I Never Have To Do That Again!

Sundae supper with the Hewitts!
Waffles and ice cream. What more can you ask?

Well here are again one last time. Let's not talk about that yet.

Holy incredible week! I hardly know where to start.

We'll start with the happiest! Alex was baptized on Saturday! My heavens he is such a cute kid. When he and his family walked into the church he couldn't even walk he was so excited he just kind of darted everywhere he went haha We had talked about in the beginning that it would be a full immersion, so his face would get wet.

The final district

He did not like that idea one bit, so we talked to his mom about it and we just decided to not bring it up again. He was so brave! When bishop was lowering him into the water he got pretty worried, but he was a champ! When they were changing back into dry clothes bishop asked Alex what he thought about the baptism and he said, "I'm glad I never have to do that again!" Hahaha We went over to his house for lunch yesterday and his mom said she asked him to help with the laundry and he responded "I can do that for you Mom! I'm a baptized kid now!" There's a pretty hilarious story with the baptism, but it's better acted out. I'll just have to tell you in person ;D

Sister Taylor made enchiladas mmmmmm

Our other investigator Jody also passed her baptismal interview on Sunday! She was so so nervous going into it. Our district leader lives in Edmonton and doesn't have a car, so she had a Skype interview. When she came out she was just beaming. We gave her a tour of the baptismal font, showed her the white jump suits, and talked about how everything will happen this Saturday. She's so cute. I'll have to try and figure out if I can Skype in or something for her baptism haha

We took Sister Taylor's exercise ball
to the church for morning exercises
and had a grand ol time haha

So we met with Jonel and Mel, the Filipino men we found last week, and my goodness they are incredible. They're so kind and so excited to learn. We showed them the Prince of Peace video on Thursday night and they were a little nervous with their English fluency. Last night, we had another lesson with them and had the Tagalog speaking Elders in the city Skype in. We understood basically nothing that happened, but the investigator Mel has agreed to be baptized on May 13th! They're so great. We gave Mel a Book of Mormon in Tagalog and the second we handed it to him he started reading.

The lovely Gloria

Alright fine. I'll acknowledge that this is my last time writing and that I'll be back in Gridley on Thursday. Last week I talked about how ready I am, but the closer I get, the more nervous I get too haha Last night though we were following up with Jonel about looking through the principles of peace on mormon.org, and after he expressed his thoughts he asked what brought us peace.

My faith brings me peace. My trust that God is my loving Heavenly Father and that he would never do anything or ask me to do anything that wouldn't be what's best for me. Coming home and learning how to live non-missionary life again is scary, but "perfect love casteth out fear." I know Heavenly Father perfectly loves me, so I'm not afraid.

Since I'll be home for Easter,
we made baskets
and hid eggs around the apartment
for each other on Sunday.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. After we showed Jody the font she was so giddy she was just cracking jokes all over the place. Her main friend in the church, Bill, has always been her right hand man for any questions she has about church. He was walking kind of ahead of us while we were walking with Jody. At one point she asked Bill if she needed to bring rain boots for when she gets baptized. He responded with a no and tried to explain why she wouldn't need them while Jody turned to us and gave us a cute little wink and giggle. "Oh. Ok Bill."

Just cute.

Sometimes in Canada people call ponds lakes. Really all the time.

Peace out girl scout.

You Look Like Roadkill

We attempted our bubble gum experiment,
but it was a fail.
We bought better bubble gum,
so we'll try again this week.

I can't even type that email title without laughing haha Which happens often. Sister Taylor and I literally laugh so dang much it's basically a constant ab workout. But you'll just have to wait for the P.S.

Happy news first!! Our nine year old investigator Alex passed his baptismal interview!! We're so excited for this Saturday!! I didn't get to be there for the interview because we were on exchanges, so when Sister Taylor was telling me the story later she kept telling me about all these hiccups with it. I was so stressed the whole time and kept thinking that he hadn't been interviewed or didn't pass or wasn't even an investigator anymore. She's a very sneaky story teller. She saved the good news for the very very end. I literally just yelled I was so happy when she finally spit it out haha We called him the yesterday (daily contact for the win) to have him look up a scripture and he was so excited to go run and find his Book of Mormon. It was so so cute haha Afterwards his soon to be 6 year old sister also demanded to read a scripture.

