SHE'S BACK

SISTER VAN VLEET IS BACK. LITERALLY THE HAPPIEST OF THE HAPPIES. When President called and told me I gasped for a solid 5 seconds. It's pretty crazy since she's going home the end of this transfer and we've already been companions for two transfers BUT THAT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER. SO. HAPPY.

​We carved a pumpkin for Halloween :D 

This week has been awesome! I run into the same dilemma every week of not know where to start and not knowing which stories to include haha We've been working hard and are seeing some cool miracles! We've been tracting several times this week and people actually let us in! It's incredible! One lady in particular said she'd actually met with missionaries a long time ago and already had a Book of Mormon. We had a great discussion about the Restoration and she said she wanted to see more support from the Bible, so we gave her lots. We're excited to see her again this week. 

​The sisters in Red Deer found this sign
and took a picture
according to how they thought
I would have taken a picture.
I Approve.

Chrissy blows my mind. I just love her to death. Crazy things are goin' down for her right now, but she just loves her kids and everyone around her so much. In figuring out what to do moving forward, she is constantly thinking about how it affects everyone else. We had a powerful lesson with her on Sunday. My heart just explodes with love for her. The love I feel for her and the love I know Heavenly Father feels for her. We literally just got a text from her as I was typing this out that is just full of how much faith she has. She's the best. 

We got to sing with the primary kids for the primary program in Belmead this Sunday. They asked us to come up and sing along to "We'll Bring the World His Truth." I've sung that song a million times, but it's never felt so real before. I am the Lord's missionary, bringing the world His truth. Every day I'm reminded of just how true it is as I live it, as I study it, as I see the difference it makes in people's lives. 

​Our last seflie.
Obviously it had to be a temple selfie.

I love being here. I said to Sister Van Vleet this morning, I wish everyone could just come up here and I could just keep being a missionary but still get to see and hang out with everybody but still get to teach people. *sigh* If only.

Opposites are real. In order to understand that God is real, we have to understand that Satan is real. If Satan is real, then God has to be real. We've seen that so much this week. In people's lives, in the scriptures, it's everywhere. Even Joseph Smith. Before he had his vision of the "pillar of light" he was engulfed in a "thick darkness." It's a perfect contrast. Satan is darkness. God is light. When we go through hard things and understand how real the adversary is it just sets us up to understand how real God's love is. "The greater our sorrow, the greater our capacity to feel joy."

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

​The tri-pan reunited! Only for a couple minutes, but still! :D

P.S. Basically every second Sister Van Vleet and I spend together could qualify for this part of my letters, but I'll go with the picture from the top. Sister Van Vleet was getting all settled and unpacked when she couldn't open the bottom drawer of the desk. She had already opened it before and put things in there, but for whatever reason, she couldn't get it open. We both tried everything we could think of to get that drawer open. She was shoving knives in the cracks to try and get rid of something that might be jamming it.

​Went to a super cute/mildly famous bakery in our area
and Sister Van Vleet had her first macaroon!

We both tried propping both feet against the desk and yanking as hard as we could. We tried gently opening it. We tried just shaking it around. We couldn't get it. We decided our next option was to prop the desk on its side to see if maybe something would just magically fall into place. It didn't work, so when I grabbed the desk to put it back down, my finger touched the little metal piece that was locking the drawers. You barely have to touch it and the drawers open right up. A solid 30 minuets later, we put the desk back in its place and she finished unpacking.

​Ring Pops as an anti-trunky for Sister Van Vleet since she goes home in 5 weeks.

​And ice cream of course.

Bonus picture, she also tried to bring her stuff from the car to the house in a grocery cart someone left in front of our house. She may have run into the house a few times.

Our Hearts are Full

Well another week has gone through a time warp. A whole transfer really. A whole entire transfer is gone in what literally felt like a blink of an eye. One transfer of being with Sister Schatmeier in Belmead and she's leaving! We got the call from president this morning. It was super unlikely that she would have left, but at the same time we both kind of knew she was going. I can't say who's coming here, but let's just say I am PUMPED LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE

Also, ANTHONY GOT BAPTIZED. So insanely ridiculously happy. One of his friends from Clagary came up and the ward was so excited! On Sunday we went in to the priesthood opening exercises to be there for him to get the priesthood! They had him stand up and introduce himself  one last time and he said something along the lines of, "Hey. I'm Anthony. New member. Just got baptized yesterday." I don't know why that made me so happy but I had to hold in a squeal I was literally so happy.

We also met with Chrissy this week and her life is getting turned upside down right now. We had a great talk with her though and she knows God will help her. She just never ceases to amaze me with how much faith she has and how much she loves her kids and wants the best for them.

