Happy Holidays

Dear Friends and Family,



I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas full of remembrance as to why we really celebrate it and also remember to not just think of Christ during Christmas but all year round. The best part was we got to sleep in clear til 8:00. Of course my internal clock still had to wake me up at 6:30, but it was nice just to lay there and do nothing. We opened our presents the night before, which actually turned out being good because that's when the other Hispanics open their gifts.



We taught a lesson using 3 Nephi 18, to teach "OLA" translated is CPR (church, prayer, read your scriptures) It's when Christ is instituting the Sacrament amongst the Nephites, basically I love it because it talks about why it's so important to go to church in verse 22. It says to meet together oft, why? To partake of the Sacrament. Prayer: Verse 20-21. How do we learn these things? Through reading the scriptures! We also shared some cool scriptures about going to church. Moroni 6:5-6, 9 and Mosiah 18-25. Read them :)



On Wednesday we were feeling really discouraged because all of the people we were talking to weren't interested and lots of our appointments fell through, but we felt like we should go to these certain apartments to check up on an old investigator. We discovered that he had moved and there was a lady fro El Salvador living there. She had received a copy of the Book of Mormon before but never learned. We were so stinkin happy after that cause we knew that it didn't happen just by accident. And there's more....as we were leaving we sat an appointment with this guy outside. We showed up on Christmas Eve to teach him but he's not home, we start talking to this guy in the hall and randomly decide to sing him a Christmas song. His roommate hears and comes out and tells us that he was just reading the Bible and he's so confused about why there are so many churches. Enter: Missionaries. We taught him a little bit and sat a return appointment. It's a long story but the point is there were a long string of events that had to take place to get us to that situation and I know that none of them were by accident.



When I first got on my mission, I was afraid to talk to everyone I saw, but now there is no fear because I know that if I talk to every single person that I can, Heavenly Father will trust me to put the people who are ready to accept the gospel in my path because He knows I'll talk to them. I may not be perfect at it but I'm willing. It's so hard but I love it so much and I've learned so much!!!!!



Our Zone Leaders are really fun and we went Zone Christmas Caroling. Basically on the 23rd we went out from 7-9 and there were about 12 of us. We knocked on the door and started singing and not to toot my own horn, but we sounded really GOOD! When the people would open their door, they had great big smiles on their faces. After we were done we would offer them a Book of Mormon because the Zone Leaders want to flood Des Moines with the Book of Mormon. One lady had just come home from the hospital, her daughter has some rare disease with her chromosomes and is having weird kinds of seizures. It's sad but the lady was crying and was really touched by our singing/the spirit. One of my favorite Christmas memories probably, Well, that's all for now. Thank you for all the love and support you give me!

Love Hermana Hepworth



This is Jilyn's mom. She sent some pictures that I am going to attempt to post. I am not very good at this but I do my best.

Some of the pictures of of Jose, who is a recent convert that just moved back to Mexico to be with his wife and children for the rest of the winter. One of these pictures are of Hermana Hepworth cutting Jose's hair outside in the rain. One is a couple of less active that are being reactivated. One is of Jilyn and her two companions Hermana Hancock and Hermana McGuire. One of Hector and Jilyn. He is a recent convert And a picture of Jilyn Carlos and Martin at the Thanksgiving party. They are investigators. Enjoy the pictures, that is if I can get them posted.

Feliz Navidad

We had our Christmas Zone Conference, which included a talent show and decorated cookies. It was lots of fun!
We also had to say goodbye to Jose, our recent convert who mostly just drove us crazy because he would tell us that he didn't believe the Book of Mormon was true even though he really did. He told us that on Friday and the next Sunday was Fast Sunday, during Sacrement meeting I wondered "Where's Jose?" Well I didn't have to wonder for very long because he appeared on the stand and bore his testimony. I'm not gonna lie, I was freaking out a little because he was BEARING his TESTIMONY. He said that he knew that the Book of Mormon was true. Honestly though I'm really going to miss him, he sent us a million texts a day saying things like "Watcha doin?" (he knows some English) we'd always think..."What are we doing????? Missionary work, like always Jose" Oh and at night we'd get ones that said "You're the best!" He called me Hermana Gatuvela, which means Catwoman, like from Batman. He knows that I like cats a lot. So now he is in Mexico until the Spring but it's good because his wife and 2 children are there and they need him. I really really really hope he finds his ward there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had a Branch Christmas party on Saturday. It was soooooo much fun. Gladis and Eder (investigators) came. I love them soooo much! Eder has changed a lot since the missionaries started teaching him. In the beginning he didn't even want to talk to us, but now he listens and sincerely wants to know if it's true. He asked us to give him homework about the topic we were going to teach on our next visit (which is what we've been doing all along, he just didn't realize it!) Okay Eder I guess we can give you homework if you really want it, sheesh, JK. So back to the party. I was dancing with the members and it was really fun.
But it wasn't apostate because I was dancing with the women and singing hymn lyrics to the music. I also cut Esmereld's hair that morning. I'm getting lots of business here. I'm going to be cutting the Zone Leaders hair later today.

I translated for the first time in chruch and it was kinda a tramatic experience...no not really But it was really hard. Me and Hermana McGuire tooks turns. And when I got flustered she wouldn't even save me. This is one of the lines I said "something about prayer." It's hard cause you got to listen and talk and translate it in your brain at the same time.

Well, I hope I didn't bore you and I hope everyone has a super fun Christmas and remembers the true meaning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ Mas means more so I like to say Christ (MAS)
Love
Hermana Hepworth

Yes, I'm Still Alive!

