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.

MREs, Cleaning, and Swimming Suits

Dear Reader,

Morgan's email came in two parts this week. There will be a break partway thought your reading, that is where one email ends and the other begins.

Dear Family,

     It has been a good week. We taught two first lessons.

     I'm glad you all had fun in Disneyland and that you were able to travel safely. We did spring cleaning this week and all the missionaries spent a day cleaning their apartment. Ours was pretty gross. There was hair everywhere and old food in all the cupboards. We even found some MREs, which I thought was weird; but, then Sis Fitzgerald reminded me that we are in the middle of a military city and it was a little less weird. There are 5 military bases in San Antonio and the Converse sisters used to cover one of them.

After this little note, another email came. It said:

     I was just going to send you that other email and call it good, but then I remembered that Sister Jones said I had to send good emails so my mom wouldn't stress out any more than she needs too. (Which is not at all.) As you may know, I have not gotten any mail in four weeks and emails are usually pretty small so I don't always know what to say in reply. I try to just tell you the exciting stuff that goes on in the week but sometimes the week is pretty slow.  I also kind of find it hard to see the point in writing when I never get letters, but I'll do my best anyway.

     It's getting hot in Texas. We walk out of the apartment and are instantly sticky. Actually, we're pretty sticky inside the apartment too because our ac went out this week. Not cool (literally). We see a lot of people out doing yard work in their swimming suits which just makes it seem hotter to those of us who dress in church clothes every day. August is going to kill me.

    We’re planning a trip to the zoo soon, and I am so excited. I love zoos!

     My personal studies this week have consisted of reading the April Ensign and it is so good. "The Atonement and the Journey ofMortality" is a really good talk. You should all read it. Preferably before conference. .........................

     Ok, so I guess maybe I'll hear from y’all next week. Hope everything is going awesome.

Ok, love you all.

Love,

Morgan

I'm Still Awesome

Dear Family,

I got a call from the mission president's wife telling me that I had to write better letters home, so here it goes.

I just left a most amazing trio and got a most amazing companion, Sis Fitzgerald. We're back in Converse for another six weeks. The ward hadn't even realized we were gone. Not what a missionary likes to hear. We're starting a new campaign to work like crazy with the members because as things are right now... well, there's not much going. I loved being in San Pedro and I miss it so much. I just got close to the people we were teaching and then I got sent back to Converse right before our mass baptism. There are 5 people getting baptized in San Pedro this Saturday and 2 more in the next month!

When I was in San Pedro I was introduced to what is called a sister missionary's "Book of Happiness." Apparently most sisters in the mission have them. It's basically a binder full of sheet protectors and all of their letters from home. Some sisters have 4 or 5 of them- one for their family and one for their boyfriend and one for their friends and I don't even know what else. So Sister Jesperson, Sister Major, and I did a craft project and made a Book of Happiness for me even though it wasn't very happy. Please only send me happy letters. I'm tired of being pitied and chastised. I still love you anyways though.

Mom, Jessica told me you got me that book I wanted. Thank you so much. You are the best. At some point in time I'm going to ask you to also send me my card games, Zombie flux and Monopoly Deal. Card games on p-day is a big thing in this mission. Today we're going to go meet up with some other sisters and play Skip-Bo. :) I'm excited.

I learned this week that sister Schwarze lied to me and I can get emails from anyone I want, not just immediate family. Lame sauce. That would have been nice to know three months ago. Dad, today is just my 5 month mark, but it seems to have gone by really fast. I'm one of those lucky sisters that gets a 20 month mission just because of the way transfers fall. My release date falls right smack in the middle of finals week in May of 2013 so that should be fun. President doesn't send sisters home a transfer early ever so I'm in it to win it.

Being with my last three companions in the last three weeks has been so nice. When I first got into the field I looked at my companion and was like, "If this is what it means to be a missionary I am going to kill myself." But it's not and I've regained my sanity. Woohoo! I'm still Awesome! I love being awesome. My trainer was not a normal missionary. She had all sorts of problems I didn't know about. I'm grateful for awesome companions. Every companion I ever have from this day forward will be awesome in comparison so I guess it was secretly a blessing.

Did you all get my post card? I thought it was pretty funny. Texans are so prideful.

What are a Texans three favorite things?

         Barbecue, football, and Jesus

What did the cowboy say when his dog died?

        Dogdone        (Dad, that one's for you)

Jordan is going to the temple to do baptisms sometime this transfer, so that's way exciting. The ward stole him away from us and is leading him along right where he needs to be.

We're going to go to the zoo the p-day after conference, and I'm so excited. I love the zoo and I love conference. It's going to be three days of awesome.

Also tell the Roberts that I say hi and that I love them and that they should send me a letter or an email. I think I've only gotten two letters in the past 5 weeks or something like that, but, of course, I've only sent two letters in the past 5 weeks so I guess I get what I deserve.

We've also been challenging families to memorize the Articles of Faith because a general authority told us this would be a very hard year for the church, and that if every member created a Mormon.org profile and memorized the Articles of Faith it would help.

Here's my address by the way in case anyone wants it

8355 Crestway Dr. apt. #731

Converse, TX 78109

Not much else to report except that I'm super jealous that y’all are in Disneyland without me. I hope you're having fun though. Take a ton of pictures for me.

Love you all!

Morgan

Pictures!

 Morgan eating a crawfish

 Exchanges with SisterElias

 Tim-Tam Slams in the MTC at Christmas. Don't ask about the rest, just take it in.

 This was on the back of a member's van.

 The district 2-29-12

 Sombrero

Jordan's baptism