Chiclana!

Alright, first thiings first!!!  I will be spending Christmas at home away from home!!! Yup, with the Rodriguez family!!!!!!!!!!  That will be our pday so you won´t get an email from me the following monday... or the one following new years day.  New years day will also be a pday so you can´t wait till sunday to write!  So, I will be in the Rod´s house and they will have their son calling home as well.  They are going to find out what time they will be calling around 7 tonight so I will somehow get you an email during the week saying what time to call!  It will be easier for you to call me because I´ve never bought a calling card here and neither has my companion so I don´t know where to get one!  

So Kike(Elder Rodriguez) will be calling around 12:00 noon here. That means that you can call me at 10:00am your time! (that´s 6:00pm my time)  Then we will have one hour to talk so have some questions!  This will be the last time you get to call me on the mission!!! 

The other day a member took us home and said that Maricarmen came up to her and started going off about how she knows me and how good of a missionary I am and how excited she is to have  me here!  But... now they all have huge expectations from me!!!   I´ll be finishing well, I guess! haha

We have a great ward!!!  There´re between 80 and 120 people that attend regularly... depending on the time of year!  We have regular meetings and great leadership!  I´m way stoked to be here!  And my health is getting better!  The only thing I will be missing is the fun part of Christmas!  The package from richard did arrive on tuesday and I picked it up.  However, your package arrived on thursday... in Alcazar.  I will get it on the 8th of January... just in time for el día de los reyes magos!  So I will be a little spaniard and celebrate 3 kings day instead of Christmas this year!

That was a way cool story!  I love when lessons turn into a powerful testimony meeting!  That´s the kind of thing that really keeps/brings people in the church!  N will never forget the spirit and love that she felt there!  Personal invitations are key in creating relationships!  That´s why we make invitations to give to people whenever we have a baptism!

As far as baptisms go... They did not end up baptising the two sisters... yet!!!  They´ll come around soon!!!  And we might have a baptism soon with the roommate of a recent convert!!!  She is a single mom of a 5 year-old and has tonnns of potential!  We´re just waiting for after Christmas when she can come to our church.  She is kind of committed to go to the evangelist church because her daughter is part of their Christmas program.  She will come soon!!!

Well I gotta go!  I just want questions from you all on Christmas!!!  And I want Richard to guess who this is!... 

hint: lanzy

Con Amor,

Elder Heywood

Best Birthday Ever!

So, yes I am going to Chiclana de la Frontera!  And yes that is Elder Fetzer´s first area!  However, there is one piece of information that you have not connected yet... That is the ward that the Rodriguez family live in!!!   It was more than a year ago that Juan Rodriguez and his family moved from Aljarafe to Chiclana and he told me to tell President to let me finish my mission in Chiclana!  I did tell Pres. Mellor because I knew he would be long gone and would have nothing to do with transfers then!  I said nothing of this to Pres. Clegg!  Well, we got the call on the way to district meeting this friday telling me I´m headed to Chiclana!  I told other missionaries that I either wanted to finish the mission in Sevilla or Chiclana!  I´m going to Chiclana!!!

My new companion is Elder West.  I´ve heard lots of good things about him and I´m excited!  The only downer to all this... I think that I´m sent to the run down pisos to fix ´em up.  haha  It is a pretty bad piso but from what I hear, the missionary leaving there is a clean missionary!    I don´t have his mom´s email yet but I do have the address to the new piso. 

This week was an amazing week to end on!  We hit the mission goal of 20 lessons in the week! It´s probably the first time that Alcazar has hit it in a long time!  And to top off the record breaking numbers we had two baptisms!  They went really well!  The spirit was way strong as they came out of the water!  This was the first baptism I wasn´t really worried/stressed/nervous for.  I was way calm!  I loved it!  Afterwards, the Branch President told us to leave the water in the font with the hope and faith that the other two sisters would decide to get baptised next weekend!!!  That would just be AWESOME!!!