Dear Family and Friends,

So much has happened since I last sent a blog message to my mother! We had our Thanksgiving Party, that was super fun. It was a pretty random group of people who showed up. Investigators and Less actives came, recent converts and of course members who don't have much family living close by. It was the strangest food I've had for a Thanksgiving dinner. Of course these was turkey, potatoes, yams, rolls, ham and pie, but I'll bet none of you have ever had rice, beans or tortillas at your Thanksgiving party. It was fun to see everyone interacting with each other and after we had all eaten we played a game of musical chairs. Whenever someone got out they had to say what they were grateful for. People started aplauding after each person, it was so cute!

Missionary work has been pretty good. We started teaching the daughter of a less active wo has MS. We helped her bathe and I braided her hair. She's 32 but she can't do anything for herself. We want to keep seeing her and helping her but her mom makes excuses to not let us in. For this transfere we need lots of miracles. We're teaching lots of really cool couples who have children but aren't married so we're going to need to have lots of weddings. Esmerelda is like the mose amazing member missionary who ever was! She helps us out so much when we need a woman to come with us to a single mans house. She came with us to Ana and Aldo's lesson and became their best friend and even started planning their wedding! We've also started teaching a less active man named Jesus, he hadn't been to church for about 8 months so we stopped by on Saturday and invited him to church and the next day he was there with his (nonmember) wife.........turns out all he needed was an invitation. So we've started teacher her too! (Marta) She's awesome, in a week she has already read the first 7 chapters in the Book of Mormon.

Hermana Murphy went home so I have a new companion now.....well kind of. I'm still in Des Moines with Hermana Hancock and my trainer (Hermana McGuire) is here now. So I'm still in a trio.

It finally snowed yesterday so I got to break out my boots, even though the snow is annoying I'm kinda glad it's here now. I mean c'mon, it would't be winter/Christmas without snow. Yesterday the weather got to single digits and soon it will be below 0. They cancelled our ward yesterday but we were able to go to a later ward and it was in English....weird!

Oh, and I tried shrimp for the first time. I's good! It was a really strange visit, our first lesson with a referral from the English Elders named Fransisco (who reminds me EXACTLY) of Kendall (Empey) the laugh and facial features and everything. you should tell him that if you ever see him. Once again Esmerelda helped us with the appointment, we had to teach him in his bedroom, which had knives laying around everywhere. (It really scared Hermana Hancock) We ate shrimp and this tasty fruit that lokks like a tomato. But we're not going to teach him again because he likes to worship his Saints and doesn't want to change. That's a problem we run into a lot with the Spanish people, they're mostly all Catholic and like to worship the Saints and don't understand why it's not okay.

til next time,

Hermana Hepworth

Pictures from Iowa

Hi Everyone,
So Guess what? We have a car now....I guess they felt sorry for us. They're going to sell it once they get the new one that we're supposed to get. We are still going to try to use our bikes a lot though because we don't have very many miles.
Like I said I was going to do, I cut some hair, it was fun. I'm going to dye some hair tonight. Hmmmmmm, I think the hardest thing about being out here is when we teach people the gospel and feel the spirit with them and they aren't willing to do anything about it, they aren't willing to change their lives to accept it. We were listening to a talk by Elder Holland in the car yesterday that he gave recently to the new mission presidents who were called. He was talking about why missions aren't easier. We think, "The gospel is true, we believe in miracles" Why aren't people flocking to hear our message. He said, "the only fear we should have is the risk of getting pheumonia from being in the water too long from baptizing so many people". (for Elders obviously). But his answer was that "Salvation was never easy!" "Nothing about the gospel is easy, not missionary work, not retention. People don't want to do things that are hard. And the things that they need to change their lives in order to live the standards of the church are hard.
We had a funny experience with this lady who prayed for Hermana Hancock's body to be healed. She was just really really passionate when she was praying. Man, she was really getting into it. And after her prayer she asked if any of us were hurt and Hermana Hancock said she had a headache earlier so she threw her hands up to Hermana Hancock and started praying again for "every muscle, ever tissue, every joint, every fiber of her being"
...I wonder if it helped. Probable, that lady had a lot of faith. (She's American)
We were teaching this couple that's in the trailer park and after a couple of lessons the wife didn't seem to be really interested but her husband did so one of the times we taught him on the patio at night. A couple of days later we were walking on the street near there and somebody was "ppsssssss"ing us. I guess he had been in his car looking for us because he was afraid we would go by his house and his wife would yell at us. She tore up the Book of Mormon we gave them and all of the pamplets and that night we taught him she didn't let him into the house until 5 in the morning. She hasn't been making him any food or talking to him or anything. It's really sad, I guess she thinks we're out looking for husbands. But her husband is like 60. I hope she didn't hear anything about polygamy cause there are 3 of us...uhhhh, yeah. He's really spiritually in tune and he told us that he prayed about it and he knows it's true but if he were to be baptized his wife would tell all of his kids not to talk to him and they all listen to her. I think we're going to give him to the Elders here because we know she has a problem with us being women, but if the Elders go then we can find out if that's the only problem or if it has to do with the church as well.
This work is really hard but really awesome at the same time. I just want everyone to know how wonderful it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are having a Sisters Conference in Nauvoo this Thursday. It's going to be really fun. I'm excited because we get to go to the temple too! It's cool, the last time I was inside of it was for the open house 10 years ago. I don't know any of the English sisters very well so it will be fun to get to know them better.
Hermana Hepworth
PS it snowed for the first time here on Sunday. It was only for like 30 seconds nut still. I guess they usually have a lot of snow here by now.

Hermana Hepworth and new companion Hermana Hancock in Des Moines Iowa. Hermana Hepworth on her bike ready to go out and share the gospel.

Celebrating my birthday in July in Iowa

Service

Hi Everyone,
Not much time today, we've just been super busy spreading the gospel :) There are a lot more people walking around on the street here so it's really easy to talk to a lot of people during the day. It's kinda fun just talking to every single person you see and telling them about our unique message to the world.

