IDP

Well that sure was a surprise to hear about Maureen!  She´ll be an awesome missionary!  Those were some good happy updates!  One more friend on the "married" list... I already heard about Tara schlappi Bodrero from other sources.  I´m glad to hear things are doing well.

I hope you all had a less frustrating week than I did!  It was full of cancelled citas but we also had some great success!  We are working with some great members that help more than anybody I´ve ever seen in the mission!  They connect so well with our family from Ecuador!  They are a huge blessing to us!  In the end I don´t think that the unity day thing will happen while i´m here but maybe next spring.  

We are doing what we can and it might be a little easier this coming week!  It was roughly April when I received... I don´t know if it was revelation or just a pure want... to ask for an IDP.  That IDP (International Driver´s Permit) will be put to use this week and hopefully for about two months!  We are getting a car tomorrow!  We have broken the bands of bondage to the land of Alcazar.  The public transportation here in this pueblo is Horrible and it´s way hard to work in the surrounding pueblecitos.  But we will now have a car and are FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I hope you all have a great week!  And I hope that there is a package slip when I get home today!!!  Love you all!

Elder Heywood

Dear Family

I am doing Great this monday morning!  Nice and cool!  I´m loving the shorts and hoody combo!!!  The girls out on the street think I´m crazy but my legs just don´t get that cold and I don´t like pants so...

I hope you have NOT discarded pictures that I´ve sent home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I transferred a bunch of pictures to an 8gb flash drive that I have and I can´t find those pictures anymore!   So keep those pictures safe there at home!  I´m going to try a few things to recover things but I made it kind of hard when I formatted the flash drive those things came from! 

From my letter to him:

The other speaker today was a returned missionary. He said some things that I wrote down to share with you. He said that when he first arrived in the mission field, he thought, "1 hour of scripture study ~ very day!?! How will I EVER fill a whole hour with scripture study?!?" By the end, it was, "Only an hour?!? How can I EVER finish my studies in only an hour?!?" He also said that there was night and day difference between when he was obedient to the convenient, and when he became obedient to "even the ridiculous rules." He said one of the most ridiculous was the rule of backing a car; while one is driving, the other is out, behind him, backing him up. That is particularly ridiculous, when the only thing you might hit is a mud puddle, because you are in the middle of nowhere and it is raining and muddy. But, again, he said night and day difference.

He told of a 14 year old girl that they met. She had attended mutual for about a month when they met her. They invited her to come to church, and she did show up that week. It was fast Sunday, and Elder P was surprised to see her up on the stand. She said that she knew this was the true church, that she knew she needed to do whatever she could to become a member of it. They talked with her afterwards and asked what she knew about Joseph Smith. They received the absolute most blank stare ever! Same when they asked about the Book of Mormon. They asked if they could meet with her and teach her about the restored gospel. She was baptized 3 weeks later ~ with an understanding of the gospel to accompany her witness that it was the right place to be.

There is a huge diference in when we are trying to follow all the rules and when we are not!  There are some rules that the President can and does change but there are some that we just have to suck it up and get it done!  There are always blessings that come from it!

That´s an amazing story about that girl!  I wish that would happen here but I guess it takes members that invite friends to a mutual activity that they don´t even have!   We are going to have the Unity Day soon!  hopefully we can get things together quick enough to have it in two weekends... before it gets tooooo cold!  I got the ideas and letters from Aunt Monica.  We found the ones that will work here and organized something!  Now we just have to get our leaders into a meeting together and we can go to town with it.

L is... going!  She is way cool and I still think that she will get baptised but I see it taking a little while because she always ends up taking care of a kid when she has a cita with us.  We´re working hard with her though!

Sounds like everything is doing great there!  I will pray for Sasha to comprehend the things she is hearing!  I´m glad they could get you the cheese on the siiiiide!!!  I think they spent more on the packaging than on the actual cheese! hahaha

We are really doing great and having a blast here!  I have changed and finally been able to focus on the mission and not care about what´s going on!

