It's Party Time

​Red Dot Day #7 

Literally. I don't understand where time goes. It simultaneously feels like I was just writing an email yesterday and yet Sunday was three weeks ago. I swear, I'm in a time warp or something up here. Well it's been a pretty flippin awesome week and I don't know how to cover it all but to just go in order so here goes haha

Tuesday night a member had us over for dinner and invited her neighbors. They were so nice. When we shared a message the mom basically taught us. We showed a video then talked all about God's love and she seriously could be a motivational speaker she was so good at telling us how much God loves us. It was awesome. She's super catholic, so they weren't interested much in learning more, but they day they do want to, they are going to be powerful.

​Our bus stop lesson with Kemi :D

Wednesday we walked to Kemi's house and she wasn't home, but as we were walking away we could here her laugh. After looking around a little bit, we saw her sitting at a bus stop across four lanes of traffic talking on the phone. Kemi's laugh is pretty distinct hahaha We got her attention and ran over to have a little mini lesson with her. We talked about the Book of Mormon and read our favorite scriptures from it. It was crazy but fun haha Later that day we walked past some former investigators' house and they were outside! We stopped and had a lesson with them on their porch which was also a little crazy but fun. They were also high so that just kind of brought a whole different level of craziness to the lesson haha

Thursday we had an awesome district meeting. The Elder that gave the training talked about the apostles before they became apostles. They were just regular joes. And then boom! Apostles! In charge of teaching people about Christ which is literally the most important thing they could ever know. Then he related it to missionaries. We're just a bunch of regular kids. And then boom! Missionaries! We're in charge of teaching people about Christ which is literally the most important thing they could ever know. We all have weakness, including the original twelve, but the Lord's gonna make it work anyways. He's gonna help us become the missionaries and/or people he wants us to be.

​Our LRT singing flash mobbers!
Please notice the person
that is photobombing on the shoulder
of the Elders on the right. 

Friday our singing booth took on a whooooooole new level of awesome. We went and sang on the LRT!! It was seriously so fun. There were 11 of us and we would all walk onto the train through different doors and sit down next to random people. Then someone would start singing and walking towards the middle of the train. Eventually we'd all stand up and come together in the middle and just belt a hymn. We flashed mobbed sang on a train man. OH MY GOODNESS SO MUCH FUN. When we finished the hymn we'd go sit next to our random people again and they would start a conversation with us (which usually doesn't happen on the LRT, we're usually just kind of pesty enough to people until they finally relent talk to us). It was flippin awesome. AND I met a lady who knows all about BYU so that was double awesome.

Friday night we had a little miracle. We were headed home to start weekly planning, when Sister Van all of the sudden said, "let's go see Nancy." Nancy a less-active we meet with every week that had cancelled our usual appointment and wouldn't respond to set up a new time. We knocked on her door and she said, "No way! I was gonna text you guys to see if you could come over tonight, but I didn't cause I thought you'd be too busy!" BOOM. So awesome. Then on top of that, her nonmember brother sat in on the lesson which he never does so again, double awesome.

Saturday we helped a member move and built Kemi a bed (you want a test of patience, just go buy a flipping bed frame from IKEA) .

​Our Chinese meal!
Just so ya know, that asparagus was
drowned in Wasabi and soy sauce.

We also had dinner with an investigator the Mandarin speaking Elders are teaching. Her name is Jill and she is so awesome. She fed us for real Chinese food, we ate with fancy chopsticks, and she taught us a whole bunch of Mandarin phrases. It was so awesome to get to teach her. She has an awesome understanding of the gospel and I'm excited for the day that I get to see her baptized. It's gonna happen. I know it.