The Chicken noodle soup turned out a little more like the soup that you make!(thanks to the large pot that Ana lent to us)  It´s usually more like a stew for us!  They all... well almost all... loved it!  The gluten free noodles worked too! (That was for the mom).  The only ones that didn´t like it were those that don´t like vegetables!  We did have left overs and gave some to the Cleggs from Ciudad Real.  They had been traveling all week and hadn´t eaten much for the past two days and came straight to the baptism!  We sent them with some soup!  They were way grateful for that!

I had a great birthday!  I received the letter that you sent on friday and loved the many compliments that were sent my way!  Thank You!!!  We had a Christmas activity and Ana made me brownies!  I got a present from the missionaries/me... a new watch!!!  But it´s not a digital watch and not an analog watch.  It´s a binary watch with led lights!!!  It´s SOOOOO SWEET!!!!!!  Check out the picture!  Then of course I found out (the day before) that I´m going back to be with the Rod´s in Chiclana!  

It is a binary watch.

My sweet birthday watch!

I am happy to be here in the mission!  I am sad to not have a car anymore!  But I am happy to be going where I am going!  I hope the warmer weather heals me!  I´ve had a cold for the past two weeks now!  I have gone through about 3 rolls of toilet paper now and it seems like it will never stop!!!  Any suggestions in case I continue ill next week?

I´m glad to hear that Amber is doing fine!  So what are you supposed to do on ice?  turn into the slide (wheels in the dirrection you want to go?) and let off the gas and not push on the brake?  I think that´s what I remember but I´m not sure!  Luckily I´m not in too great a danger of that happening here!  Especially with the weather like it´s been this past week!  It´s strangely warm!

As far as those ideas for Christmas... and life... (inserted below from Meridian Magazine) I am going to keep those in mind and try to keep them in action!  I love you all and wish you all the best!

He Loves Us One at a Time

As I turned to Heavenly Father in prayer, I felt His counsel to me through His Son. I began to understand that Christ doesn’t atone for all of us at once, en masse. He atones for us one person at a time; He cleanses us one heart at a time, and He loves us one at a time as choice and unique individuals. 

What Part of “Always” Do I not Understand?

I choose Him every hour, consciously, deliberately.  I touch bases with Him and ask what He would have me do this hour. I “listen” to the answering thought or impression, trusting that if I ask of Him bread, He will not give me a stone or allow Satan to, either.  If I ask of Him the truth, He will not lie to me.

And in this act of doing exactly what the Sacrament prayer tells us to do—to always remember Him—I find the gift of guidance and wisdom so far beyond my own that I am constantly astounded at His generosity.

Con Amor,

Elder Heywood

Activity coming up

Our Christmas tree with my birthday gift. 

Well, this week we went to the family´s house in Tomelloso (the one that has 7 kids) and had the best lesson ever with them!  Two of the kids said they had prayed and want to be baptised!  They will be baptised on the 12th and we are hoping that the other two children will also pray and receive their answer!  That would be the answer to many prayers!  The lesson I´ve learned is that it requires everything that the missionaries have in order to see miracles.  We are going to see many great things here!

This Saturday we have a branch activity and I think it´s going to be a great thing for the investigators!  I will also be spending a bit of time on saturday cooking an extra big chicken noodle soup for the baptism.  They live a half hour away so they are staying after church and the whole family and some members and some investigators will probably be at president´s house and I told them I was cooking!   It might turn into a bigger thing than I thought!  what´s done is done!  To the kitchen!

The transfers are on the 16th of December!... Next week!  I will be letting you know about when to call by next monday... hopefully!  The number won´t be available until the week of Christmas!  Let me know when the family can be gathered together so that I can talk with you all!  I don´t know if I´ll be transfered or not anymore!  Pres. Clegg pulled me aside after a meeting and asked me what I thought about transfers.  I gave him an indifferent answer.  I also have no clue what´s going on because there are so many Elders that are supposed to be coming in that don´t have their visas yet.  So that could really throw the mission for a spin.  So it´s all up in the air.