I met Maureen over a year ago
when I was in Mt. Pleasant YSA.
She drove out to Drayton
to have lunch with us!
It was so fun!

We got to help people a lot this week. Mmmm I loved it. It felt like real life. I mean, being a missionary does too, but just getting to help someone clean their yard, or move across town, or put together posters for the library, or clean their curtains. I just love it. Serving people is the best. Saturday was especially great though. We helped an investigator who'd been in pretty sad living conditions for a while move to a nice house right near our apartment. Oh it was so great. After watching them have such a great attitude through the whole mess they've been in I was so thankful to help get them somewhere so perfect for their family. The ward really came through as well. Eight members of the ward came and helped and brought four extra trucks. We had their entire storage unit moved in just over an hour!

The travelling sisters!

There's a companionship of sisters called in the mission to travel to all the other sisters in the mission and go on exchanges with them. We got to have Sister Engelbrektsson and Sister Christensen here with us for Sunday and Monday! Holy so much fun. We got to get a lot of things done for the area with two companionships running around for two days. So many miracles there's not enough time to even begin to list them all.

​Just a giant metal flower
out in the middle of nowhere

At least one is that we met a guy on Monday who is only in Drayton Vallley for a couple weeks for work. As we were introducing ourselves he asked which church we were from. Once he realized who we were he pulled off his work gloves to shake our hands and introduced himself as Brother so-and-so. He joined the church in the Philippines and has been in Canada for 5 years. He knew which church building was supposed to be his and it just so happened to be the chapel I just spent the last six months attending in the Belmead ward! He and his friend both said they wanted to meet while they were here! People who need the gospel are everywhere and are being put where they need to be find it.

General conference was amazing and I got answers to so many questions. I'm just so ready. Ready for whatever the Lord calls me to do next. Helaman told me this week how every job is important and I agree! I'm so excited to go do whatever job I'm asked to do next. I'm sad to leave my current job of course, but life goes on! And I'm ready.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

Roadkill!

P.S. So Sister Engelbrektsson and I were taking some *attempted* cute jumping pictures. She's the cutest so she has the nice little hair bounce and a cute little knee pop in all her pictures. For some reason I decided to throw my head back and kind of go for the "star" look with my arms and legs extended. Mistake. When Sister Taylor and I were looking at the pictures later and laughing at how ridiculous I look she said "You look like roadkill!" I can't even deny it. I look like roadkill.

A much more successful jumping picture.

This is Canada

The Hewitts took us out to a lake in our area today, and it was so fun!! As a result emailing time is cut pretty short today. While we were out "in the bush" (Canadian for "out in the country") and "on the patch" (Canadian for out on an oil patch) Brother Hewitt included said we were next to a little lake, ice fishing, with a fire for a smokey roast: "This is Canada." Oh man. It was so great. I need to go camping real bad.

Brother Hewitt is a sneaky "kiss the fish" picture taker. Don't trust him. Slimy fish does not taste good.

Sister Hollon
was at the same zone conference,
so we took the temple picture
we didn't get to take at transfers

Last Wednesday we went in to the city for zone conference on Wednesday and it was the best. We learned about how to help members more effectively use social media to share the gospel. At one point I wrote in my notes "This is going to be me." Furreal. I basically just received a training on how to be a good member missionary in a couple weeks haha

A few days ago we were having a lesson with someone who won't really get their act together and come to church even though they know they need to. We've been unsure what to do to help this person decide to  ct. During the lesson I was kind of exasperated that this person wouldn't just make the choice they knew they needed to, but I stopped myself and thought about what I'd just heard in the women's conference from President Eyring.

My last Red Dot Day homies.

Seeing people as God sees them, I said a prayer in my heart that I'd feel how Heavenly Father felt about this person and my heavens if you want to have your heart explode with love, just pray and ask God how he feels about His children.