Gah! So sorry! I just noticed how long this email is! Sunday we went to a meeting at Mt. Pleasant and then walked to church at Gateway (covering two wards is crazy) and Monday we ended up having to weekly plan because we never got to any other day haha

Homies, life is good! The church is true. And God loves us, so go out and love somebody today.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

​I don't really care about the Lakers very much,
 it was just exciting to see a California license plate
haha

P.S. Wednesday night the fire alarm went off in our building just after 10:30. Sister Van was already sound asleep, and I was in the middle of saying my nightly prayers. I looked over to Sister Scott's bed to ask her what was going on, but she wasn't there. I went to check the living room right at the same time she was coming to find me in the bedroom and we SCREAMED when we saw each other haha We calmed down and went and woke up Sister Van to climb down 10 flights of stairs to stand outside in the cold for half an hour while the firemen went and put out the "fire" (which turned out to be some food that got a little burnt and smokey). When we finally made it back inside Sister Scott and I were wide awake while Sister Van practically ran through the apartment to her bed to get back to sleep as fast as possible. She got under her covers head on pillow in about .5 seconds and expressed how worried she was that she wouldn't be getting as much sleep as usual tonight. Sister Scott and I were chuckling at her need for sleep when she popped her head up again and said with a significant amount of urgency, "WHAT TIME IS IT?" To which Sister Scott responded "It's party time." I'm sure the fact that we were so painfully tired adds to the hilarity in the moment because we seriously were falling over laughing so hard.

Two's Fun, but Three's a Party

​Yeah we're pretty cute.

Literally. Almost everyone we told we were gonna be in a tri-pan always made a funny face and wished us luck, but I tell you what it is a PARTY. We're seriously having a blast and we decided that we're going to be the future Primary General Presidency. We had a day where we all wore bright colored shirts and dark skirts and we seriously looked like we coordinated like all those ladies do at general conference hahaha

​Our original district before
Sister Van Valkenburg left
and the greatest tri-pan
in the history of tri-pans
was formed.

Our very first night of tri-pan we went on exchanges haha So Sister Scott and I stayed in our apartment with Sister Robinson and Sister Van went with another sister. We got to see a less-active that I'd never met and read the Book of Mormon with her. Then we went to service at a nursing home and they were having a birthday party for some of the residents and we got to serve cake and stuff 👌🏻 I love cake and stuff man. We finished off the night with another less-active and we got to answer her questions about eternal families and how that all works and I'm just so thankful for my family and that I get to be with them forever.

We tried to sing on the University campus again, but it was kinda raining and we didn't have as many people as we usually do. Still way fun though! Sister McSweeney from my first district is always there and she is just so dang fun 😄 Plus she's from England so has the greatest accent. We decided we're gonna be companions someday 👍🏻

Hooooooly cats weekly planning took all day this week. We were trying to figure out plans for two areas and we seriously only left our apartment for one lesson with a less-active in the afternoon and dinner. I felt like I was going crazy, but we did make some good progress in figuring out both the areas and I'm really excited for the work. We're all ready to work hard to make this area awesome.

​So I climbed the tree.
Then more people climbed the tree.
Then we took a picture.

So we went on another exchange Sunday to Monday with another set of sisters haha Sister Scott and I stayed with Sister Torsak and it was AWESOME. We only had one lesson, but we contacted people for a few hours on the Light Rail Train (LRT) for a couple hours and it was seriously the most successful contacting I've ever had. I met this cute Nigerian lady who seriously just loves Jesus so dang much. She was telling me all about him and we already decided we're gonna visit each other in Nigeria and California haha She gave me her church's website and I tried to give her a Book of Mormon but she got way weirded out by it. She said "Mormon? I meed to look that up," as she pulled out her phone and started googling things. That's when I whipped out the mormon.org card and told her this is the website she should look at. We exchanged numbers and I'm way pumped to talk to her again.

Sister Van was telling us about this place
called Crave that sells delicious cupcakes
and Sister Scott knew of this place as well
because when Sister Van said "Crave"
Sister Scott said
"You know how to get there?"
Which she does, and Sister Scott said,
"WE HAVE TO GO THERE."
 So there we went.

Sister Torsak was seriously great. She talked about stuff I hadn't even realized I had been wondering about and just was an awesome example of the missionary I want to be some day. AND she's from California. Southern, not Northern, but we'll let that one slide. One of the things she talked about was letting people understand the Spirit themselves. We can be in the middle of the greatest lesson ever where the Spirit is so strong but saying, "I can really feel the Spirit here right now," isn't nearly as effective as asking them what they're feeling. Mr. Tull always said the way to know you really understand math is to be able to explain it to someone else. It's kinda the same thing with the Spirit.