Thank you for putting E on the prayer roll!  She has improved a TON since two weeks ago!!!  We are doing what we can to distract her from her depression and focussing on the happy things in life!  The most interesting thing that she did was thank us for not getting mad when she called us and we ran over there last week!  She just needs more people that can help her smile!

I´m glad to hear that Jared is doing well with his health!  I hope he continues to improve!  And how are he and Jill doing?  Any other updates from friends?  I can´t remember if I told you or not but Elder Hafen is getting married!  Do you know anything about Kam?

Well, I love you all and wish you the best during the holiday season!  

Elder Austin Heywood

It was legit

Mom,

Yes, I did make all of those transactions!  Even the stinkin´ $300 transaction! That´s the fun part about having a car!  sometimes I have to take money out of my personal account and get it reimbursed later!  That was a €220 rear tire replacement!  I gave my reimbursements to the finance officer in the mission, Elder Bullen, the other day at zone conference... €424!!!  It´s crazy how much we have to travel up here!  So the question, will I get that €220 back? YES!  And if I don´t I´ll be hunting someone down!  hahah  I have been thinking about that €220 and thought that I might just take that out of my account and use that and only that to do my gift shopping/ shipping/ Christmas/ anything else that I do that is not covered by the mission.  That way I don´t spend anything more than that.  Of cource that might include a biking jersey!   I found a way cool one... and I´ll keep it to one!!!

So this last weeks craziness...Well, let´s start off with Monday.  I was feeling better again!  I DIDN´T have any health issues.  Until I ate our Chicken noodle soup.  It was only a week old and refrigerated and I have never had problems with it even after two weeks once.  Well something went wrong this time.  I felt like garbage all day long.  I went to bed still feeling horrible and woke up at 5:50 in the morning.  I´m glad the bathroom was close!  I´m also glad that I threw it up this time rather than suffering for a week!  Monday we also got our tires replaced and almost had to change all our travel plans because the tires might not have gotten done on time.  But they did!  It´s a good thing too because we all of a sudden needed a ton of luggage space on this trip.  We had the two Elders in Ciudad Real go home this week.  The one had a stress fracture in his foot and the other had back problems.  So they really needed the van!!!  Then we went down to malaga and I had to drive a normal missionary car and realized how spoiled I am with the van!  I don´t like the tiny little cars they give the missionaries.  But I survived and by the end of the trip I got accustomed to it.  Then I returned and stopped in Jaen on the way.  Elder Fetzer went back to his first area on train.  We both had to pick up our residency cards.  I got to the office in Jaen the next morning and they told me I needed to have another paper that I truly did NOT need to have!  They just like causing problems there!  It happened to be a receipt from paying the fee.  Now, remember that €424 that I gave to Elder Bullen?  That has to be turned in with receipts!  It had that receipt in it!  It was a blessing that I had turned it in because otherwise it would be in my piso and nobody would have access to it.  That means another trip!  So, I called him up and had him email a scan of it!  That´s when you got the letter on thursday!  they accepted it and now I´m legal!  

Then we made our way up to Ciudad real to wait for my companion!  I stayed with the couple missionaries, the Cleggs, and went with Elder Clegg to the train station at 5:40 to pick up Elder Fetzer!  as we pulled up we got THE CALL!  Elder Fetzer telling us that he slept through the station!  He came to his senses as the train was rolling away!    Now here´s the catch... this was an Ave!(the fast train)  The next stop was in Zaragoza (look it up on the map).  And there was no return train that day!  He had to take another Ave to madrid and then another one back to Ciudad real!  Now this is normally about an €80 mistake.  The train company was way nice to him! They walked him around the station and kept him close so as to not give him free vacation to Barcelona and Madrid but they didn´t charge him a penny more than he originally paid to get to Ciudad Real!!!  Another big blessing from the Lord!  So, instead of arriving at 5:40 he arrived in Ciudad Real at 11:11pm.  Then we had to drive an hour and ten minutes to get home!