I love you all and I Look forward to your letters next week!... and a package?

Elder Heywood

Dear family,
I´m sorry I didn´t write yesterday but we were back in Jaen again doing residency and I didn´t have too much time to do internet.  As far as the week went... it went well, and as far as sickness... yes I, and the other Elders, shared it with Elder Fetzer!  But we´re both doing better now!

We were able to visit quite a few members this week!  we doubled... almost... our lessons from last week!  We found an awesome young adult from the dominican republic on the bus the other day!  I really should say that she found us!  She is awesome and we are going to have a cita with her on wednesday!  And she has the coolest hair in the world!  I hope that I´ll somehow find an excuse to get a picture of it! haha  Who knows maybe a baptism will do the trick!!!

I did receive a question from a member here!  Is there a simple internet filter that blocks pop ups?  It´s an older lady that lives alone so it doesn´t need to do much but she doesn´t like the pop ups!  if you could give me a couple websites of where to go to download the filter that would be great!  Another thing... There is no such thing as seasoning salt in spain.  I want to do a couple things with seasoning salt but it wouldn´t be worth it for you to send it to me... I want to know if you could look up ratios of the ingredients and i´ll try to make some!  I want to make better hamburgers and your potatoes that you do with olive oil and seasoning salt. 

So, my trip to Jaen.  That was just a chaos and a half!  On sunday night´s train ride they had to stop the train a couple stops early and send us in bus the last hour!   Then we got to the Jaen piso at 12:15am and started talking to the Elders there!  It came up that my stuff was over on the table... and I asked where my package was.  That wasa package containing the papers I needed in order to do my residency!  They didn´t know of any package! I was supposed to be at the government building at 10:30am the next morning and mail doesn´t come till 12:30pm.  That´s a problem!  I called the church lawyer who wsa in charge of it and he gave me the number of the DHL office... ok that´s better because they could come at any time!  But they said that they couldn´t deliver it until wednesday... That´s a BIG problem!  I told them I would come pick it up and then tryed to figure out where the office was.  couldn´t figure out where she said it was.  They called me back and said that it was already on a truck to the house.    THey didn´t get there until 11:50.  We went straight to the government and stood in line for a number, and when it was my turn they asked me if I had an appointment.  I said "well, it was at 10:30"  they replied, "No pasa nada"..."Not a problem"  I got in and out in a few minutes and I am aloud to stay in Spain!!!

That´s the fun experience of my week!  I don´t have anymore time either so I´m going to leave you with that!  I love you all and wish you all a great week!

Eler Heywood

Conferencia

Yeah my trips up to Utah will generaly include a couple visits on the way or out of the way!!! I´m excited to see Kam again! He was way cool and a great companion! I am trying to be humble as Pres. Uchtdorf counseled, but as he also said, no one avoids pride and few overcome it! We are working well together... even though I´ve been sick for the last few days. I´ve just had a cold and I´m starting to get over it today!!! Yesterday was miserable!

As far as "older"... President Clegg said not to set an age but to use wise judgement and we´ll be fine! Maybe a better word for it would be "Adult." If you really want an answer, yes I would visit you in the circumstance here! however every mission is different and in the western US it´s a lot easier to find someone to accompany the missionaries to those kinds of visits.

Thank you for the ideas for Unity Day and I hope for more when the Heywood´s get back from Utah! There are about 20 people in our ward. As far as conference... That was a frustrating thing to deal with! They announced that the first session would be shown on Saturday night as usual... then nobody showed up. We got there and so did the Elders from Valdepeñas... luckily no investigators! The projector and screen and all the chords were set up and ready to go. There was a sign on it saying "Don´t touch" We touched it because nobody came. We just plugged it in and turned it on. It was programmed and focussed and everything... but there was no sound. We called the mission leader to see what was up with it... he said that nobody was coming today and that he and the branch president are in charge of the closet with all the sound equipment and so they have to be there in order to use any of it. But they wouldn´t come turn it on for us because they had everything planned out to watch it all on Sunday. As you can imagine that didn´t happen either! Neither did the PEC meeting that was planned in between two of the sessions! We ended up haveing to watch that session in the locutorio (internet ciber). It was really ironic when I got a call from the Branch president this morning telling me that he needs us to go put the tables away... in the very closet that has the sound equipment that only he and the mission leader are aloud to use! Whatever!

