Letter #4

HELLO FAMILY!!

So I finally heard from you which was really great. I sent Manda something and gave her my physical address here so that stuff will get to me faster:) I hope that she will post it on my blog or something because I don't have it right now and I can't remember it. Thanks for the letters, and the e-mail. I was needing a good letter and loved getting one from you!

So this week was pretty cool. I had my first TWO baptisms! Michael and Joeann are 11 and 9. Their Mother had been a member but has been inactive for a long time. They were being taught before I got here but Sister Lytle and I finished up the lessons and they were baptised on Saturday. It was super fantastic. They asked me to play the piano for them. I am starting to get the feeling that there are not many people here that know how to play and I have already been asked to be a substitute for the Relief Society. Anyway...So I forgot to add in my last e-mail that I am in Antelope right now. It is about 15 minutes away from Roseville. I have a feeling that I am going to be here for a while. I found out that they don't let sisters go in the Northern parts of the mission so there are only 7 areas that we can serve. Sister Lytle has been in this area for 6 months. I think that there are only 14 sisters in the mission here. Transfers are in 4 weeks and no one knows if there are more sisters coming. Elder Heath told me officially last week that I am his favorite sister ever. I am pretty sure that it is because I am from Idaho and I am pretty much the only one other than his companion that understands what he is talking about when it comes to living in the country. I don't know how he and his companion get away with it but they are ALWAYS in cowboy boots when they are tracting. I think its kinda funny. So last Monday after we e-mailed we all went to the church and most of us played hide and seek but the sisters and I went into the library and talked. I needed to get Manda some pictures so it worked out really well for me to caption them for her. I think I told you last week that we eat with a family every night. I like it but hate it at the same time. It would be nice to be able to eat dinner at home and get some more stuff done, but free food is good too. We have been doing a lot of work within the ward trying to get less active families back to church. There are a lot of part member families, and families that have a few kids that still aren't members. It has been a trick trying to catch them while they are home. The people here are so great. The bishop just intistituted a new ward mission plan yesterday. It is pretty fantastic. Each family in the ward has been asked to invite another family into thier home every month for the next three months. The point really is for them to invite a non member family, but it is a really good opportunity to invite the less active families as well. The new plan just made dinner thoughts for us REALLY easy. We went and visited a non member family the other night that is amazing. The elders tracted into Lena a while ago, and she has always wanted to invite them to dinner, but they never could because her husband works all the time! So when Sister Lytle and her last companion went to go see her they set up a time for dinner. We met her husband and they have 3 cute little kids. This family has been attending a church called Bayside, which is a anti-mormon church. It is amazing though how wonderful this family is to us. They invited us to come over for dinner again sometime. We invited them to be taught and they said that it was definately a possibility. We have been praying so much for this family to want to hear about the gospel. There are a lot of other potential investigators in our area and we are super busy with trying to track them down and tracting. It is kinda stinky though becuase a lot of them are single so if they end up wanting to hear the lessons we would have to give them to the singles ward elders. Not the most fabulous situation, but in the long run it doesn't matter as long as they want to hear the gospel. We have a family that we are going to start teaching hopefully on tuesday. Sister Lylte and Sister Brown tracted into them, but only saw them that one time so this family will be the first real investigator for me. They are super fantastic and we are so excited to teach them. We had a meeting with the mission president on friday that lasted for most of the day. It was like a you have been here for a week and we want to make sure things are going well meeting. I got to see all the elders that I came out with and it was really fun to see what they have been doing and how things are going for them. Oh before I forget...can you please send me my pink and brown beaded necklace to me? I forgot it and I would really love to have it. I am hoping that you got the box of stuff that I sent home last week. I did send a thing to Manda that has my green ring in it. It needs to be taken in because I think the green stone is loose again. Don't worry about sending it back I think it will be easier if it was at home. Supposedly it needs to be taken in every 6 months for the warranty to continue on it. Oh and Mothers day...we are going over to a members house to call on the 9th because they get free holiday calling so we are going to call around 7pm. Let me know if that is going to work. So we are going to tie dye today after we all go to the store. Elder Owen dubbed himself the P-day president and so he thinks of things for our zone to do every P-day. He is pretty fantastic. I have a few pictures that I am going to send home. I just didn't have any envelopes that were big enough to send them in. We got permission to have a sleep over with the other sisters last night. It was really fun. Sister Kent is from Malad and she and I are pretty sure that we were destined to be friends. We only lasted till about 2 am and then we were all to tired. I am actually surprised that we lasted that long. I get really tired after 10:30 now. I have this goal of tracting the whole area so we are going to get a new area map and color it up so we know excatly what streets we are allowed to tract and which ones we can in a month or two and such. We went tracting on Sunday and I had a feeling that we were going to get yelled at and that is excatly what happened. We ran into two gay couples. One of which started yelling how horrible we were and that they didn't agree on our stance on prop 8. We told them to have a really great day and left. It is really hard to want to tract when everyone is yelling at you but we do it anyway. Hey can I get Brett's home address? I don't have it in my book and I think I deleted the text that he sent to me with it in it. Hey and Dad can you tell me a little bit about Grandapa? I am learning that I know NOTHING about the Perren side of our family. There are a lot of people here that have questions about it. It seems to be a really familiar sounding name. Sister Lytle and I had a comp inventory today. I hate them, but they are a necessary evil. She is so sweet. I feel really bad because she blames herself for all the stuff that seems to go wrong. She tries to be what she calls "super trainer" and I now exctaly when she is doing it because she starts talking to me in a Primary voice. I pretty much hate it, but not as much as when she calls me her daughter. I tried really hard to not let it bother me, but I had to tell her today that it wasn't my favorite thing and it was okay to say stuff like that to the other missionaries cuz they all do it too, but to please not do it at home and to people in the ward. Don't worry Manda I used my nice words and not my mean intimidating words. I am learning that I am really not very good at all with the whole being humble thing. Working on it though. Other than that things are going really well. My feet have been eaten alive by mosquitoes, but everything really is fantastic. I love, love the weather here and I love being a missionary. I feel the spirit so strongly all the time. I know excatly what President Barlow ment by I will be able to tell the difference when I get released. My testimony is growing every day and I love the gospel. I can't seem to keep my mouth shut at doors and find myself testifying all the time! I love getting to read the scriptures every day and I am learning all the time. I love the Savior and am so grateful for the blessings in my life. Please be safe in all that you do. I miss you all so much and love you all a thousand times more!

SLY-

Heidi

P.S. I would love more things to read!...more letters please!!!!