What did I do in between all that time that he was detoured?  I stayed with the Cleggs! (the couple missionaries)  They are awesome!!!  She was also sick and staying inside all day but she made me a little dinner and went to bed.  I stayed up for a little while reading Pres. Monson´s biography.  I ended up catching a little shut eye so I could make the drive home that night.  We´re all safe and sound and recovered from the lack of sleep now!  But our whole district is just always getting sick!  I don´t understand it!  We are all getting sick more often than we ever have in our mission if not in our lives! 

Well, that´s the craziness!  Now the good!  Ana and Jorge are just awesome!  I know I´ve said it plenty but they just keep doing more and more for us all the time!  If there were just two families like them in every ward in spain we would be sooooo much better off!  They LOVE missionary work!!!  They are willing to do anything they can to help us in the work.  It´s awesome!!!

I´m glad you got to participate in the groundbreaking ceremony!  That would be way cool!!!  That man that made all the shovels and the stand... he sounds about like some people I know... tell the story, forget that he told it, restart, get half way through, forget and start again! 

So, Thanksgiving (and your anniversary) No, we don´t really have anything set up!  They won´t let us change our p-day this year so we´re getting together the following monday (next monday) to have the turkey bowl!  I don´t know that we will have any kind of dinner or anything but whatever!  No americans to visit up here!   I do want the pumkin nut roll recipe for Christmas though!!!  That will be a great hit I´m sure!!!

I´m glad to hear that Tara is doing well!  Or at least feeling victorious!  I heard while I was in Jaen the other day that Elder Hafen is getting married in December to his girlfriend.  And Elder Bytheway is getting married to an Hermana that went home with his group, Hermana Nicoll!  There are tons of people getting married!  It´s crazy!!!  

Well, this week was decent... LONG... but decent!  We had something happen last night that has never happened to me in the mission!  We were knocking doors and we knocked the whole building and the last door we came to... (TRUE STORY BY THE WAY!!!)  They invited us in!  Not only to come back another day but to come in right at that moment!!!  That was a first for me and Elder Fetzer!  They are Romanian and don´t understand too much spanish but we´ll get there!  That was a nice lift to a long two days of almost nothing!

So, that has been my last two weeks!  Crazy, fun, and exhausting!  I hope you have a great week!  I love you all!

Con Amor,

Elder Heywood

ps.  I am just about out of the green face wash.  if you could send about half of a small bottle of it that would be fantastic.  That should get me through the end of the mission!

here´s one for Kristalyn... I was talking to our member that was baptized by Scott Hinton.  She said she asked him if he knew me and he replied, "conozco a su hermana. Ella es muy guapa!"

My tie is back!

Don´t worry, Mom, all missions split up travel funds and living funds!  I don´t have to go without anything in order to have a car!... except the bus and train!  It was an expensive trip down to Fuengirola!  And it was a long one too!!!  I was sick the entire time and didn´t really get much out of the meetings.  I didn´t even go to a few of the meetings.  I stayed in bed all day thursday and took nothing in except 2 glasses of water at the very end of the day!  I think that in the whole week I ate about the same amount of food as I would in one normal day! I tried weighing myself at the end of sunday but it wouldn´t let me.  I´m not sure if it didn´t register that someone was on it or that it was just out of batteries. haha

I´m eating a little bit now and I´m getting a bit better. 

Elder Fetzer is still having stomach pains here and there. But we´re able to work now!

Elder S and the reunion... He was an Elder that was in my room in the MTC... for a week!  He went home for a while.  This is his first transfer back in the mission!!!  When he left the MTC (a year and a half ago) we traded ties and I told him, "I want this tie back."  He was told that he could probably go back to the same mission and he´s now here!    That´s what that happy face was about!  I´m going to get my tie back! (but that means a whole lot more than the tie itself!)  The Cleggs are cousins and yes, she was in the general primary presidency!  They are way awesome!!!