Hermana Murphy has been telling EVERYONE that I cut hair and we're supposed to do 4 hours of service every week so our service is going to be me cutting hair. It's a good thing I like to do it!

We have a theme for this transfer, we're going to have faith in order for miracles to occur (cause we need a lot of miracles for certain things to happen) I looked in the index for the scriptures and it doesn't ever talk about miracles happening without speaking about faith in order to achieve them. I like this scripture in Mosiah 8:18 that says "God has provided a means that man (woman), through faith, might work mighty miracles; therefore (s)he becometh a great benefit to his/her fellow beings." It's a good one for missionary work because through our faith, miracles are geing brought to pass for the benefit of our fellow beings to come unto Christ. Also in my personal study I have found a really good scripture in Alma 48:8-9, When Amalickiah is preparing to go to war against the Nephities and this is what Moroni was doing to prepare the Nephites. They were "building walls of stone to encircle them about their cities and the borders of their lands; yea, all around about the land. And in their weakest fortifications he did place the greater number of men; and thus he did fortify and strengthen the land which was possessed by the Nephites.' The reason why I really like that scriputre is because this is what we need to be doing to ourselves to protect ourselves against Satan. He's going to attack the weakest parts and so we should strengthen those parts. There's so much symbolism in the Book of Mormon, I love it!

Well there's a lot more that needs to be said but not enought time. There's a giant trailer park here that is probably 97% Hispanic so we spend a lot of time there. There are some investigators that are trying to quit smoking and they're having a really hard time. There's a program we have in order to stop which includes using grapefruit juice, cinnimon toothpaste, mouthwash, and vitamin C tablets. I'm not really sure how they do it, it has something to do with changing the tastes in your mouth a lot. They haven't started it yet because they don't have all the stuff but they really want to quit. We decided to try to quite doing some habit that we have too. Hermanas Murphy and Hancock bit their nails, so they're going to stop that. I didn't really know what to do. I said I was going to stop popping my zits, which I now know how to say in Spanish. Well, on that note, I'm goinna to close.

Hermana Hepworth

PS How was Halloween? We didn't see any trick or treaters because we had to be indoors by 6 on Saturday.

Transfers

Well, it hasn't been very long since I was able to write but a lot has happened. I was really sad to leave Hampton, because I didn't really have anytime to say goodbye to people. But it has been pretty fun here in Des Moines. We have lots of people to teach, there are more people here. So I went with Hermana Murphy to an investigators hous that night. (This is Herhana Murphy's last transfer. She's a REALLY good missionary, super friendly and she really knows how to get poeple to trust here. I'm trying to learn a lot from here. She really, really, really reminds me of Deborah Thompson, mom. Like a lot, especially when she makes a certain face. One day I'm going to take her picture , sneak attack style, when I see her making the face.)
Thursday, we went to Iowa City to pick up our new greenie, her name is Hermana (Christine) Hancock. She's fun and really, really good at Spanish. She was a teacher before in Colorado and she taugut 2nd grade. We tried to be all secretive so she wouldn't know we were her companions so we took off our tags that say Hermana on it, cause thats Spanish. But Hermana Murphy went into a meeting for the trainers and I was standing right by her and it was super awkward because missionaries kept coming up and asking me aboutSpanish stuff.....ha ha, but I don't think that she connected the dots until later which was good. So then we came back to Des Moines and started to work. AND we don't have a car, we have BIKES. But we haven't ridden them yet. One of them is at a members house. We've been geting rides everywhere. It's been pretty fun. We've started singing hyms to them while they're driving us.

We had a funny lesson this week. We were teaching Maria, who has a 27 year old autistic son named Miguel and he really, really wanted our bottles of drinks so during the lesson he kiped one of the water bottles and started pouring it into different cups and then drinking out of them. Then he did it again later with someone elses bottle. Then at the end of the lesson during the prayer he steals Gatorade out of one of our backpacks. He's really cool, he started dancing in the kitchen.

Two of our lessons fell through one day after we had been dropped off at their house, so we knocked on a house where they were making tamales and we started making them with them, then we started teaching them and they gave us food to eat, which ended up being really good because the brand new investigators that we had just taught dropped us off at our dinner appointment (which also fell through). So we're wondering where we're going to go when all of the sudden a member drives by and tells us to get in and they'll take us to their house. It's crazy, we fly by the seat of our pants and a lot of the times it's been 8:30 and we're not really sure where we're going to get a a ride until we ask the investigators if they drive and can give us a ride or I don't know, we just have to go places and we're not sure how we're going to do it but then things just work out.

Yesterday we had a baptism. Yeah! Jose got baptized. I kinda already knew him from a day when I was a brand new greenie with Hermana Guthrie in Des Moines. At that time he was telling us how he didn't like the Book of Mormon....but now 3 months later he likes it. He showed a lot of faith by being baptized because his wife and children live in Mexico and his wife has been threatening to divorce him if he did join the church. He was really, really nervous and they had to do it 3 times because he didn't give them his full name the first 2 times. We got a text from him this morning telling us how he felt different. It's really coolI

I bought Jesus the Christ when I was at the MTC but I haven't started reading it yet because its a really intimidating book. I think the day I bought it I read the first page with all of it's big words and decided to stop. But I keep hearing about how good it is and Hermana Murphy suggested to me to just read particular chapters in it that would help me individually. I'm really excited to read more about the life of Christ because I don't feel like I know enough about Him. I wish it could all just be jammed into my brain.

I think it would be really cool to hear from everybody about things they've been studying about the scriptures or spiritual thoughts/insights, favorite scriptures. (why). Stuff like that. I'd like to hear them in a letter :)

8515 Douglas Ave. #19
Urbandale, IA 50322

Well that's how my week has been since Wednesday.
I look forward to hearing from all of you. I love you all very much.

