Oregon Salem Mission Office

700 Deborah Rd Suite 260

Newberg, Oregon 97132

Aloha!!! Family and Friends!

  It was another great week in part of Gods garden of Forest Grove Oregon! Last monday we had a zone pday and played sports at the stake center it was fun i was sore and probably should start working out more it was super fun though im actually really good at indoor soccer haha not really but i did suprise myself a couple times with some skills that came out of nowhere! 

On tuesday we had sister conference in salem and had to be there by 10 and in the series of unfortunate events that our alarm did not go off we woke up at 7:45...and so we rushed and got ready and were meeting some sisters to carpool down there and the members that were driving them down from the coast had car troubles and sis sigmon gave them her home (colorado) address to get to sis rices home that we live in haha and needless to say we were out of it! And to add to the craziness Sis Rices daughter and son and daughter in law were staying there this past week to paint the hall bathroom and sis rices bathroom which looks awesome. They were so loud and funny it was very entertaining we also got some service hrs in by helping them. It was fun and always therapeutic for me to do some actual physically hard labor! Anyways back to sis Conference.. We heard from our Pres and his wife and from our sister training leaders and it was truly inspired from God. And i know that it was meant for a lot of sisters to hear... mostly on being obedient.. Yes sisters struggle too and a lot of sisters that i looked up to weren't doing their best and expressed to me that they were going to do better and that being even slightly disobedient is not worth it. We got to ride on a ferry on the way home. It was super rad. We almost didn't because my comp was scared to go with the mission car but that was where the gps was taking us haha #missonadventures. 

When we were going across i yelled and put my hands up like it was some kind of ride and if you have ever been on a ferry they go 2mph so i was being a dork. take it or leave it. Then we got to our dinner that night and explained about our alarm not going off and then all the sudden to our surprise the alarm goes off at 6pm sharp and so you can figure that one out it was pretty darn funny, luckily it was with one of our ward missionaries! (we love her and get awesome recipes from her) Wednesday we were pretty busy and had a lesson with Jon and our district leader and they will be teaching him until he gets baptized and we also ran into a recent convert while tracting and walked home with her from her bus stop. i haven't really told you all about Gricel and Sara. They were baptized like right before i got here so we work with them some and i love them! We had a lesson with sara about self worth and the atonement and watched the "reclaims" mormon message! It was good. Then we had a lesson with Jonas. he is a 10 yr old boy who is a member and his dad had member records removed but they let us come teach him and he understands that it is still important and it was cool we did a lesson on the Holy Ghost and made a maze in front of their house from stuff out of their garage including a huge handmade coke bottle haha and also while his dad was outside making a little play car to drive in, it was cool. Then we also had a lesson with Brian and jan they have lived in forest grove since the beginning of time and are less active but we are teaching them the lessons and they are really sweet and fun to talk to! Things are going great..We had our lesson last night with the brothers and we talked about faith and how to believe in the book of mormon or the bible. And also taught where we were before this or where we go after this life, a lot of it has to do with FAITH we were really honest with each other cause we are friends and thats what friends do but they are just not ready at this time so we explained that we would like to not meet with them as often cause they have Christ in their lives and there are people who do not and that our purpose is to find those people and help bring them closer. And they completely understood..so hopefully the spirit will work on them while we don't meet as often, i just really stinks cause we are all friends and really do love em! It was a really good conversation though and there was no contention just understanding and as we drove away we felt really good about everything that was said cause the spirit was still there as we were being honest with each other! One of them said something that was interesting though and that was that it made him so angry why we both believe in Christ and why satan puts a barrier up..and we didn't really know what to say to that but we agreed and it is just sweet cause they totally respect our belief and say that they believe that we believe in the book of mormon and the things that are taught. They just have some issues but still agree to try and make it to church next week! I love being a missionary and being a rescuer and cant wait to do it more and more, remember as missionaries and members we are in this together and i invite you all to live your lives as examples of Christ always so that people question what makes you so happy and what makes you keep going in this often sad but beautiful world, thats the best and easiest way of how to be a missionary. I love the Gospel..there is a quote i saw in an ensign i cant remember who said it but it was one of the apostles and it goes " It's not so much what we believe, but what we do because we believe that makes mormons interesting" there is so much more that happened this week that i wish i could talk about but all i can say is the Lords hand is in everything.

Love Always and Forever Sister Heywood!

Funny moment- Earlier this weeek its was raining..no like pouring and there was a guy outside mowing his lawn and had headset/headphones on and it was the funniest thing ive ever seen...well idk if i mentioned before ever but Oregon is known for its weirdness and let me tell you there are too many funny things we see. Oh also a guy who walks around in a Kilt and then the second time we saw him he had bagpipes...its fine.