I read something along those lines this morning in President Eyring's talk from priesthood session. "I have learned that the only exhortation that changes hearts comes from the Holy Ghost." We ask the people we teach to change a lot of things in their lives, but they'll only be willing to do it when the Spirit testifies to them that it's worth it. CAUSE IT IS. If we want to be happy now and in the eternities, the kind of happiness God wants for us, we've got to do it. We've got to live the way He's said to. It's really the only guarantee we'll ever have. That God loves us and wants our happiness and has provided a perfect way to have it.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. We went to try and contact a potential we've tried by several times with no answer. We could see lights on, but no one was answering our knocks. We finally rang the doorbell and this guy named Tyler answered the door. When he answered he had one leg bent, like he was standing on just one leg, and my first thought was we made a gimp answer the door and I felt so bad. He kind of stood there struggling with his bent leg for a second and then finally put his foot down and said, "Yeah. It's stuck." He had somehow managed in his rush to put on pants to answer the door to get his leg in between the lining of his sweat pants and the outer layer of fabric. We all stood there and just laughed for a solid 30 seconds before we could even introduce ourselves. He tried to fix it a couple more times while we were on the doorstep and every time we all just laughed again.

P.P.S. Red dot day #7 is gone and passed

The Last Week of Two

As of 4ish o'clock tonight I will be a part of my first tripanionship! Sister Van Vleet and I covered the Mt. Pleasant YSA ward and now Sister Van Vleet, Sister Scott, and I will l be covering Mt. Pleasant and Gateway YSA. Sister Van and I have already rearranged our whole apartment (which means moving our dressers into the living room so we can fit three beds in our bedroom) and IT'S GONNA BE GREAT. We'll never have to worry about having enough people for a lesson, the range of card games we can play as just quadrupled and we have a whole nother wardrobe to explore and share ;D

​We got to borrow a car for a day
and I tell you it was wonderous.

Wednesday we had an awesome training at Zed (It should be the letter Z but Canadians are weird and pronounce Z Zed) TM. We talked about how excited we should be to even be here talking to all these awesome people (which don't you worry I'm PUMPED about it) and how to share a Book of Mormon with someone. We've been hearing nothing but good things as a result of the training. People have had a lot more success this week contacting people and getting legitimately interested people to teach. We were talking to our zone leaders about it and all they said was, "That training wasn't from us. Seriously." Heavenly Father is definitely helpin out his missionaries up here in Canada.

Yesterday we applied the training and gave three people a Book of Mormon. The first one was to a guy that used to take the lessons, but hadn't been in contact with the missionaries for a while. We gave him our number and called the missionaries he used to meet with and they're gonna get a hold of him again! The second was to this guy in his 50s named Ruven. We had gotten off at a train station we don't usually get off at to use the bathroom and unfortunately it was one of the sketchiest train stations I've ever seen. Even more unfortunate there were a couple of drunk guys trying to get in a fight. Ruven came over to us and started telling us how he has daughters our age and knows karate and wouldn't let anything happen to us. We ended up having a really awesome gospel discussion with him and he seems legit interested in learning. :D

​We passed a park and we swang so hard man.

We got to help out at a wedding this week and it was so fun! They had us help decorate and then the night of the reception they needed help in the kitchen. There were some people there helping that had never even met the bride or groom before, they just heard they needed help and came. Seriously, people are so good. Holy cats though I felt like I was in footloose or something though when Dancing Queen came on at the reception and I could go jump around with all the little kids that were dancing their hearts out.

Kemi's doing great :D We had a lesson with her yesterday about keeping the sabbath day holy and everything we say, she just eats it up. She's seriously awesome.

​Dene came to church!! :D

Our investigator Dene came to church this Sunday which was AWESOME. We sang Come Thou Fount in sacrament meeting with the Mandarin speaking elders and all the members in the ward were so kind and friendly to her. She's gonna be gone at work for 2 weeks though, so we're not gonna be able to meet with her again until May. Which is weird that May is only two weeks away. Like, way weird.