Hermana Hepworth

FALL! WOW

Well this Week Hermana McGuire kinda abondoned us. She had a training in Des Moines because she has a new greenie (Hermana Dalton) So we drove down and spent the day working with Hermana Guthrie (it was fun, but a lady yelled at us a lot and the spirit definately left. Hermana Guthrie said that happens quite a bit...I'm glad I'm not there) while they were training that day and that night we drove the car back up to Hampton without Hermana McGuire (it was weird to be the one driving and I was the Senior Companion for the 3 days she wasn't with us) It was so nice to be able to spread my wings out to see if I could fly and be successful. So it was fun to be in charge of making decisions, kinda stressful. I got to know Hermana Dalton better and most of our appointments didn't fall through. Honestly, I didn't really understand most of what the investigators were saying in our lessons. I feel like I was guided as to what to say back even though I didn't really understand what they had just said, like I've said before, it's hard to understand a native speakers Spanish.

So transfers are next week and we're receiving another Hermana. Right now there are 5 Spanish speaking Sisters in the mission, 2 in Des Moines and the 3 of us in Hampton so when this Hermana comes we could have 2 trios or 3 companionships. But the thing is that this next transfer is Hermana Murphy's (Hermana Guthrie"s trainer) last one so she's only had Hermana Murphy for 1 transfer and then Hermana Guthrie or I will finish training her. I probably did a really bad job of explaining that. So I'll either stay in Hampton another transfer or go whitewash another area with Hermana Guthrie and we'll Greenbust each other. Either way I know that President Jergensen has the Lord's guidance so I'll go where ever I need to be. The reason I thought about telling you that is because in November Elder Nelson is coming to speak for this Stake Conference...big deal! So I may or may not be here for that. Also in November we're having a Sisters Conference in Nauvoo, and we get to go to the temple!!! It's exciting!
I love you all!
Hermana Hepworth
PS PLEASE WRITE TO ME!

Pictures of us at Joyce's farm. She is an investigator.

Iowa or Bust

These are pictures taken on the Airplane to Des Moines, Iowa and my arrival. One picture is of me and My msiion President and his wife, Brother and Sister Jergensen. Another is of me and my new companion, Sister McGuire. The third picture is of all the missionaries arriving in Iowa. Other pictures were taken on the plane.

Pictures at the MTC

Conference

Dear Family and Friends,

Conference was really good! I liked Elder Oaks talk on how personal and priesthood revelation work together. I think it's the first conference where there weren't any distractions or people falling asleep and I watched every single session except for Priesthood. We watched it at the chapel here in Hampton. In the Sacrement Meeting room it was in Spanish and they set it up on a TV in the RS room in English. We were the only ones who came to watch it on Saturday though. I think a lot of people didn't even know it was General Conference weekend because when we got to the chapel on Sunday there were a lot of people already there and it was about 10:15 (church usually starts at 10 and conference started at 11 and Mexicans are late to EVERYTHING) So we were wondering why they were all early. We think that they just didn't know so they thought they were late to church but really they were just early for conference. They had food in between. Lots of rice and tortillas. And then we watched the rest of conference and came home and had dinner.

Our numbers for this week aren't very good because with all of the meetings and traveling we've been doing we haven't really had much time to teach lessons and talk to people. We had a Zone Conference in Ames (about an hour south) and our usual district meeting is on Thursday but we had it on Friday this week in Mason City (about 45 minutes north)

Did you watch Conference on Saturday Too? As I was watching conference I would think about how my family was probably watching it at the exact same time and I was trying to figure out where everyone was watching it at. I thought of Teala and her family and how they must be watching it at their house in Ivins, and Wyatt and his family in their home in Mapleton,and Riley in Logan. I imagined that mom and Clarence would be watching it with Sarah and her family in Glendale.

Did you have any talks that really stuck out to you? I also really liked the one from Saturday about being a good teacher, which was really applicable to me I think, since thats what I do all day long :) I thought of what a good teacher I thought Brother Haws was (my 9th grade seminary teacher) and about what made him such a good teacher. I think it was his attitude about the gospel. He loved it so much and it spread throughout his classes.

Can you believe I've been gone for 4 months....It's crazy!!!!! Time goes by so slow but yet so fast. Days are weeks and weeks are days.

Write me. I love all of you so much and miss you.

Love Herman Jilyn Hepworth

PS
The weather here is SO weird. It'll be pretty warm on Monday and then gradually get colder and colder until it's REALLY cold on Sunday....that's how it's been for the past 3 weeks. I'm glad I have all of my winter stuff.

September 27th, 2010

Mom is a little slow getting this one on.

Hi Family and friends,
This week we haven't been able to do much missionary work because we have been in lots of conferences, which have been good too. We had a Mission Tour with Elder Zwick, get out your conference Ensign :) (Who also happens to be my mission mom's brother, he didn't ask for our mission to be assigned to him, he said) So we went down to Des Moines for that, it was really good! President and Sister Jergensen both talked to us and then Elder Zwick, we had lunch and he spent until 4 talking to us. Mainly his message was about bearing powerful testimony and being exactly obedient.
My Spanish has been improving a lot! I read back and forth in the Book of Mormon....like this.

And up these write the things of my soul,
y sobre estas escribo las cosas de mi aima.
and many of the scriptures which are engraven upon the plates of brass.
y muchas de las Escrituras que estan grabadas sobre las planchas de bronce.
For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them,
Porque mi alma se deleita en las Escrituras y mi corazon las medita.
and writeth them for the learning and profit of my children.
y las excribo para la instruccion y el beneficio de mis hijos.