On Sunday I was seriously just the happiest person. I sat down to the Coronation Park ward sacrament meeting and just felt excited about LIFE. Anthony was just confirmed and received the priesthood. Our meal calendar for the month of November was almost full (that doesn't happen). AND it was the primary program for Coronation Park. I literally said to Sister Schatmeier, that I wanted to go run around outside waving my arms around screaming I was just a giant ball of happiness. I couldn't figure out how to put into words how happy I was until we sang the sacrament hymn. The last lines of the last verse were, "We love thee, Lord; our hearts are full." PERFECT DESCRIPTION. The whole last verse has kind of become my theme song for life:

As now we praise thy name with song,
The blessings of this day
Will linger in our thankful hearts,
And silently we pray
For courage to accept thy will,
To listen and obey.
We love thee, Lord; our hearts are full.
We’ll walk thy chosen way.

I finished the Book of Mormon again this week and as always it was incredible. When I got to Moroni's promise at the end though, I had a new thought about it. If Joseph Smith made this whole church up, he wrote the Book of Mormon willy nilly and is just trying to scam us all, he's literally the worst scam artist in the history of the world. It says very clearly, take this to God when you read this. Ask him what he thinks. If someone made it all up, he wouldn't tell the readers to take it to God. Then God would just say "not true!" and his evil plot would be foiled. So take it to God. He'll tell you what's right and what's wrong.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. There's a restaurant in the city called Soda Jerks that has a famous burger called Doris. If you eat Doris, you get a free t-shirt. Doris consists of bacon grilled cheese sandwiches for buns, a fried egg, three beef patties and all the regular lettuce, tomato, and onion fixings, more slices of bacon and like 4 slices of cheese. I wanted the shirt obviously, so I ate Doris. My oh my, I wanted to die. I was pretty confident all morning that I would eat it all, and even when they were bringing it out, I was positive I would eat it all. I ended up with four bites left and the waitress took pity on me and just gave me the shirt. I'm running out of time to email. There's so much more to the story, but there ya go haha

If You Want To

We saw a half-built
abandoned snowman,
so we went and gave him a head.
He's Sister Schatmeier's first snowman!!

One of the other benefits of being in a family ward again is all the old people. Babies and old people are in rather short supply in YSA haha We had dinner with a super cute old lady in the ward and she was throwing out all these great little one-liner phrases that I lost track of there were so many. She also was giving us some pretty solid life advice. At one point she said, "You can do anything you want. If you want to." You are so right Sister Mazurek.

In other news Anthony passed his interview!! He'll be baptized this Saturday and is seriously pumped. So is the ward. The ward just loves him. There was a ward pot luck that he couldn't make it to because he was visiting his grandma in the hospital and SO many people asked us where he was. We taught him about the Book of Mormon last Wednesday and every time I get to share my testimony with people about the Book of Mormon I can feel it getting deeper and deeper.

​We were walking
to an appointment and a kid asked,
"Mom what's on that snowman?"
In a pretty miffed tone she said,
"A cucumber."

Another fun part of Wednesday, we're getting an app for our iPads that is basically going to eliminate all paperwork. We spent a while getting all trained for it and it'll take a while to get all the information inputted, but it's going to be so unbelievably efficient.

I got to go on exchanges with Sister Rasmussen this week. My heavens she is an absolutely incredible missionary. She's finished with her mission in just a couple weeks. It's hard to imagine going home someday. It almost doesn't feel real haha We saw so many incredible miracles though! We found a new family for her area and talked to a man named Mario. To introduce himself he said, "I'll let you guess my name. Do you know Nintendo 64? My brother's name is Luigi." He wants to hear about the gospel and is meeting with them later this week! He had about a million jokes he had to tell us, so we stood there talking to him for a solid half hour. It was fun haha

​Exchanges!

There were two instances this week that we had about 10 minutes to teach the Restoration. So stressful, but my heavens so fun. I almost wish it were that way every time. It forces you to teach really clearly and simply, but you still have to make sure they understand and that you can teach by the Spirit so it can testify of the things you share. It was the best.

With President Pattison's emphasis on finding, the mission as a whole, and our area specifically has been seeing some incredible miracles. The Lord is definitely preparing his elect to hear the message of the Restoration. There's a girl from months ago that I gave a pass-along card to that's meeting with missionaries now and is getting baptized next month. We got a new investigator just yesterday; she let us in right away and was so down for us to come back on Friday. So many missionaries have shared experiences of going to one last door, talking to one last person, and they accept an invitation. Holy cats I love being a missionary. 