I was reading the Book of Mormon later that night and read in Alma 5 where Alma begins with explaining the change wrought in the people of Alma's hearts after they escaped King Noah, the Lamanites, and sin. In verse 9 he says "they were loosed, and their souls did expand." I think that that's a much more verbose way of describing what this 18 month service to the Lord has done to me. My soul has expanded. I, like them, "did sing the song of redeeming love." What beautiful music love has been.

So many times throughout my mission and even yesterday, my soul is filled as I witness the truth of the things I know are true. I don't know how to accurately describe it other than that it fills me. My soul expands.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

How unfortunate!

P.S. After zone conference last week, we decided to use our time in the city to our full advantage and went out to dinner at Panda Express. Mmmm I love me some orange chicken. Once we'd finished we all reached for our fortune cookies. Sister Taylor's said something about exciting things happening in the next month and I was so pumped to open mine and get something so revelatory. Well I was jipped haha I didn't get a fortune. I showed Sister Taylor and she said "How unfortunate." Ha. Ha.

HELLO 7-11 had a Bring Your Own Cup day for $1.50, so you know we got a quart jar's worth of slurpee

A Great Day

OH MY GOODNESS GUESS WHAT WORLD. RONI IS GOING TO THE TEMPLE. GUESS WHO IS THE HAPPIEST PERSON IN THE EXISTENCE OF THE PLANET. GUESS WHAT ELSE. SHE'S COMING FOR THE DEPARTING MISSIONARIES' TEMPLE SESSION SO I GET TO SEE HER. OH MY GOODNESS.

We forgot about Pi day last week,
but Sister Hewitt did not.
We had pie for dessert of course.

I'm literally so pumped. I wish I could accurately convert to all of you how full my heart feels in this current moment. Hoooooly man.

In other news we had an awesome week! Our investigators are doing well and we're workin our tails off! Peter was able to come to church again this week and he's just so great. I'm so excitied for him to keep learning and growing in the gospel. He's a great guy with a big heart.

Came in for district meeting

We'd been so busy all week, that by the time Saturday rolled around we were really behind on goals we'd set in tracting for the week, so we spent most of the day walking and talking. We told ourselves that if we reached our goal, which was pretty lofty, we could go out for pizza and ice cream. Mmmmm one spicy perogie pizza and tropical chicken pizza we were very satisfied with out labors for the day.

The Relief Society had a dinner on Thursday
and told everyone to wear "fanciful hats."

On Friday I started my morning prayers with asking that it would be a great day. Instantly I had the thought "Aww dang it, now a bunch of crappy things are going to happen and I'm just going to have to choose to make it a great day." Well for some reason none of the forks I used all day worked because I dropped my food in my lap twice that day haha It really was a great day though. I'm definitely an advocate of choosing my attitude. I can make any day I want to great or not. It doesn't matter what happens or doesn't happen. It's totally up to me.

We were so excited to eat pizza
we didn't remember to take a picture
while it was still on our plates.

We're in Edmonton for the day for a meeting tomorrow. We get to go to the temple tonight and I'm so excited. I love the temple. I love being a missionary. I love Sister Taylor. I love Canada.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. This is mostly courteous of Sister Taylor's email today haha "I was making paper footballs and all of a sudden I hear Sister Hepworth looking up french phrases. "Caca sur un bâton" That sounds fancy right? So i asked what fancy phrase it was...

We learned a trick last night ;D

Lo and behold... "Poop on a stick." Sister Hepworth cracked up!! I just looked at her like "are you for real?" Of all the things to look up in french, you are looking up POOP ON A STICK?? Ooooohhh boy... She just laughed and laughed and laughed. I smiled and rolled my eyes.. Silly girl :)" Our day of tracting was the next day and we were still (and ARE still) enjoying our new favorite French phrase. Sister Taylor again: "We would say it in different tones:    Sad: Caca sur un bâton  Offended: Caca sur un bâton  Jovial: Caca sur un bâton   As an insult: Caca sur un bâton Oh how we laughed! We would laugh as we went from house to house and would have to pull ourselves together before we could knock on another door!"

His Hands

Fill My Soul With Peace

Sister McSweeney on soprano, me on
alto, Eder Gibson on tenor, and Elder Saumweber on bass

My Kindness Shall Not Depart