It's Happening

So we're at 5 months now.
That's crazy.

So all that was happening was that we were being fed lunch at a big missionary meeting. We were sitting and had finished our lunch, but I needed a piece of cake or something and shared that information with Sister Woolsey. A couple seconds later I saw people coming out of the kitchen with trays of cookies and had a dramatic gasp to which Sister Woolsey replied, dead serious like it was the end of the world or something, "It's happening."

My first ever city night

We went on exchanges this week! I got to go into Edmonton with Sister Phillips! We were legit downtown. It was way cool, but growing up in Gridley and spending 5 months in Tofield, I'm definitely a small-town kinda girl. We got to ride the bus and talk to random people and visit lots of less-actives (kind of like Tofield eh?). Sister Phillips is awesome and we had a fun 24 hours haha

The cutest family ever moved to Vegreville! They're not members, but their uncle from British Clumbia (BC) is and had called and asked us to help them move in. They wife is from Mexico, the husband is from (BC) and they have an adorable little two year old. They all switch between Spanish and English all the time and it's so fun. The 2 year old especially switches back and forth a lot so she's hard to understand sometimes haha They love our guts though, and have already fed supper once when we helped them and asked us to come again this week. We're really hoping and praying that they'll be interested in the gospel and let us teach them because they're little family would be so blessed by this gospel.

I got to play the piano in primary on Sunday and I love it!! The Savior was a smart guy when he said we need to "become as a little child." They just love Jesus and they know he loves them. They're little spirits are so happy and they have the simplest, but purest testimonies. I hope I get to be a primary pianist as a calling someday because it was seriously so fun.

If we're supposed to learn from everything that happens in life, my life lessons learned this week are just don't choose to be offended and don't be dumb on the internet, especially not social medias. I wasn't the one experiencing these lessons, but we're all helping each other learn right? "O be wise; what can I say more." Jacob 6:12

Before exchanges, we got to have interviews with President Manion and he is such an awesome guy. He cares about all of us so much. All my questions I had for him about our area he basically said, "Hmm that's a tough one. Better pray about it." SO TRUE. We talked about that in the big missionary meeting, but about the people we teach. Sometimes it feels like we need to solve all their concerns and problems for them so they'll get over whatever it may be faster, but if we want true conversion, they need to solve their own concerns. And the only way they'll solve their concerns and I'll have,y questions answered about the area, and any person ever will have the answers they need is through the ultimate source of answers: prayer. Heavenly Father has all the answers, and sometimes we just need to ask for them to be able to have them too.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. So yesterday we'd had a bit of a long day and our nightly planning was taking longer than usual and we still had several phone calls to make that night. We were just feelin a bit...tired. While I was finishing up our last phone call, Sister Woolsey decided we needed some cheering up so she put on a dance production through the hallway and really just all arlund our whole apartment. I tell you what if you ever need a cure for feelin tired after a long day have someone dance like it's goin out of style while you're trying to have a phone call and you'll just about bust a gut.

I finally got to try 5 pin bowling

HOVERBOARDS ARE THE FUNNEST THINGS IN THE WORLD.
EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT VERY GOOD AT IT

They Were Really Hard to Chew

Life is good!

Holy delicious pizza. One of our less-active families had us over for supper and the husband just so happens to be a CHEF. It was seriously way good. Plus, our lesson with them afterwards went really well. We cut out a bunch of hearts and decorated a jar all cute and told them for Valentine's day to write compliments or love notes about their family members. The mom seriously loved it. The second we put down the hearts, she picked them and started writing. It was so cute. By the time we left, they'd already written on almost all the hearts.