This is in 2 Nephi 4:15. I read it yesterday and liked it a lot..,. that whole chapter actually, you should read it. It helps a lot, I used to only be able to do short little phrases. Now I'm, starting to be able to read whole verses and understand what it's talking about. When I do it this way I think I really get a lot out of my scripture study because it makes me focus on the words that are being said. I can think about what that individual sentence means. Hermana McGuire heard somewhere from one of the apostles, she thinks Elder Holland, that if you read the whole Book of Mormon in another language that by the time you're done you'll be fluent. So that's what I'm trying to do. And 2 Nephi 6 is where I'm at. I'm also trying to memorize lots of scriptures...in
English and Spanish. I have D&C 4 almost all of the way memorized in Spanish, I've recited it a lot in our meetings and never really realized what it's saying until I was writing it down in
English on a notecard, it's cool to read it with a missionary mindset. You should read it. I've been making lots of flash cards for that purpose.When I speak in Spanish now, most of the time I don't have to think about what I'm saying, I have a thought and I just say it, and it comes out in Spanish. It's pretty cool. Hermana McGuire described it a good way when she said its kind of like I just grew a new arm...does tht make sense. Its what it really feels like, that I've got this new part of me that wasn't there before and I'm not exactly sure what to do with it. It's cool though.
My loving of animals has helped us find people, one lady we were in her house but about to leave because she was saying she wasn't interested and she had a LOT of cats and so I asked to pet them. She started talking about her cats and then we ended up talking about the church some more and in the end she set up an appointment. Another time we were out walking around and I wanted to pet this dog who had an electric fence and so I was walking to the lawn trying to pet it and the owners came out. They were really nice and we're going to go back and teach them.

Did you go to Genral Relief Society Conference? It was really good, President Jergensen told us to go to it, so we caught a ride with an English member who lives in Iowa City now because none of our members could go. :( We drove to the Stake Center in Ames and had a dinner and watched it. I loved all the talks. I feel like Conference is so different to me now. I definately never appreciated it as much as I should have or do now. We are talking to EVERYONE about it, I like to try to imagine how a nonmember or recent convert would see it.
I love all of you lots
Hermana Hepworth

Last week we had Josh's baptism, and Saturday we had another one, Fadee's. Josh had to be baptized 3 times because President Sosa had never baptized somebody before and he used the wrong arm. Second time his clothes didn't go down, and the third time was the charm. We had a big party afterward with lots of food. I don't know about the other Hermanas but I was worried about Fadies going all of the way under the water because of her big belly (She is REALLY pregnant) plus she had to wear a dress so we didn't want that coming up. But it went fine, she was really nervous but we could really feel the spirit! Hermana Dalton has had a baptism every Saturday that she's been here....so we need to keep it that way!

I like having Hermana Dalton here, it's not very often tht it happens where you have a trainer with two greenies. I like hearing Hermana McGuire tell her all the tings that she needs to know because then it sticks it in my brain better.

One thing weird tht happened this week is that the whole town got toilet papered. We saw giant groups of kids toilet papering the town on Monday night and the police watching them do it. We found out later that it is for Homecoming week. The whole town does it every night. It's a pretty stupid tradition, wasting toilet paper and making the whole town look like a toilet bowl!

Yesterday it was FREEZING outside and so we assumed that it was going to be a cold today so we bundled up and it turned out to be 83 degrees outside so we had to go back in and change. I wish the weather would just make up its mind! They keep telling me it's going to start snowing once October comes.

I have been doing this crazy thing every since I have arrived in Iowa, or at least since the 2nd week I arrived in Hampton. Making my bed....in the middle of the night, like at one or two in the morning. It's so weird. I've been doing it for the last five weeks. I'll make it and then just sit on my bed until I wake up. A couple of times I've woken up while I'm in the process of making it. It happens about once a week, so now it's a joke between me and Hermana McGuire because there have been a couple of times where she's woken up in the middle of the night and seen me doing it. So ,she wakes me up. Bah. I feel weird about it because I can't control it.

Well lots of other thingsw have happened these past few weeks but whenever I sit down at the computer, I forget what happened. I always wonder who reads this thing. It'll be cool to be able to go through the whole thing once I can see it. Not that I'm counting or anything. I don't want to figure out when I'm coming home, it's better to not know I think.

Remember, you can always write me a letter if you want. :)
8515 Douglas Ave. #19
Urbandale, IA 50322

Hermana Jilyn Hepworth

For the world

Well, we were really sad on Tuesday, Becky wasn't home for our appointment so we called the number she gave us, nobody answered. I left a message and we got a call back. It was her husband., Christoff. He hasn't been home at all for the lessons that we've been teaching her but he wasn't very happy on the phone. (which was sad because I really liked him before. We found him on my birthday and he's the crazy French guy that thought we were baby sitters.) He was telling me how he was the one in charge of the house, he makes the decisions, and they weren't interested and he wanted to give the books back. We were worried that Becky wasn't interested anymore so we waited a while and a couple of days ago, we went to her house, hoping her husband wasn't there. Well, he wasn't and she told us that she was wondering if we were going to come back. Christoff didn't say a word to her about talking to us on the phone. So anyway, we were really happy because we really love her! We also had an interesting experience with one of the English members (we have a couple that come to the branch in Hampton because they think Mason City is too far away, it's about 30 minutes away) Katrina...she's interesting. We talked to her for the first time when were were with Sister Jergensen for the day and we had stopped at a yard sale. She talked about how she has MS and how she's not suffrering from the symptoms right now. Sister Jergensen said something like, "Oh good, so it's in remission." Fast forward 3 days and we're in her house, we asked her if there was a subject she wants to talk about..thinking that she'll say some gospel principle or something like that. Nope, she was very offended by the word "remission" and that
Sister Jergensen labeled her with that word. We actually think tht she doesn't know what MS is or remission because she says that it's "fear" and it's not a disease. We spent a long time talking to her (in English) and I understood all of the words coming out of her mouth, but when we left I had no clue what we had just talked about. It didn't make any sense. She actually called us yesterday and was still upset about it. She said she was having stomach pains and she knew that it was because she took the sacremant while she was angry and she wanted Sister Jergensens phone number. We talked to Sister Jergensen about it and she's going to talk to her. I feel bad though because Sister Jergensen is the sweetest lady ever and she would never want to hurt somebody's feelings. We're just going to continue to visit Katrina and love her. It sounds like she's had a pretty hare life from what I understand. We've had some pretty cool coincidences..but I don't think that any of the things that happen really are coincidences, more like little miracles. It makes the times when people are rude to us worth it!!!!
WRITE ME LETTERS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Missionary Contacts

