Hola familia!
I have so much I want to write this week. I leave the CCM this tuesday... I cannot believe it. The last few weeks time has flown by. It is crazy. First off... My bday here was so fantastic! I woke up to my door heart attacked and a candy present thingy by the door from all of the hermanas here (pics explain it better). Then at bfast everyone sung to me, my whole classroom was covered with sticky notes from my district and every time during the day I left the room I would come back to more sticky noteson my desk from the elders in my district! Hermana Mather bought me a fan (everyone uses one here! I have been wanting one for weeks now!) so that was a fun suprise, and then one of my teachers gave me this pink pearl necklace. I love it! Anyways, I couldnt have asked for a better birthday and a better place to turn 21!
There are 3 things that I cannot ever say enough! I know I say these in pretty much everyone of my emails.
1. This church is so true! I know it with my whoel heart! And I know that through the atonement of Jesus Christ salvation is possible for everyone.
2. Being a missionary is the best thing ever! There is no greater, more important work than bringing people unto Christ and allowing them the opportunity to be healed in this life, to recieve comfort, and ultimately receive salvation.
3. My CCM teachers are the greatest people on earth. All of the teachers here are so so so amazing! And I am pretty sure that my 3 teachers are practically perfect. Their example to me, love for me, love for the Savior, and love for missionary work is so inspiring. They are so patient and full of love and wisdom. I feel incredible blessed to have Hermana Martinez, Hermana Gutierrez and Hermano Pickup has my teachers.
I have never had so much fun, so much growth, and so much struggles in 6 weeks than I have the last 6 weeks! I love the CCM and leaving onn tuesday is so so bittersweet. And the Spain CCM in particular is the greatest place. I feel just as close with my teachers as I do the missionaries. And we eat every meal with the president and his wife and all of the tecahers so I have gotten to know President Sitterud and his wife so well. They are so wonderful.
A few things I have learned
1. I laugh way too much in awkward situations! Haha. Although, I already knew this, i am strongly reminded of it each day. haha.
2.The power of companionships is so so wonderful.
3. this gospel is perfect. There is nothing about this gospel that isnt full of love and hope and mercy and justice. The more I learn about this gospel the more I see just how perfect it is and how much I NEED it in my life.
4. Personal study time of the scriptures is so sacred.
5. If the Lord asks me to do something, or gives me a trial to pass through He will always provide a way for me to accoplish it. I know I knew this before but my understanding of it has deepened so much.
6. I also already knew this but my understanding is so much more meaningly and deep now... mercy is conditional upon our repentance.
7. The most important thing I can do for my investigators is to allow them to feel the spirit. The spirit is the key. I dont know spainsh, they dont understand what I am trying to say, but if they FEEL and that is when conversion takes place. I can go on and on and on about this principle and how real it is but I dont have time. But what I know for sure is that if I have the spirit with me, my lack of spanish speaking abilities does not matter.
One of the italian teachers here shared a scripture with me yesterday at dinner that was so perfect for me to hear yesterday and was an aswer to my prayers. It is Ether 12; 23-28. She told me to insert my name and my weakness with this language into the scriptures and as I went to my room last night and did that I have never has such a love for the sciptures and such a strong knowledge that they are the word of God and can help each one of us with every single problem we are facing. All questions to everything can be found in the Book of Mormon. I know this. As I was reading this scriptures I cross refeernced to grace in bible dictionary. It says "The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ... It is likewise through the grace fo the Lord that individuals, through faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, recieve strength and asistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means. This grace is an enabling power.... However, grace cannot siffive without total effort on the part of the recipient¨". I loved this so much. I know that Christ´s grace is real. I know that my weak things can be made strong through the mercy of Christ. I also know that HEavenly Father´s timing is perfect and He requires my TOTAL EFFORT before he helps strengthen me.
Last saturday I was able to be compaions with Hermana Mather for the park (just for the park we get a different companion each week it has been so fun to learn from and teach with others but Sis Mather and I already know how to teach with each other and it was so awesome). WE missed our metro stop to walk to the park. We saw everyone gettting off but we were in the middle of teaching someone so we stayed on and just figured we would get off at the next stop and flip around.Well the lady we were teachign got off and we starting teaching someone else so missed the stop again. The first time I was okay with it because the lady we were talking to was interested But this second lasy was quite the opposite and wouldnt let us talk and kept trying to just rebute what we were saying. I was kind of annoyed that we missed the stop again for this lady who was anything but nice. So eventually we got off, got on again, and missed our stop a thrist time! haha. We were tlaking to this older gentleman and this time we legitimately missed our stop. The opther two times we knew it was our stop but we were teaching. So we got off, go back on again and sat by this lady. By this time about 45 minutes has passed and we said no matter what we are gettign off at our stop this time. We sat down next to this lasy and tlaked with ehr for quit awhile... we were so far away fro our stop we had a while on the metro. She was showing us pics of ehr grandkids and what not. After awhile of tlaking we brought up our message and she was so so receptive! (WE missed out stop again! haha) We found out that her husband had jsut passed away and we were able to share our testimonys and knowledge of eternal families! Ahh. It was SO wonderful! We got her contact info and hope that other missionaries are able to teach her more. By the time we finally got to the park we only had a half hour there (we usually have 2 hrs) But it was so neat to see the Lord´s hand in our day. Looking back, we needed to miss all of those stops to meet this lady and share our tesimonies with her. It was such aneat experience. I quickly felt bad for being so annoyed in the beginning that we missed our stop the first few times because I realized it was part of His plan!
Alright I gotta go! I love you family! I feel your prayers and I know I couldnt be doin this without your love and support! I pray for each one of you every night!
I love you all so much! Next email will be from out in the field!!!!! AHHH!
Love, Hermana Heims
ps.
So there is this one new teacher here and apparently we look identical. Everyone says that they have never seen two people look more alike who arent related that us. haha random but it is just so funny becuase everyone mixes us up!
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