okay. holy cow. You really know how to make a missionary's birthday the best. The absolute best. Thank you so so so much for all the love, guys. Really and truly. But Heavenly Father? I think he has you beat. Man he was sending down the birthday presents by the dozen.
A couple weeks ago we talked to this family of five from Egypt. Darling. (And really the only reason I felt so inclined to talk to them was due to the fact that they have models for children. Seriously. I wouldn't even be surprised if you saw them on the next ad for Babies-R-Us or something.) We talked to the dad and explained what we were here to do and his reaction? 'At last! I have been waiting for someone to talk about Jesus Christ with.' Well perfect. We are just the peeps for you. So golden right? well that appointment fell out.. what's new. And so I didn't tell ya'll about it... BUT we have been working on making inspired back up plans and let me tell you this little birthday go by was definitely inspired. We walk in and teach them all about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and how they testify of Christ and how they can be strengthened as they learn more and work to truly understand. and we ended up teaching them twice this week. They felt the spirit and had such a desire to learn. We couldn't even teach them fast enough because they just wanted to soak it all in. So many questions. So much desire.
When I first got to Duisburg the Sisters were working with the cutest 11 year old Emily.... but she had kinda fallen to the way side... She came with her mom every week to church but nothing really was happening.. Everyday at church I would attempt to get a relationship built with her so that she would actually want to meet with us... pretty much a fail everytime. But finally after conversation after conversation about whatever an 11 year old was interested in-flute practice, baby food challenge, picture taking, muffin baking etc- we got one. And boy was I on cloud 9. So here is the catch. Emily is deathly terrified of water. Yeah... and so no matter how strong her testimony was we couldn't help her to take the next step. One appointment we brought a calendar and we decided we were going to really crack down and try to help her set small goals to get over this fear. We marked a day that she would go all the way under water, finish the Book of Mormon etc. and pulled up our cheerleader pants and just pumped her up. We know she can do it. Heavenly Father knows she can do it. She needs to know she can do it. This will happen. We discussed how she is going to need all the divine help she could get and so we set apart an 'Emily Fast' that we would all participate in and talked about how as she prayed and read everyday that would help her with this. And that she will do it. And then guess what happened? She did it. I repeat. She did it. I was so shocked when she told us. Like literally jumping up and down beaming. I still can't believe it. We were all so happy. I just think about how Heavenly Father tells us to become as a little child and I strongly believe that he means people like Emily. She has so much faith. So much desire to do what's right and overcome this fear that she had had for years.
We went to Gabriel with our very kind but a slight come-on-now-you-can-work-
I seriously can't get over how incredible this week was I am pretty sure I could tell you about 96437868989 more things that had Sister Parker and I skipping down the path of life. Phew. Why am I so blessed? I really don't know. Just getting my blessing basket out to try to catch all these things.
People are prepared.
love you oodles
xoxoxox
s. heywood
i love birthday parties. thanks mom for all the decorations.