We did some service for Joyce, we helped her with her yard work. She's not a member but she knows the gospel is true and that it was restored through Joseph Smith. Her husband is really against it so she basically wants to wait until he dies...not that she wants him to die or anything, but yeah. She's almost 90 and her mind is still really sharp! She owns a farm, we went out there and it was fun. She used to do lots of pottery and she has a wheel and a kiln. She used to teach pottery classes at city hall and so that's where her kiln is. We're going to help her get it out this week so that next Monday on our pday we can make pottery. yea. That will be really fun! We taught Becky, she always asks about the commitments we want to extend to her. She read our pamphlet on the Plan of Salvation and she asked about baptism. She is willing to be baptized when she gets her answer to it's truth. She has no problem accepting that there could be a prophet on the earth today and that there could be more scriptures and when you think about it, why would there be a problem anyway? Heavenly Father has called a prophet before. He's done many miracles through His prophets so if he wants to do it again then he can! He can have more scripture if He wants. It's not such a crazy idea!

It was so hot and sunny outside while we were doing service for Joyce and we were swimming in our sweat and later that day we were having dinner at a members house, when we left it was raining SO hard outside We got SOAKED! I really wanted a picture of us tracting in the rain. They say your spouse gets better looking if you go tracting in the rain.

We were talking to an investigator named Yanira, her kids have been baptized in our church and so she's been taught before. She was telling us how she had evil spirits in her home and a lot of creepy things happened and I felt kinda uncomfortable while we were talking about it but then we started talking about Joseph Smith and the Restoration and the spirit in the room changed completely because the spirit was there. She even noticed it too because she commented on how she always feels good when the missionaries come over and she felt the spirit there. I have high hopes for her.

Our mission presidents wife came on Friday. Sister Jergensen. It was fun. She came to all of our appointments with us! On Saturday we encountered a lady in the park that wasn't very friendly. She told us to "move along" we just brushed it off our shoulders cause she doesn't know what she just turned down! The branch was so small until this week because they were all in Mexico but they all returned this week so most of the chairs were full at church. YEA! I got to speak in Sacrament Meeting. I bore my testimony and we have taught Relief Society these last two weeks which was harder because they talk back to you and it's hard for me to understand them with their thick accents.

We've been walking around so we won't used up our miles that we have for the car, plus you can't meet anybody when you are in a car. So we've been able to meet a lot of new people just by walking around town. As we were walking around I got to thinking about how cool my life is right now. My only responsibility is to talk to people about the church. About the gospel of Jesus Christ and how we have a prophet on the earth today and scripture written for our day. It's really cool. I get to help others come unto Christ.
Write me letters and let me know what has been going on.
Love Hermana Jilyn Heporth

We stayed the first night at the mission home, and it was fun. We had dinner, and a group meeting. We also shared our testimonies, and had an interview with President Jergensen. The next day Hermana Guthrie and I studied, then met our trainers. My trainers name is Hermana Liz McGuire, and we're serving in the Hampton area. We drove to Hampton (we have a car and it took 2 hours). The area book is a mess, and there aren't any investigators with a baptismal date. So we've just been going around to visit people in the book. When they don't answer the door we just knock on other doors. This french guy opened the door of one of the houses and said, "Oh, the babysitters are here....2 babysitters!" It was funny! When we got things figured out, like how we're NOT the babysitters, he invited us in and we talked to him a little bit. His name is Christoff, and we actually happened to have one french book of Mormon in our apartment, so we took it over to their house yesterday. They have 2 kids and they are so cute! Most people don't seem very interested, but I pray that their hearts will be touched, and they'll let us talk to them. Hermana McGuire does most of the talking. I started practicing my initial apporach today, and I'm going to practice it with Hermana McGuire tomorrow. Monday is my new P-day. There are some missionaries that served in this mission about a year ago, and they are going over the area book with us today. They cam back to tour their mission.

Hola Como esta?

I don't have my scriptures in English, only Spanish, they gave us nice scriptures in Spanish. My knee originally hurt on the outside right after the fall, after about a week and a half Dr. Sampson wanted me to go to another Dr. because the shot did not help. he gave me a prescription for 800 MG ibuprofen to take 1 at every meal and he gave me a strap to wear. It's been feeling better and the physical therapy's been good. They'll still let me go if it hurts. I can ride bikes still. One of the Elders in my zone just told me there's an Elder Hepworth that came to the MTC this Wednesday. We're everywhere speaking of Wednesdays, new missionary day, I get to be a missionary host. We've all been wanting to do that since we've gotten here and we've seen Elders/sisters do it that get here after us. So basically when I got here the Elders that carried my baggage away when I last saw you, took me to my missionary hos,t and she helped me take my stuff up to my room. We didn't get to unpack until that night. And took me to get my materials and MTC supplies and showed me around a little bit and took me to my classroom. That's what I get to do this Wednesday. When I was doing my service at the senior Missionary building like usual, I was talking to one couple and they looked familiar. And I guess they thought the same of me because they saw my last name and said "Hepworth" you look just like a Gifford and then they asked about YOU! Lamar Woodbury and his wife. He said that he and Uncle Dean are best friends. They're going to Brazil I think. On Saturday we all decided to wear blue, (my district) it was funny! When I was leading on Sunday during Sacrament Meeting something funny happened! I was conducting in Sacrament meeting and we were singing a hymn that's not in the English book #88 if you want to look it up) WE always sing it in our classroom but without the piano so when Hermana Pertersen started playing I thought it was the wrong song. I was so confused and we had a conversation with her, me on the stand and her at the piano so it kinda yelled yeah it was the right song. Everyone laughed, it made my day. We had an English fast on Monday. my brain was so fired!