We had several people stop us this week to tell us that believing in religion is, and I quote, "stupidity," or that we're not doing enough to help people who really need it, or to tell us that we're all just a bunch of self-righteous know-it-alls. Just be nice guys. The golden rule is legit, "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Kid History got it right too, "Just treat everybody like it's their birthday."

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

​Sister Van's birthday dinner with Maureen :)

P.S. I met a lady this week that is the city version of Roni. Her name's Maureen and she's been investigating forever and absolutely loves the missionaries. She had us over for dinner on Friday as a birthday treat for Sister Van. It was way cute she had her house all birthday decorated and everything. Balloons were obviously part of the decor and lucky for us they were helium :D Sister Van had never sucked the helium out of a balloon before, so we spent the rest of the night playing with balloons and telling the funniest stories we could think of with our 15 seconds of helium. The video was one my stories. Shout out to Averie on that one hahaha

The Only Thing We Talk About is Jesus

Well I tell you what, it has been an incredible week. Best news of all the news,

Kemi's baptism!!

KEMI GOT BAPTIZED!!!

Way way way happy homies. The baptism went smoothly and lots of people from the ward came and there was ice cream after, so ya know, double awesome. She was just giddy all morning. When she came out of the water and was going to dry off she just kept giggling this adorable little, "this is the greatest thing in the world" kind of giggle. Then on Sunday she got up and bore her testimony and it was absolutely tender. She just so humbly and sincerely talked about how she knows this is the true church and how she could feel Jesus in the room. Seriously just the greatest. After church she called us over and had a tithing envelope in her hand and said, "Did I fill this out right?" GAAAAHHHH. So happy.

Our booth choir :D

The booth from last week with the cute kid and the thumbs up, got a makeover this week and is now one of my favorite things ever. Several sets of missionaries got together and prepared a bunch of hymns to sing while two other missionaries stood at the booth to talk to anyone who wanted to ask questions. We started inside the building in a hallway, but we were singing right into the doorway of a little pharmacy and our voices were a little too loud for them haha so we banished ourselves to outside in the courtyard next to the building. Greatest decision ever. We all just stood there singin our little hearts out. Lots of people stopped to listen, so then the missionaries not singing would swoop in and talk to them. There's a no-proselyting rule on the campus, so we can't talk to anybody unless they talk to us first and bring up church and the likes. Well a random little choir definitely brings people over with questions of who we are ;D

So Kemi was our only investigator, and she was baptized and confirmed this week...so we were officially investigator-less. INSERT MIRACLE STORY. A member in another ward told the sisters in his ward that his friend wanted to learn about mormons. Which is way happy, anyone who wants to learn is good news. It's even better news when the friend actually lives in our area! Her name is Dene and she is way cool. We already met with her and she loved everything we had to say and then came with us to Family Home Evening that very night and is planning on coming to church with us this Sunday! She even is already asking us how baptism works and is like in love with temples and wants to know all about them. WAY PUMPED ABOUT IT.

The sisters we karaoked with 

I got to sing karaoke this week for the retirement home that we do service at every week. It was seriously one of the funnest things ever. We were singing all these old songs and they just loved it. They eventually had us sing My Heart Will Go On cause Celine Dion is Canadian. And they love their Canadian artists. Well except Justin Bieber. Nobody really owns up to the fact that Justin Bieber is Canadian.

We got to go to the temple today!!
My first time since being on a mission :D

We actually got to do a lot of service this week which is awesome. We helped out at the institute several times and got free meals out of it every time (which is glorious) and did a trial-run make up and hair for a member's wedding. It was actually kind of funny because my skills are seriously lacking in that particular department, so I mostly watched while Sister Van Vleet got her all dolled up. We decided she was like the mom cause she even was helping her pick out outfits and stuff while I just kind of gave half-hearted opinions about stuff I don't really know anything about, so I was clearly the dad hahaha

My heart is so full this week. I love being a missionary. I love Canada. I love the city (which I was afraid of for a while, but we're past that now). I love Sister Van Vleet. I love the gospel.

As Jean would always say, "life is good."

