Thursday, September 15, 2016

Lost in the Work....and on a Mountain



Hey Family,
 Sorry I forgot to write! I guess I lost myself in the work.....well more like lost on a mountain hahaha. Elder Malin and I, with 2 other companionships, climbed this mountain and searched for a geo-cache that they hid earlier this year. It was so fun! I’ll send you some pics today and next week. One of the elders that came with us, who was in the group after me, is from Eatonville Washington. So we are the most skilled climbers. So instead of going the easy way with a path up the mountain, we bouldered that baby!!! We went straight up that mountain. It was so nice. It felt like I was back home. Then we went and played a card game on top of the mountain for a few hours and then came down but got kind of lost. It was cool because we found this mountain man home. It was held up with a tarp and some poles. We searched the place and it had a few man-made weapons and Korean money and salt and glasses. Yeah it was sick. But we eventually made our way down into the city.

Then yesterday we had a mission conference. A member of the Quorum of the Seventy came and talked. I was the chump who was assigned front row so guess who got called on the most. Not me hahaha. Phew! hahaha But before lunch he looked at me and we made eye contact and I quickly looked away and he smiled. Yeah out of the 74 missionaries present I got called on to pray. And he told me to pray in Mongolian. No other missionary prayed in Mongolian. I was the only one. So I had to give a prayer. My heart was pumping. They probably heard it too with my mic. The conference was great. I took a lot away from it. First a few cool statistics. The Asia area covers half the world’s population, about 3.5 billion people. And in the Asia area there are only 1300 missionaries. Yeah, you guys can do the math. I now know the meaning in Jacob 5:70 when he called a few servants. Second was a scripture President Harper shared. A passage from the Bible. Its 2nd Kings 6:14-17. It’s about opening our spiritual eyes. Sometimes we may think “Oh I’m alone in this and no one is there to support me and help me” but we are wrong. If we open our spiritual eyes we will see legions of angels round about us. I love this because it also applies to missionary work. It may seem that our seemingly small efforts don’t amount to anything, but if we open our spiritual eyes we will see the true impact we have on the mission.

Elder Malin and I are doing great. We are having great success. We have had our best lessons in this past week including today. But the story of this investigator (Erdene) has to wait until I get home to tell. It’s tremendous the dedication and the sacrifice this man makes. It’s truly inspirational. But it will have to wait.

I am so happy and relieved that Carter’s results came back negative. I wish my health was better.  I got really sick for the first time, but again it will have to wait. It was actually really cool experience. hahaha

On Sunday, our school changed our schedule on us. At first we were teaching from 10-12:10. it was nice because we live 40-60 minutes away but now we have to teach from 9-12:10 so we have to rush out the door. But it is cool because they switched out our 7th grade class with a 12th grade class. Teaching has been a great blessing. Elder Mailin and I are challenging ourselves. So on pretty much every bus there is a student. And half the time they are studying English. So today we made the 10 seconds of courage (my idea from we bought a zoo) we take turns talking to people who are studying English and it went amazing. We referred 2 people to the English classes at the mission home and they were super excited. Their faces light up when we ask them if they are studying English. It’s awesome. We can’t preach about the gospel but we can about English and I can tell you it brings the same feeling. It’s amazing. Also I came up with an idea where I get on the bus and take my watch off and ask different people what time it is and hope that the conversation will go on. And usually it does. They usually respond with “oh you speak Mongolian?” And then boom we are off. It’s a huge leap of faith because my Mongolian isn’t perfect, but they always tell me that my accent is really good and they are surprised that I have only been here for 6 months. Yeah it’s a real confidence booster. I’m thankful that God has given me the gift of tongues so I can communicate with these great people. I’m starting to not be so shy and actually looking for opportunities to talk with people. I don’t want to leave! Yeah I said it. When I heard about the Seahawks it didn’t make me miss home or anything! I’m just like oh cool. hahahahah yeah its awesome.

Love you guys!!!!

Elder Heacock 

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