I really love D&C 6:36 and Mosiah 4:9-10. I love the last line....see that ye DO them! It's not enough just to believe.

I will be flying out on Wednesday, July 28th. I will leave SLC at 8:30 AM arriving at Dallas at 12:05. While I am there I will be able to call you Mom. I leave Dallas at 1:00PM and arrive in Des Moines, IA at 2:45 PM

I love all of you and miss you a lot but I am happy doing the Lords work.

Hermana Hepworth y Hermana Guthrie

Picture of Hermana Hepworth Y Hermana Guthrie al templo de Provo

The MTC Rocks!

Querido Mundo [Dear World], So this week is going to be a fun one! Most districts in the MTC teach only once a week in the TRC and their last week is teaching week where all they do is teach, no class. Districts learning a language start teaching in their language 1/2 way through [that's where I am] So missionaries usually have a hard time adjusting to teaching their first week in the language so our teachers are basically experimenting with us this week, we're only having 1 hour of class from each teacher and the rest of the time we're setting up teaching appointments....now I've only taught the first lesson [The Restoration] a handfull of times in English but we figured out that if you taught every moment possible this week we could teach it about 40 times! And we have to....I mean GET to teach it in Spanish. I can only say that I'm glad to know that the Lord is going to help me through it because there's no way I could do it on my own. I already know that I couldn't have learned as much Spanish as I know now without the Lord's help! Another awesome thing that's going on is we get to meet our new mission president tonight! 1/3 of the mission presidents get replaced each Summer and mine is one of them, the Quorum of the 12 Apostles are the ones that train them so they told us that at one time or another all of the Apostles will be here, maybe not all at once but they will. We saw Elder Nelson and his wife walking somewhere yesterday on our way to lunch and so we took a detour and basically stalked him :) So we got to say hi and shake his hand. We're having a special fireside tonight and we don't know who the speaker is but there's a rumor that it's President Monson or Uchtdorf....it's a good thing it's our pday so we can camp out in front of the door and study there, we're probably even going to skip dinner and just get something from the vending machines. We want good seats and there are more missionaries than there are seats so a lot of missionaries have to watch it on a TV in another room. Hmmmm, so I got to go to the outside world these past two days, my knee has been hurting me so I went to a doctor [you probably already know mom, did they call you for the medical info?] So they gave me a giant shot in my knee and I'm going to a physical therapist once a week for the next two weeks. It's good to know that the outside world still exhists though, I was beginning to wonder :) No I love it here, I learn so much and it's been a very humbling experience thus far. I have a feeling I'm going to be even more humbled as time goes on! So I don't think there's anything else....write me letters cause I would love to hear from you!!!! Hermana Jilyn Hepworth

Hola Mundo!

Hola mundo!

Oh man, I really don't even know what to say...I've been so busy! It feels like I just got here but yet if feels like what I was doing before this was forever ago, I love teaching the gospel, we taught the The Plan of Salvation this Thursday. I love teaching so much because all we do here at the MTC is study, we study Spanish and English only and when you're doing that all day long you learn a lot! I think of things about the gospel that I'd never wondered before and my testimony keeps getting stronger and stronger the more I learn! I was sad yesterday because it was one of our teachers [Hermano Rapp's] last day. He's going to San Diego to live with his parents for the summer. He's really spiritual but really really funny, we laugh SO much when he's teaching us. So as he was telling us all goodbye I was having a hard time not crying...it's funny how you can grow to care about somebody so much in so short amount of time. I've found that a large part of that is having spiritual experiences together. I love my district SO much, we're awesome [44A for AWESOME!] If you're reading this then you should write me a letter...cause remember that I can't feel the love unless you SHOW me!!!

Choose the Right!!!

Love Hermana Jilyn Hepworth

Jilyn fell down some stairs when she was doing a service project cleaning the senior building. She bruised her arm pretty bad and hurt her knee. She is scheduled with an orthopedic surgeon to have it checked out. Hopefully she will be alright. I was told that if it is serious they will let her call me but if it is not, she will write to me. So in this case, no news is good news. She is doing very well and is such a great missionary.

June 11, 2011

Dear Family,
I'm so sad that Patches died! I got the letter yesterday and I starting crying. I didn't realize I would be so sad when she died.....it seemed like it would never happen.
Yes, I got the cookies and they were yummy!
I had trouble getting on the computer today, I tried to log onto the computer a million times while I was doing my laundry,(they have computers in there) and it wouldn't let me log on and everybody seemed to be able to log on except for me so I let somebody else use my computer...and they were able to log on, yep and so I had to wait forever for another computer to use and it actually worked for me but I was getting concerned because there's not that much of pday left we go to dinner at 6 and then class right after and then it's over. There never seems time for everything! It's awesome though, I've already told you this but the TRC is where we go once a week to practice specific tasks in spanish with volunteers who may or maynot be members and then we teach a lesson in English. our 5th week here we start teaching in Spanish. This week went really well actually. I'm getting more comfortable with the setup and talking more.I realized that I love testifying about the church one on one with people. I can feel the strength of the Lord so strongly in my words as I testify of Him and His love for us. The more and more I testify of it the more I am assured that it's true. When we did some of the Spanish, I said some things and I wasn't even sure of exactly what I was saying when I said it, but I know it was right! We went to the temple again today and it was really amazing! As I sat there in the Celestial Room there's a picture of the Savior greeting us and I could feel the Spirit so strongly. When we were leaving we went past some sealing rooms and couples were being sealed to them and I could feel the Spirit there and I knew they were being sealed together for all eternity.
Te amo, Estoy apendiendo mucho espanol!
Love Hermana Hepworth

