn't that exciting of a week and what we did is really best displayed in stick figure form anyway. So, I'll try to finish a letter to y’all today and get it sent off soon so you can see what I've been up to. (Jessica, yours is already in the mail.)

Did I mention that we're going to the zoo today? I'm so excited!!! Zoo day, zoo day, zoo day! I'll send pictures next week  :)

Ok, I love you all and hope you're having a fantastic week.

Love,

Hermana Heeder

So you're probably all wondering why I'm wearing the same shirt in almost all the pictures I sent you. I promise I do change my clothes every day, and it's all just coincidence.

Pictures if Nothing Else

Dear Family,

Everything is going awesome. Conference was fantastic. I loved it.

I am glad to be reporting this morning that I have not died of BBQ overdose this week. Spring is here and everyone is breaking out the grill. Let me just say that the definition of BBQ in Idaho is very different from the definition of BBQ in Texas. Everything is bigger in Texas (and way saltier). This week has been incredibly long, but the coming week is going to be fantastic. I kind of just want to play today which is why I'm sending you mostly pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words.

I hope you all had fun in Disneyland. I got your package and I was so excited. I love the pen you sent me- and the storybook.

So I want to tell y’all the craziest story ever. We have a man in our ward who was telling us his conversion story, and it was the craziest thing I had ever heard. So he grew up in Louisiana and when he was 9 years old this blue buss started driving around his neighborhood. There were men on the blue bus who looked like Mr. Smith from The Matrix. These crazy men would kidnap kids, take them across the Texas state border, and baptize them! Then they would give them a piece of candy and take them home. But the kids were not allowed to leave until they got baptized, and this man- then boy- and his brothers did not want to get baptized because their father had already baptized them. So they sat there for almost 2 hours before the Mr. Smith men finally gave in and took them home with the rest of the kids. Crazy right!?! I was sitting there listening to this thinking, I feel like I'm listening to a storybook. Holy cow. The Mr. Smith men tried to get him and his brother another time, but the boys ran away, their mom saw these guys and reported them, and the blue bus stopped coming around their neighborhood. So when this member was 27, he got home and the missionaries were standing there at his door and he started looking around for a blue bus (which of course there wasn’t one) and psyching himself out about how he could take these guys in a fight because they also looked like Mr. Smith from The Matrix. The missionaries introduced themselves and long story short he had an awesome conversion and was baptized just a few years ago. Now he and his wife are preparing to go to the temple to be sealed. Woo!

All right, so that was just a crazy and fun story I wanted to share with y’all. If y’all are ever in Louisiana and you see a blue bus, run because they don’t care if you've been baptized before. They’ll do it again. But if you would like to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by one holding the priesthood authority of God, please come to Converse Texas and look up Sisters Fitzgerald and Heeder. No I'm just kidding, but seriously... GO to MORMON.ORG.

Have y’all made your profiles yet because if you haven’t I'm going to keep bugging you about it for the rest of my mission. Actually, I know for a fact that some of you haven't because I've tried to look you up before. So get on it!

Ok sorry this email kind of doesn't make any sense and that there are a bajillion typing errors, but I'm fine with that so you should be too. :)

\Have a fantastic week :) DFTBMA. I love you

Hermana Heeder

p.s. Why are there so many Hs and vowels in my name? The Hispanics have a hard time with that.