WARNING

WARNING" YOU'RE GONNA WANT TO GET OUT YOUR SCRIPTURES.  I haven't been able to teach our recent convert Skylar for a very long time.  2 months in fact.  So we've had this super awesome lesson planned for him and we were actually able to teach it.  There's a cool story in ALMA 47:1-19 about a man named Lehonti.  We read those scriptures with the Crossetts and talked about what Lehonti's downfall was.  I invite you all to read those scriptures and ponder what Lehonti's downfall was.  He should've not come down the mountain at all but stuck with what he first said in verse 6 because by coming down the mountain it is eventually "ministered poison by degrees" verse 18 and dies.  We compared that to how Satan tempts us.  He doesn't tempt us to go out and rob a bank but he gets us with small things and gradually works up to the bigger things.  We compared that to how Amalickiah (the bad guy) killed in ALMA 51:34.  Teanum puts "a javelin to his heart".  I think I scared sister Crassett to death when I pulled out a mini nerf gun and shot her with it.  This is how we should kill Satan.  We should get him out before he has any power over us.  Then came the fun part of the lesson, we acted it out.  Everybody was reluctant to do it and we heard some groans, "I don't want to act it out"  But  they did it anyway and it was REALLY fun!  Everyone was laughing and they all had a great time.  We asked them to read ALMA 47-51 as a family thoughout the week.  Sometimes as you read the war chapters it can be hard.  I know for me I've thought "When are these wars ever going to end?"  But in reality there are a lot of really cool things in the war chapters.  A lot of great comparisons between the wicked people and Satan.  I especially love ALMA 48: 8-9.  This is how we should prepare ourselves against Satan.

The rest of this week was kinda hard, mostly because from September 2-5 there's something in Mt Pleasant called the "Old Thresher Reunion".  Everyone has been at that this week.  We were able to do some service there this week taking tickets.  We met some interesting characters....
We were able to teach Tami and Matt this week.  We also have been plugging away teaching Kami and Seth.  We've taught him all of the commandments now and he doesn't seem to really have a problem with any of them. WooHoo!  We had a super fun lesson on following the prophet/apostles about commandments we've taught them found in the last conference Ensign, April 2011.  After we heard the Prophet's council Sister Lance read a scenario where Kami and Seth would have to decide whether they would choose to follow the Prophets's council or not.  They made the right choice everytime.  Even when I was "Satan" and tried to entice them with candy.  I asked Seth if he liked chocolate and he said no, he likes carmel.  I told him that's what I had (even though it wasn't) because believe it or not Satan lies sometimes.  If they went against the council they had to go to the right of the chair we had set up and we had lots of obstacles.  But if they followed the council the pathway was clear.  I forgot to mention they were blindfolded.  As their reward for Following the Prophet they got a great big candy bar.  We've been working with another parmember family.  The Mangolds, last Sunday we taught them and invited them to church and they actually came this week.  Paula is a less active member and her husband Scott is a nonmember and he needs to gain a testimony of Joseph Smith being a prophet.  He says when he prays about it he doesn't feel any different afterwards.
It's time for me to sign off now friends and family.
I welcome your questions and comments with open arms!  :)
Love
Hermana Jilyn Hepsworth
8515 Douglas Avenue  #19
Urbandale, Iowa    50322

PS Here are some picturesSister Rippenkroeger and I teaching Dr. Shulls a lesson about faith.

August 22, 2011

We have had the most amazing lesson planned for Dr. Shull....the problem is our appointments keep getting cnacelled.  We think it's Satan.  He does not want us to teach this lesson to Dr. Shull.

We taught Danielle and Ian last Monday.  Ian still hasn't read from the Book of Mormon so we had him pull it out and he said, "Alright, so how do you operate this bad boy?"  We taught them the Plan of Salvation.  I don't want to go into too many details...but he's got a lot of INTERESTING ideas.  We had Family Home Evening with the Rippenkroegers (returning to activity in the church!)  It was really interesting because they have a fella named Raz living with them.  He's had a hard life, ran into a lot of problems with the law and we think he has some mental problems as well.  I don't think I've ever had a lesson with so many cuss words in it before.  He was telling us how when he was 19 he was traveling from California to Wisconsis and on his way he was walking on a highway in Utah.  A man picked him up and took him through all the buildings on Temple Square and they spent the whole day doing things there.  At the end of the day the man offered for him to live with him and take care of him and he would help him change his life or he could take $100 and get out of the car and keep walking.  Raz decided to take the money and he never made it to Wisconsin.  He ended up committing a crime that landed him 25 years in prison.  Talk about a decision that could have changed his life.  He kept telling me he had a feeling I was related to this man that could have changed his life.  He doesn't know his name so I guess we'll never know.