Sister Smith came in to the city to go to the temple,
so we got to have lunch with her!

We had a powerful lesson with Chrissy yesterday. She kind of bore her testimony of how she knows that she needs to follow Christ. She is an incredible woman who has been through so so so much. My heart felt like it was going to burst listening to her talk. I just love her so much. I just love being a missionary so much. I know I say it all the time, but I couldn't possibly say it enough times to accurately convey to all of you just how much I love it. 

Hey! You can do anything you want to! You just have to want to! 

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

​My selfie with Des
I ran into her on Saturday!
When I saw her and her sister,
we all half-screamed and ran for a hug
haha Tofield!

P.S. At family home evening last night we and Charlene were the last ones to get there, so we had to take what seats we could get. There was one big couch that Elder Moline was sitting on with space for the three of us, so Charlene sat next to him. Someone jokingly said, "Oh, you better watch out for him." So he teasingly scooted a little closer to her. She squealed like you wouldn't believe and scooted faster than I've ever seen someone couch scoot over to the other end of the couch. We sat between her and Elder Moline, but he got up at one point, so we had a musical chairs kind of thing and ended up spreading out on the couch so he couldn't sit again. There was just enough space for him to squeeze on the end of the couch by Charlene, so he squeezed in right next to her. She literally screamed and practically jumped on top of Sister Schatmeier. He decided to sit on the couch on the other side of the room haha

P.P.S. I ran into the Woodruff family from Tofield on Saturday :D Have I mentioned before how much I love Tofield?

​

​Shout out to Sister McSweeney and her forehead thing haha Also, please note that Sister Schatmeier and I perfectly match. Totally unplanned. #unity

Happy Thanksgiving

Me, Sister Schatmeier, Anneka, Albert, Jennay,
Kade, and Sheridan :D

Well people another week has absolutely FLOWN by. Jennay, Kade, and Anneka were all baptized this week! Anneka had taken all the lessons as well, but felt nervous about the interview and said she wanted to wait. Come Friday night, she decided she was ready, so we got her interviewed and they were all baptized Saturday! The ward showed so much support. It was awesome. During the talk on the Holy Ghost, the member giving the talk asked the kids how they felt and Jennay said "absolutley wonderful." GAH. Melted my little heart. Kade and his dad Albert got the priesthood on Sunday. Our faces hurt by the end of the day we were smiling so much. 

We came home to an anonymous
plate of cookies on Thursday!
I love this ward :]

Anthony came to the baptism and was telling Sister Schatmeier that he just had an
overwhelming sense of "this is right." He also came to church again and everyone just loves him. We taught him about the law of tithing this week and all he had to say about it was "That totally makes sense." He's the best. We had the lesson at our ward mission leader's house which is in a bit of a sketchier neighborhood (stay calm mom, it's totally fine haha). When we left at 8:45, Anthony realized we had parked on the opposite side of the building he did, so he walked us to our car cause he is just the nicest.

Initial reaction to noticing
the snowflakes in my hair.

Important news for this week: IT SNOWED. Winter has begun people. There's no going back at this point. The snow and negative temperatures have come and are here to stay. I've already built a snowman and had several snowball fights, so we're doin great.

There are a set of sisters of that don't have a specific assigned area, they just travel around the mission going on exchanges with all the sisters in their area. It turns into a kind of blitz finding day.

So this is the same street
that was the fall colors picture
 a couple weeks ago.

Yesterday we had them come to our area and it was so fun! We spent a good chunk of time tracting, but not nearly as much as last Thanksgiving haha (In case you don't remember Sister Hill and I spent a solid 5 hours tracting last year). We talked to so many great people.

Sister Schatmeier and I stopped by a lady who used to meet with the missionaries and a different lady answered the door. Apparently the lady we were looking for was having a bath, but I asked the lady who answered the door if we could show her a video about Thanksgiving, and SHE SAID YES. That doesn't happen very often haha We invite so many people and so many people so no, it's always a little shocking at first when someone actually lets you inside. "Are you sure? You're gonna let us in? Really? AWESOME." We showed her the video and lo and behold she's from England just visiting for a couple weeks! She totally wants to learn about Christ though so we got her address in Manchester and phone number and sent it to the England missionaries. Miracles. 

​Exchanges with Sister Coats!

Oh! So clarification for everyone who thinks I'm confused in all my Thanksgiving-ness, yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving. We've already had 2 Thanksgiving suppers and we were basically rolling into our apartment last night we were so full. No complaints though. Turkey dinners are the BEST. 