On Thursday, we were teaching Roni about the Atonement. We read Alma 7:11-13 and told her, "The Atonement isn't just for sinners." (I was quoting my fabulous seminary teacher of course, shout out to Dawn). The more we talked about it the more she loved it. We had a member with us and she made the comment that the Atonement is "mind-blowing." Roni definitely agreed cause she said it about 4 more times before we left. She also started teasing the member because "Ha ha. You have to go home and be a mom. I get to sit here all day and research the Atonement." In case you haven't already guessed, Roni's doing pretty awesome ;D

So our area is huge and we cover about 6 little towns. One of our investigators lives in a town we don't get to go to very often, but we saw him again finally and he made the comment, "Ya know, I'll never become a Mormon." I mentioned that he had said that in branch council and 2 people in the room said, "Yeah I said that once too." Haha So we won't give up on him yet.

Sister Woolsey and I got to sing the song we sang at Roni's baptism again on Sunday. I also got to give a talk on the primary theme this year: "I Know the Scriptures Are True." Now let me tell you,

I KNOW THE SCRIPTURES ARE TRUE. 

They're the word of God and they're a treasure. God told all his prophets some pretty good stuff and I'm so thankful they wrote it all down so that I can read it. And I am so thankful for the Book of Mormon and role it plays in my testimony. It holds it all together. Because the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet and this is Heavenly Father's church on the earth today. It teaches me incredible things like the plan of salvation and the power of the atonement and what I need to do to have both those things work in my life. I'm gonna quote Elder Holland who quoted his grandfather: "No wicked man could write such a book as this; and no good man would write it, unless it were true and he were commanded of God to do so."

Peace and Blessings,

Sister Hepworth

In the video, Sister Woolsey ended up sitting on cat.

 I also was much more successful on my first attempt. 

You'll understand when you watch.

P.S. Our subject title this week is courtesy of Sister Woolsey. Last night at supper we were eating Edamame which are little bean looking things that kind of look like cooked snap peas. You're supposed to just eat the little bean thing on the inside of the pod and throw the pod away. Sister Woolsey had only eaten them one time before last night and didn't remember how they were usually eaten (even though she thought she did). She was trying to take bites of the pod with the beans still inside and was having lots of difficulty biting through the pod and trying to tear them off. Later that night when we were talking about the normal way to eat them we laughed a good deal hahaha We'd finished laughing when she made the almost inaudible comment that, "they were really hard to chew." Oh I just about died.

Who Cares About the Super Bowl? My first Canadian snowman. His name was Kyle.

Let me clarify. I love football and I love the super bowl. But Canadians? Why do they care about the super bowl? Almost everyone we tried to see on Sunday was watching the super bowl. Not many people let us in since they were busy super bowling, but we were in an investigator's house when it first started so we half heard the Lady Gaga opening ceremonies haha

My first Canadian snowman.
His name was Kyle.

So Alberta's doin all kinds of weird things. It's 9 outside right now which is about 48 Fahrenheit and alllllll the snow and ice is melting. Every Canadian we mention the weather too goes off on a rant about how this isn't a real winter. I don't mind 

This week we've cut out probably a solid 200 hearts and stuck them to people's door. Everybody needs a little love, and we're showing it with a little paper and tape  Really though. I've been thinking a lot a about how everyone needs love this week. Every single person in this world needs to feel loved. Heavenly Father knows and loves every single one of us, and a lot of times he shows us that love through the people around us. 

On the flip side of that, if everyone we see is loved perfectly by Heavenly Father we need to be ready and willing to help him show that love through us. Giving someone a hug. Letting someone know you love them. Even choosing to love someone instead of judging them. He needs us all to know we're loved, so help people know. 

That's a lot of the reason I'm even on a mission. I want people to know that someone out there loves them. Loves them with the most perfect, unending, fulfilling kind of love there could ever be. Loves them like a father. AND ALWAYS WILL. We all need to know. And even if we already knew that, we all need to be reminded.

If you don't already know, God, your Heavenly Father loves you. If you forgot for some reason, God, your Heavenly Father still loves you. I promise. 