We had an awesome lesson with Kami and Seth on the Word of Wisdom.  The best part was that before the appointment we had a meeting with our Branch mission leader, we had a little misunderstanding with his wife last week and she has been mad at us so we were hoping the Lord would touch her heart.  Well it turns out he did because she was a lot friendlier to us and Sister Dalton even had the impression to invite her to come to the appointment with Kami and Seth, which turned out to be amazing because Seth has no issues with the Word of Wisdom.  It's actually Kami, who is the member that has a problem with coffee and tea.  Sister Larose was able to relate SO well to Kami because those were the hardest things for her to give up whe she joined the church.  She still craves coffee but her desire is stronger to live the Word of Wisdom.  Another amazing thing is that Seth received an answer that he needs to be baptized!!!!!  It's so exciting, we've been praying so hard for that!  He wants to be baptized on his birthday.  October 1st.  That's conference weekend so we';ll probably do it in between sessions.

We helped Sister Sanchez teach her lesson to the Young Women on scripture study, she told a personal story and I'd like to share it with you.  "When do we have to read the scriptures everyday?"  I would answer their questions with another question.  "Do you have to eat everyday?"  "Yes, if we don't eat we'll die."  Well that's how it is with the scriptures.  We need to feel ourselves physically AND spiritually.  I really enjoyed that story, so I thought you would too!

Be sure and write and keep me in  touch with you.

Love you all
Hermana Jilyn Hepworth
8515 Douglas Avenue  #19
Urbandale, Iowa    50322

Lots of Weeds

August 10, 2011
 We still haven't been able to contact David and Stacy and I'm pretty upset about that because Stacy was starting to change her life and you could just tell she was happier and now she's avoiding us.  I've grown to love her so much so it makes me very sad!
Probably the coolest things that have happened this week...
We started talking  to this Hispanic lady in the park but it soon became apparent that she only wanted to bash.  Well bashing never brings the Spirit (who is the REAL teacher) so there's no point in it.  I wanted to tell her that we didn't want to argue with her, we could only invite her to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it and decide for herselp if it was true or not.  Well, I didn't know the word for "argue" so I asked Sister Dalton but she didn't kinow either and so I just started saying it even though I didn't know how.  The most amazing thing happened.  I said the right work for "argue" in Spanish and I didn't know it.  It was pretty much a miracle.  That woman was very aggressive, she was up in our faces talking very, very loud. 

We have been teaching Kami and Seth for the past couple of weeks and it's been going pretty great!  At first we thought he was learning for Kami's sake, but we now think he's felt the Spirit in our lessons. (I know I have)  This last lesson we had with them I had the overwhelming feeling towards the end that he would be baptized and after the lesson, I found out that Sister Dalton had the same feeling at about the same time.

Probably the coolest thing that happened was our experience with Dr. Shull.  We have not been ablt to contact him for forever but it so happened that in the middle of last week we were driving to an appointment but Hermana Dalton had taken the wrong road so she had to turn and go down another one.  Well it so happened that we drive past Dr. Shull and he stopped and talked to us.  It turns out his daughter has been having chest pains so that's why we haven't been able to catch him.  We set an appointment and it was an AMAZING lesson.  We went by his Chiropractic office to teach him during his lunch break and we have been teaching him these past 4 months but had yet to invite him to be baptized.  I think it's because he has so much potential.  He's got great values and he's basically like a dry mormon so we didn't want to scare him off.  Well, the tim had come that we had to establish expectations and find out WHY he wants to learn from us.  The lesson was very spirit guided and we finally invited him to be baptized.  It went like this.  "IOf you found out the Book of Mormon was true and this church was true would you be baptized? ME  "Well I'd have to be!  Yeah"  We haven't met his wife yet so we told him we want to and he said he didn't know if she'd accept it and so we are praying really hard that he reads and prays and finds out that the Book of Mormon is true and talks to his wife about it and she has a soft heart.

I saw these sayings on churches around here and I thought they were funny.  "Friends, don't let frineds die without know Jesus."  "Forgive your enemies, it will mess with their minds."
Gotta go!
PS  We pulled a LOT of weeds this week FYI. I'm an expert at it now.