We had a frustrating week... spending almost all our time in the streets and next to no time in houses! We´re doing our best to change things around here. It looks like it´s going to take some time...

We made cookies for the lunch we had in between the sunday sessions and everybody loved them! But we kept the banana bread for the Elders! We also did a BBQ on our porch on saturday night with the other Elders! That was reallly good! And we´re going to make more Chicken Noodle Soup today!

So the good thing that happened this week... we got an investigator to conference.... but she smelt like beer! we´ll see on tuesday what she thought of it or felt! she had to leave right after. We also had a member that recently moved into our ward and asked us when we could come to their house. The wife is a convert of Scott Hinton! It´s a small world! Especially in the church in spain!!!

Well, that´s that! Not much has happened since Thursday! maybe a lot of good stuff will happen this week!

I love you all and hope you have a great week and enjoy your pies!!!

Elder Austin Heywood

Elder Fetzer

Well, Elder B is being transfered!!! We did get along a lot better the last little bit but I think it was just because I knew I only had him a couple more days!!! My new companion is Elder Fetzer from Salt Lake City... That´s Utah right? jaja My only companion so far that didn´t come from or go back to Utah is Elder B. Elder Fetzer is a way cool kid and we get along really well! He´s way chill and he likes a clean piso!!! :D He doesn´t cook much but that´s alright because I love to cook! This is his fourth transfer in the mission and he came from a companionship that was about the same as what I just went through! So we´ve both been humbled a bit and are working great together!

He was just in Chiclana in Cadiz... I don´t know if you remember the Rodriguez family. That´s where they live! He was also there close to Elder Going! So we have a lot of connections and it´s great! Elder Going, my father (trainer), died (went home) on tuesday! He went home and I didn´t even get to say goodbye! :´( He was still my favorite companion but I´ve had some great ones since then. And this one is going to be great as well!!!

We are in the process of turning this place around! It might end up going a lot faster than we predicted! The biggest thing that will help is that we can visit the older single women without anybody... because there never is anybody. In Madrid they couldn´t even meet with them alone in the chapel!!! We have two great members that live here in town that haven´t had the missionaries in their houses in years because the Mission President in Madrid was way strict on that. when we told them that we can visit them they both got way happy because they need the missionaries in their homes! That is one thing that will help a lot with the excitement here!

Another thing that we´re wanting to do is put together an activity but we´re not sure what we can do with so few members. We need some ideas. one thing that I thought of was those games that you do with groups and the only way to do them is work together. Like the ones we did at Joseph´s Eagle Project. What´s that activity called and what are some of those games?

By the way, I am still in ALCAZAR... it´s not aclaraz. ;) And the Liahona that we were in is the september liahona.... but remeber that it was in the local news section and won´t show up in the liahona there in the USA.

Hey when you send the package can you send a picture of the US. Capital building? I drew a flag and now I need something to put behind it but I don´t have any other good ideas. If you can think of something else that would be good for behind the flag I´m open to them.

We have a few new investigators but I it´s way hard to get ahold of a lot of them. we are trying to do everything we can but it´s dificult. My mindset has changed though and I know that I am doing my part so nothing else matters!!!

For once in my mission I have been able to focus on the mission and like being here! It´s wierd and I am loving it! I hope it doesn´t take Kyle and Ryan and Devin and Jared that long to enjoy it. My biggest problem was that I came on the mission mainly for two reasons! 1) to move out of the house. 2) to please family and friends. I had that mindset and it was hard to change it, but I have finally been able to!