Meet the Cleggs              

                                       and the Cleggs!

I did hear something good from our branch president yesterday!  He takes the family that we're teaching to and from church every week and has a chance to talk to the parents more than we do on weeks like this!  He told us last night that we will probably have 4 baptisms in December!  That would be the four kids... we´re going to get the whole family!  That means a marriage!!! :)  We´re going to do it!!!

26 hungry missionaries can down a lot of food!

s

Lots to learn at our specialized training.

You say that Sean H is home... There seems to be a lot of people having to go home to recover from their missions!  It´s a sad thing!  I hope he gets better!!!  We´ve also had almost our entire district sick lately. five of the six of us have been ill.  I´m pretty sure that the adversary is working pretty hard on us in a physical way... maybe because he´s been defeated spiritually!!!  Upward and Onward!!!

Have a great week and enjoy the groundbreaking of the temple!!!

Elder Austin Heywood

ps. I do want more burts bees in the next package! 

Pictures

I just found this set of pictures saved as a draft from May ~ also another post from September 20 that I just published today. Not sure what happened with them. Sometimes I get so sidetracked and this is proof.

Austin sent a card full of pictures, but no notations. If you happen to know any of these people or places, please let me know.

Happy Halloween!

Ok, So I didn´t catch that phrase a few months ago.  Now that I have had a few sources tell me that she´s married I think I´ll start believing it. haha jk

It is true.  Heavenly Father knows each of us and one of the most sure ways he communicates to us is through priesthood blessings.  They do come straight from him!

Elders Heywood, Bader, Fetzer (companion) and Moss

I may have been in a hurry when I wrote that.  The Rodriguez family helped as much as this family.  I don´t know that I could say one does better than the other!  They are both amazing!  And speaking of this new family... They found out that we are driving down to the mission home this week and they offered to let us borrow their GPS for the week!  We are going road tripping to the mission home for a special training meeting!  It´s going to be fun!!!  And tiring!  Driving wears me out!  I´ve been driving all weekend long!   And now I get to drive some more!  I just filled up the tank in the car too... € 71.01. ($99!)  UGHH  And I put air in the tires.  It doesn´t pull to the right anymore!   It´s not all slugginsh either!  I now just need to get the radio working (not to listen to the radio... just CD´s).  The Cleggs questioned that when we asked them about the radio.

I have the essays written for my application but they happen to not be with me at the present moment so I will get those typed up and sent to you next week!  Pres. Clegg passed me on the endorsement!  and other than that it´s all up to you right?

 Lunch time after a district meeting. Kabobs for all!

Halloween is celebrated here.  Everybody just goes as the gross, gory, and "scarry" people.  It´s not that old here in Spain!  They do the same type of thing as we do there, but it´s on a way smaller scale!... especially smaller than our new neighborhood it sounds like!  And we´re actually lucky to even be writing today.  All Saint´s Day also gets celebrated in one of the most catholic countries and everything is closed! 

We´re doing well Here in Alcazar.  I did get a package and I hope I got everything that was in it.  Usually they will leave a package slip if you aren´t home and you have to go to the office to get it the following day... they left the package... and our friendly neighbors thought it would be so kind to do us a favor and open it for me.  Just to make sure they didn´t take anything valuable... you sent 3 garment bottoms, 10 quarters, seasoned salt, skittles, big hunks, crunchy marshmallows, and Joseph Smith pamphlets, and altoids.  I hope there wasn´t anything else important.  I did go to the package office and tell them our building situation so there shouldn´t be any other issues with that but remember that mail always gets left so don´t make the envelopes fancy!

Well, L is doing well and understands a lot of the important stuff! but she is headed back to the Dominican Republic today and will come back in a month!  It´s out of our hands for a while but not out of our prayers!

I hope you all have a fantastic week and we´ll talk to you in a bit!  Love you all!

Elder Heywood