There are always so many stories I want to tell that by the time I want to get to a spiritual part, it's already a little annoyingly lengthy. LISTEN I JUST LOVE THE GOSPEL AND I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. 

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

​We got to climb into
the bell tower of a church
we volunteer at for the food bank.
Notice the piles of pigeon poop on the floor. 

P.S. We had a lesson with an investigator Jordan last night that we were passing over to the YSA sisters. It was about the law of chastity and it actually went really well. Cause Jordan's awesome. He told us that he's been reading the Book of Mormon for 15 minutes every day :D After the lesson, we were walking out to our cars and ended up having an impromptu snowball fight. Cause, snow. It was a jolly good time and we were all enjoying all the frozen water to the face. We had kind of finished, but I still had one snowball left. I decided Jordan deserved it since it's probably one of the last times we'll get to see him. I tossed in this direction and it hit right where it *ahem* counts. The snowball fight was promptly put to an end. Just of all the days, it had to be the day that we taught him the law of chastity. *face palm*

​Our last district meeting with our district. There are still two more weeks, but we'll be at meetings and won't get to go. We attempted to take a normal picture, but eventually just kind of gave up.

We had to go jump the Mandarin Elders car yesterday. It was quite the Thanksgiving haha

​We bought the kids CTR rings

​Just the cutest :D

​

Sister Andrus and me exchanging :)

There are about a million and a half exciting things to talk about, but our time is significantly shortened today since our car broke yesterday haha We're walking everywhere, but a member is picking us up to take us grocery shopping in a couple minutes (Shout out to Sister Sturko and how awesome she is).

Most exciting of the exciting things is that JENNAY AND KADE PASSED THEIR BAPTISMAL INTERVIEW. Literally so happy. This Saturday at 3:30 this church gets two new absolutely incredible members. They're really the greatest kids you'll ever meet. Kade asked in a lesson a few days ago how to be a missionary, so we gave him a copy of Preach My Gospel and told him he's gonna know all our secrets now. Jennay has already invited her entire family for this Saturday, and a few days ago she told us that she was nervous for her drama performance so she said a prayer and felt better. They're the flippin cutest. 

Anthony is doing incredible as well. He's so willing to do anything we ask him to. He went over to our ward mission leader's house for general conference and emailed us to say how much he enjoyed his "first general conference experience." That man's gonna be a bishop someday I tell you what. He'll be baptized on the 22nd and is so dang ready. 

We found a new investigator named Karim for the Elders in Coronation Park who is blind and super willing to learn about God. Roni has made me develop an insta-love for any and all blind people. I seriously love Karim so much. I was reminded so much of my love for Roni and Tofield and missionary work in general. He even read the braille that says "Greta" on the top of my iPad that Roni gave me. He read it too quick though and thought it said "great." Hahaha Threw me back to my 5th grade student body campaign "Vote for Greta the Great."

Alright if there's not an acknowledgement of how ridiculously awesome general conference was, did I even live this week? IT WAS AWESOME. I've been telling people for weeks that it's my favorite. It seemed like it was over too quickly! We'd be explaining it to people and talk about how it's 4 hours on Saturday and Sunday and they'd give us a funny look every time. I just love it too much. I could sit there literally all day. God's spokespeople have information that God wants to hear, so they gather us all together to tell us! What could be better??

our ice cream from an ice cream truck's last day of the season
since it's getting a little chilly up here.

Obviously I loved that so many people talked about missionary work. It's the greatest thing ever and I hope we all have new insights and impressions of how to be engaged in the Lord's work. President Uchtdorf's talk Saturday morning was a perfect reminder of how wonderful this plan of happiness is and how we should never lose sight of the awe and wonder that comes along with having any knowledge of it at all. God wants us back. Our perfect father in heaven loved us so much that he's designed a perfect plan for us to be happy, with him, forever. Holy awesomeness.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. I got to have Sister Andrus come to Belmead for an exchange this week and we were walking down the street talking to anyone and everyone that walked past. One guy came up behind us and passed us, so Sister Andrus said, "You're walking faster than we are, but can we walk with you?" As she kind of half chased him down. He said, "That depends." She said "Well we want to share this card with you-" To which he said "Nope" and took off down the street. We ended up catching up to him at the next light because we were both waiting to cross the street. I looked over at him and said "Heeeeey." To which he laughed and said "You caught up to me!" He let us walk with him all the way to his car. We had an awesome conversation, he was dead-set catholic, but we definitely hot his brain juices flowing.

Last p-day we went on a hike down by the river. There's a weird silver ball statue that we took pictures with, just a picture of both of us, and then two pictures of me dancing down a hill because I don't know how to behave like a normal human being and just walk.