As I was writing this email my finger hit a key that highlighted everything while I was typing so it erased all that I had... lame. Where was I, oh yes! The trip sounds like it was so much fun, cool to meet up with old friends! And the conference! (I was able to go to Lethbridge this past weekend with some of my favourite people to listen to some inspirational speakers and amazing music. I had time in Calgary to spend with some more of my favourite people....mmmm, home sweet home.)
I do know Jenny Oaks Baker, a missionary I lived with had her CDs, good stuff!(Julliard trained violinist--you should YouTube her!) And that is so cool, heard it through the grapevine about my Chinese! (My friend Emily heard from her brother who is in Taylor's ward that he overheard Taylor speaking with an Asian man in Mandarin and he was amazed at how he could see him transform into chinese not only in speech, but mannerisms and his laugh even! lol) Elder Jason is not called Chinese, he is called French, but he is a native French speaker so I am training him in English. He is great! As for where we are going... we have absolutely no idea until 4 days before we go... the Saturday before transfers we get our transfer calls, so until the 27th of this month I will not know if I am staying or going. And yes... its not the same without you cutting my hair, but Elder Williams does a good job. (I've cut his hair his entire life so I asked how it feels to have someone else cut it.)
Life is great in Ottawa, we have a blast doing the work! It is going by so quickly though, I'm still not that familiar with the area and transfers are coming up! Lets see, what is new... oh we went for a run this morning! So refreshing! We are all kinda worried we are getting fat so we are getting into good habits, we exercise well and are eating better, it's just so hard when we get loaded up with treats!! They taste so good and I want to eat them all! But I'm actually sitting at about 175 so not too bad. We were seriously considering doing yoga every morning to loosen up, thoughts?(I told him that yoga is awesome for core strength, balance and flexibility as well as a stress reliever! I love yoga!)
On the other side of things, opening an area... not as easy as I thought.. especially when it is YSA(young single adults) and finals... don't add up well to people interested in meeting, but miracles happen! The other day the Sisters found a huge stack of former investigators numbers from a Chinese area in Ottawa from like 2006! We started giving them a call, and as expected, most are no longer active numbers BUT one was! We called him and met with him yesterday! He is awesome! Really interested in finding truth! Talk about miracles. We also fasted as a zone this week to help the work progress... and it has! Ottawa is great!
As for me personally, the mission is the refiner's fire of refiner's fires. It is tough, but it is so cool to see the Lords hand in all things. I have been studying the Atonement a lot, and really learning about the part of the Atonement we don't tend to think about... the enabling power of the Atonement. There was a great article in last months Ensign( http://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/04/the-mission-and-ministry-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng ) about it, check it out. But really, the Lord makes bad men good and good men better. It is about the eternal progression, and He has helped me so much already in enabling me to be an instrument in his work. I love being a missionary.
Love you so much!
Elder Heinzlmeir
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