Hey I love you too! So keep your head high cause Uchtdorf said "You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious Being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time!" And me 

Peace and Blessings

Sister Hepworth

P.S. Sister Woolsey and I mentioned to Roni how much we love avocados, so she bought us one (she's so cute). I mashed it up and put all kinds of yummy spices and the likes in it for all of us to enjoy with some crackers. Now Roni doesn't like avocado, but we convinced her to try it one more time. I got her a cracker and she held it in front of her mouth making a face like she already knew she was going to hate it, and said "I'm scared." When she finally put it in her mouth about 30 seconds later, she started stomping her feet and shaking her head around with the deepest frown I've ever seen on a real life human face before. It seriously looked like we poisoned her. She ended up running to the fridge and getting a container of eclairs. After about 5 eclairs she decided the taste was gone. 

I made a paper chain to countdown to general conference
 because I AM PUMPED. (54 days)

Give it a go.

Somthing About Obama

Someone on Sunday made some HILARIOUS comment that included Obama and I was so excited to have it as my subject title of my email. Sad news is I can't remember for the life of me what it was. So just know, it was something about Obama.

Also, we're tryin' somethin' new this week cause I don't want to type out a big email, so please enjoy my email with our faces and voices included.

Do You Guys Eat a Lot of Spaghetti?

Red Dot Day #$

The answer is we eat normal amounts of spaghetti. Until this week. The member feeding us on Wednesday asked us if we ate a lot of spaghetti and I said "No, just average amounts of spaghetti." We ended up having spaghetti that night, the next night, and the night after that. And yesterday for lunch because someone gave us the leftover spaghetti. Lucky me though, I seriously love spaghetti. Keep it comin!

We had exchanges this week which means we trade companions just for a day. Sister Woolsey went in to Edmonton and I stayed here in Tofield with Sister Bramwell. On Wednesday, we had a lesson with Carol. We hadn't been able to study that morning though because we had to go in to Edmonton for big worldwide missionary training and it takes a while to drive in. Needless to say, it's hard to teach a lesson when you haven't studied for it. The lesson was a little all over the place, but we finally got out of her that she's never actually prayed to know if the church is true and she's been learning for over a year. I definitely appreciate study time a little more now. Sometimes 2 hours of studying in the morning can feel like a long time, but it's totally worth it.

On Friday, Sister Woolsey and I were in the middle of planning for next week when a former investigator that had moved to a new address contacted us and said we could come over in 20 minutes. Way awesome! Slight complication. It takes 20 minutes to drive to their new house. We literally ran out the door to try and get there in time haha That lesson was a little crazy too since we didn't even know we were going to see them that day, but we got to talk a lot about the plan of salvation and what's gonna happen after this life. The wife kept saying, "I wish I could believe that." She could tell that it was good and it made sense to her, but she and her husband are both afraid to change. We need to help them see the good that comes from living this gospel.

Exchangin'

I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Heavenly Father has literally given us a perfect plan for us to be happy. We just have to kind of get over ourselves and just do it. We complicate it a lot of times and move away from the simplicity of what's going to make us happy, but we need to have faith in Christ, repent, make covenants, have the gift of the Holy Ghost and endure to the end. Those are the steps what we're promised by our loving and perfect Heavenly Father will bring us lasting happiness. We just have to do it.

This week we've been trying to update the list of all the people who live in the area and are members, but don't come to church. We've called looooots of people and most of the numbers are out of service now, but Christ doesn't just care about the 99 sheep. He wants all 100 of them to be back in the fold and is willing to go searching for the one that's lost. We spent a while trying to call all these people and had no success. Until today!! This morning one of the ladies randomly called us back and when I asked if we could come meet her she said, "Why don't I just bring my daughter and come to church this Sunday?" You know what, that is an excellent idea. So we're pumped to meet this lady on Sunday.

Have a wonderful week and make sure to you're living the happy life Heavenly Father wants you to.

Peace and Blessings
Sister Hepworth

P.S. A lady we visit was telling us how her boyfriend got an infection in his toe and ended up having to have it amputated. I asked her which toe to which she responded, "The second one. The little piggy went to the market and got caught and sent to the butcher shop."