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. Ok so the story isn't necessarily "funny" this week, mostly just way crazy. We were in a town about 40 minutes outside of the city with our relief society president Sophia to try and contact a less-active out there. We were going through the culdesac when a little car come FLYING past us and rips around the corner. We had to pull over so we didn't get side-swiped. Not even a second later, a big red truck came past going just as fast but in REVERSE. We're pretty sure the truck was chasing the little car or something. We pulled out the culdesac to see the big truck turn down the street (going forward now). Craziest part of the story is that the truck had like twelve bullet holes in the tailgate! Weeeeeeiiirrd. The less-active wasn't even home, but we got a crazy story out of it. The video attached is while we were driving home. We'll call the video real PS story haha

P.P.S I met people this week who know where Gridley is and have even been there! Several times!! WAY HAPPY

All You Need is Faith and a Bus Pass

​The view from our balcony

Alright everybody. I'm in the CITY. Let's just list some things that happen in the city that don't happen in Tofield: we take the bus everywhere, people sit next to you on the bus to ask for money, we live in an apartment on the 10th floor, we live next door to a ginormous mall, we see

​There are random rabbits running around the city.
No one knows where they came from.
They're seriously all over the place.

other missionaries sometimes, we have a booth where we sit and try and have people come talk to us, most of the people we talk to we'd never be able to teach because they probably don't live in the area of the city that we cover and they're probably not a young single adult, there are almost a million people here compared to the 2,500 in Tofield, and about a million other things.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT'S THE SAME? The church is still true man.

Our first cute selfie :)

I am definitely enjoying myself though :D My new companion Sister Van Vleet is awesome! The view from our balcony is awesome! Never ending amounts of new people to talk to is awesome! General conference was awesome! Awesomeness just everywhere!

Holy cats cute story time. The booth that we sit at is in the middle of one of the buildings on the University of Alberta campus. There was a tour of middle schoolers goin past when one kid stopped in front of me and gave me a huge smile and a double thumbs up.

​You better believe we're gonna be taking selfies
all the time.
Just be ready for that.

Now see, I'm still new to the city, as far as I know at this point this is a thing that city-people do, so I returned the favor with a smile and some thumbs and he kept walking. The tour walked past again later and he repeated his first greetings and added, "I'm mormon too!" His teacher/tour guide person started yelling out for everyone to stay with the group so he ran off pretty quick, but it made me so happy!! Then one more kid went passed and thumbs-upped (Is that a word? Sure.) us so we assumed that meant he was mormon too. WAY FUN.

There's only one investigator in the area right now, but SHE'S GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY, so that's basically the coolest thing ever. Her name is Kemi and she makes bomb chicken and rice stuff. We watched all of the Sunday sessions of general conference at her house and she made us this Negerian chicken stuff for lunch that was seriously so good. She really liked conference and was even taking notes! So happy :)

A cute potential investigator named Rain.
Or Reign.
Or raieghn.
I have no idea how she spells it haha

On Thursday we had a lesson with an investigator that we had to pass over to some other sisters. She lives in their area, so they get to teach her. She's way nice though and really has a lot of faith in God, so hopefully that'll all work out.

So listen homies. It's no secret that I loved Tofield a whole heck of a lot. All the people, and even the little town itself, so obviously I miss it a whole dang bunches. BUT IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER because now I just get to love a whole new ward full of people that are gonna be awesome too. It's crazy to not be in Tofield, but it's been so fun to be in the big city.

Also, general conference was absolutely incredible. Like, indescribably awesome. There are too many things that stood out to me to try and share them in one letter, but just know that this is the true church. The prophets and apostles that spoke are called to represent the Lord and we've got to listen. The inpressions that we had, the things we thought about that we might need to change or do better, we've got to do it.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. So Sister Van Vleet get along so well. Literally, we laugh all the time and are having so much fun! Missionaries always pray before they leave the apartment, but we were about to miss our bus, so we ran out the door and to pray in the elevator. We were both a little concerned someone might get on the elevator while we were praying and be weirded out, so both of us kept opening one eye to check if anyone was getting one, but at the same exact time. EXACT. Then later that night while we were having our last prayer for the night, we both peeked open of our eyes atthe EXACT same time again and made eye contact. It's hard to pray when you're trying to stifle a laugh man.

The light rail train we ride all the time was made in Sacramento!! :D