We are looking forward to this conference and working towards some baptisms! (cross the fingers). Alcazar is improving little by little! :D

I love you all and hope you all have a great... 3 days till I write again! This time I will be writing on Monday!!! ;)

Con Amor,
Elder Heywood

Cosecha

It looks like a good house! I´m going to mis the old one and all the work we did to fix it up... I won´t miss the work but the feeling of accomplishment! I´m glad to hear that Bryan is playing volleyball! If you truely work hard at it and listen to what the coach says you´ll progress a lot! The coach at highland is way good! Work to become a starter but don´t be a jock! Hold your head high but keep your nose at a friendly angle! Just have fun! Bytheway, what coach said is a good thing! Basically he said that he never learned and so he didn´t learn a bad way! Bryan´s going to be able to learn the right way from the begining! And as with every skill, when it doesn´t seem like it´s working go back to the basics!

Granada Zone specialized training ~ getting back t the basics!

I hope we´ll still have those baptisms because we haven´t been able to see them for 2 weeks now. We have a ton of new investigators though!

On saturday this week we had a "cosecha"(harvest). We had 6 missionaries in our pueblo doing contacts to sac references. we ended up with 16 references in 2-1/2 hours!!! We weren´t able to go by and visit any yet but that´s a good thing because we were teaching other people and got two new investigators yesterday!

I´m in the liahona... not the ensign but the liahona! There is a seccion for area news and I´m in there from when I was in Jaén! They took a picture of the branch after they got a new branch presidency! :) I ripped out the page and it´s coming home with me!!!

Elders Heywood, Kusseling, Becerra & Ward

The other day it rained. We caught a bus out to a pueblo and about a minute before we got there it started sprinkling! We didn´t have umbrellas. We did have a cita though! so we walked across the city in the rain and... she didn´t let us in. She had to leave! (GRRRRRRRRRR face) Our other cita also fel through so we went to some other investigators and taught them. They are harvesting grapes right now so they can´t come to church or meet with us... ever! But they were home because it was raining!!!

I got to visit Jaen!!! :D I miss that place! They had a lot more going for them than I ever let myself believe! It was fun talking to Elder Beck. Then we had a mission meeting the next day! I was able to stay awake!... I don´t know how!

My pen broke the other day! I have a request. I was thinking this morning about coins and how when missionaries come home we bring a seleccion of coins from where we serve. Why couldn´t I give friends here coins from the US? I was thinking about having you send some AZ quarters to give to a few people. (not many, maybe about 10).

So that´s been the week! A lot better than last week! I just am still looking forward to next monday! (transfers are on monday instead of wednesday because there´s a transportation strike on wednesday). We´ll do better than we have been lately.

I love you all and hops you all have a great week!

Elder Heywood

Dear Family,

Don´t worry I can get some sweet ties for him! Is it fine if I only send like two home and then bring the others? (Apparently, ties come in pretty sweet designs and cost very little. There were a couple requests here at home.)

EFY turned out great!!! We had the nephew of the branch president (whose parents are members but not him) go to EFY and he showed up at church yesterday and got up to bare his testimony... He said the while he was there he knew that he needed to get baptised!!! He´s going to wait for his dad to start coming to church again so that he can baptise him! I hope his dad comes back quickly! We can´t wait for too long on this one!

We haven´t seen Norma all week long because she got a job and hasn´t been able to meet with us! :( We are not giving up on her though!!!

Elder Pratt is doing great and yes the humidity has leveled out a bit! We´ve spent all week in the hospital visiting a lady but I dón´t see her going anywhere...soon. She is a phycologist and so the lessons are more of phylosophy classes than religioun. oh well!

I don´t have a ton of time today but thanks for the support you give me! I hope everything goes well there! And I can´t wait to see my two "sobrinos" in 8 1/2 months!!! Love you all!

Elder Heywood