June 3, 2010

Dear Family,

Yesterday Hermana Gunthrie (my companion) and I were sitting on a bench studying and some Elders came up to us (trying to "contact" us, we do that all the time) and we were talking about where we were from and I said a small town in Southern Utah and he was like what town? My mom is from a small town called Glendale.....and I was like What, oh my heck, that's where I'm from! His grandpa is Gerald Spencer. He started telling me about the story with his relative who saw somebody on the side of the road along time ago and picked him up..and when he started saying that I was like, oh my heck this is the story cause Clarence was the guy he was picking up.... anyways I thought it was so crazy!!!! He wrote my name down cause he was so excited about it, it was funny!
We did our TRC yesterday (Teaching Resource Center) we teach investigators (and you never know if they're really members or not) We had a task to do and we had to do it in Spanish (meet somebody in the park and testify to them and set up a time to talk to them again at their house) We did that 3 times and it went alright. It's hard because you have to think of your response in English first and then translate it into Spanish. Then we taught the first lesson (the Restoration) one time in English, it was really good. The investigators said the lesson was taught really well and that they have a lot of knowledge. Overall I'm pretty good, sometimes I get down but for the most part I'm happy!!!!!! and I'm happy to be here.
I love and miss you all!!!!!!
Love Hermana Jilyn Hepworth

June 4th, 2010

Dear Family,
My P-day is almost over, but one thing I forgot to ask you in my email is what is Wyatt's email address. Tell Teala I saw Matt's dad on Sunday. I was also thinking about that boy I told you about. I saw him in the laundry room. I asked him him if he knew Kyle Spencer, and he said YES, he was just at his house. I'll bet it was this kid's farewell that the Bishop (Kyle Spencer) went to on the Sunday of my farewell. You should ask him, Elder Morgan is his name.....I think it is his nephew. I see that other elder we met in Mount Pleasant all the time in the cafeteria. Speaking of which I feel like I live in the cafeteria, and the class room. When I'm not in one, I'm in the other. The food is definitely not as good as it was talked up to be. There's like a 1/5 chance of it being any good. Although the salad wraps are amazing, and they're always there for lunch. It's set up Subway style, and you can put whatever you want on it. I have that whenever the other options are less desirable. I don't want to eat it for every meal, surprising I know. My P-days are on Friday.
Love all of you,
Hermana Hepworth

Dear Family,

Wow, so much has happened already. They don't even give you time to breath it feels like. We've already started teaching the first lesson to each other. It's been really hard, I'm not gonna lie, really out of my comfort zone. The good news is it's only my 4th day and so I have a long time to get it down pat.

My companions name is Hermana [Sister] Guthrie and she's from West Jordan and she's 22. It's kinda weird having somebody follow you around all day.

We were observing other missionaries teaching an "investigator" and after they were done my companion and I were talking to him. We found out that he's actually a convert and served a mission to Des Moines Iowa, Spanish speaking. He told us that the mission presidents like to keep the Spanish speakers strictly Spanish only. I'm going to be staying here at the MTC for 9 weeks so my departure date will be around July 27th. I wish I could write more but I'm running out of time. If you want to know more write me a letter! I'll write more later!

Hermana [Sister] Jilyn Hepworth

Hermana Hepworth

More Pictures

Here are a few more pictures of my arrival at the MTC.

Arrived at last

My big day has arrived. Some of these pictures
were taken in the back of Wyatt's yard before I
left for the MTC. The other pictures are taken
in the parking lot of the MTC and at the MTC>

May26, 2010

Dear Mom,
Wow, this first day was pretty overwhelming, really fun! They are letting me write letters to you on the first day so you know we're alive. We didn't even get to unpack until 9:30PM, we've been having lots of meetings and orientations. I met my companion, her name is Hermana Guthrie and she is going to the exact same mission as me and Spanish speaking too! I have a paper that says my estimated departure date is July 27th so I'll be here for 9 weeks. The Relief Society here put together an exercise thing for the sisters, they have classes that start at 6:00 AM and its yoga and kickboxing and Pilate, stuff like that. Well it's almost time for lights out so I need to go to bed soon. I'll write you when I can on my preparation day, (that's only when they want you to do it) I wish I had time to write more! I love you!

Love Hermana Hepworth (That's what it is says on my name tag

Write Me a Letter!!!

The MTC just emailed me my address for while I'm there and I thought I'd share it with everybody, so here it is!

MTC:
Sister Jilyn Hepworth
MTC Mailbox #206
IA-DMOIN 0728
2005 North 900 East
Provo, UT, 84604

Mission Field:
Sister Jilyn Hepworth
Iowa Des Moines Mission
8515 Douglas Avenue Suite #19
Urbandale, IA, 50322

Mission Blog

Hello! It's Jilyn, I thought it would be a good idea to make a blog for anybody who wants to check up on me while I'm gone for 18 months serving the Lord. While I'm away my mom will be updating it for me! :) I'm exited to be preparing to go through the St. George Temple, that will be on April 10, 2010 @ 12:40 and everybody needs to be there by 12:10. I'm really excited to leave, it's been fun preparing for it and I've really grown close to my Heavenly Father and I know that I'm going to grow even closer! I am so grateful to him!!!