He Shall be Called

Can you believe the new year is approaching?! This will be my last email on my mission in the year 2013...I better make it good!

Since last week was Christmas, my companion and I were wondering what we could give to our members to show our love and appreciation to them. As a missionary, money, time, and resources are limited, so we were having a hard time coming up with anything. Most of you know that I like to write poetry...so naturally, the only thing I could come up with for a Christmas present was a poem about the Savior. My mom had sent me ornaments for our Christmas tree that had the names of Christ on them, so that had been on my mind the past few weeks. So as I brainstormed what I was going to write, the theme of my poem became the names of our Savior.

He Shall be Called

Our Heavenly Father loves us

So He sent His 'Begotten Son'

'The Creator' of this world

'Jesus Christ', The 'Holy One'

This life will not be easy

We'll be faced with trying tasks

The 'Savior' helps us make it through

till we return to Him at last

The trials begin to make us weak

We reach out-- a desperate call

We must build ourselves upon 'The Rock'

Whereon we shall never fall

A life that's full of darkness

That becomes empty, bleak and dim

Can be filled with 'The Light' of Christ

As we turn our hearts to Him

When our troubles overwhelm us

We are anxious for relief

We must run to Him and feel His love

He is the 'Prince of Peace'

Hearts are often broken

Seemingly far beyond repair

We must seek 'The Great Physician'

He will mend us in His care

A kind and loving 'Shepherd'

Leaves behind the ninety and nine

To bring just one back to the fold

as He seeks them He shall find

We know He's our 'Redeemer'

We'll never walk alone

In our lives He's there to be our guide

And lead us safely home

'The Messiah'--full of mercy

We can't comprehend His love

He gave His life for each of us

Our 'King' and 'Lord' above

We are graven upon His hands

To earth He freely came

Until we're held in His embrace

We will praise His Holy NAME.

The other day at WalMart we walked past a couple, and I heard the man whisper: "hey! Those girls work for Jesus!" I laughed, then realized how true that really is! How great is it that I get to wear a nametag over my heart each and every day that bears His name. It's a constant reminder of who I am here to serve. This is His work!

I love you all so much!

Love, Sister Hyer

MERRY CHRISTMAS

My dearest Family and Friends!

Hello from icy Kansas! This last week has been an adventure. Here there is this weird thing called freezing rain. It's exactly what it sounds like...rain that's freezing. You look outside and just think it's raining...but then you venture out there and everything is covered in a thick layer of ice. In fact, we couldn't even get in our car this morning!! After prying open only one of the doors, we sat in our car for an our and a half while we waited for the widows to get warm enough for us to chip away at the ice. I hate to admit it....buuut....it sort of made my grateful for the Utah snow....? Never thought I'd say that in my whole life!

I have been thinking about what to share with you all in this email... After coming up with next to nothing, I decided I'd share some of my thoughts from this past week.

Week after week, email after email, I share miracle after miracle....Miracles about finding, teaching, and baptizing....Miracles that have shaped my mission and strengthened my faith in the Power of the Lord....Miracles about people who I grow to love in a way that could only be defined as the Love of Christ. I'm sure many of you wonder what the outcome of all these miracles have been. Unfortunately I must say that we have lost contact with 99% of those miracles. And that's missionary work. You find people through the most miraculous ways, love them from the moment you knock on their door, teach them a lesson or two...only to have your heart broken as you watch them reject the Gospel. It's a different kind of heartbreak than I've ever experienced before...one that's more painful than I can express. As my heart has been broken over and over again, I've had the question come into my mind on different occasions: "Why would this happen? Why would God make all of these miracles happen, if they weren't going to work out?" I have pondered this question recently and this is my conclusion:

This Gospel is true. I know it with all my heart. I know it because I've received an answer that it is true by the power of the Holy Ghost. I have felt the Light and love of my Savior in the darkest moments of my life. I have finally found true and genuine happiness as I have lived the Gospel. Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us. He has provided us with the opportunity to gain our own testimony and conviction and to use our agency to accept or reject His message.

I know it's true. And guess who else knows it's true? Satan. He knows it just as well as I do. He's completely miserable. And if he can't be happy, why should anyone else be happy? So he works his evil little works to harden the hearts of all those people we saw miracles with. He's a sly fox and will find any and every way to bring these people to believe they were deceived. There is an attack on this church and gospel possibly more than any other church, and to me, it is a witness that it is true. Why would Satan (and others) try so hard to bring this gospel down if it wasn't true? why would so much effort go into trying to prove something is wrong if they didn't know it was true deep in their hearts? Satan doesn't want this work to go forward...beacause he knows it's true.

The work cannot be stopped by any forces. We just have to choose to accept it. And I do. I know it's true and I choose to live it.

Much love and merry christmas wishes to all of you!

Sister Hyer

Short and Sweet

Happy Holidays everyone!

It's a week of pictures! Go check 'em out!

I'll leave you with a Christmas thought by our beloved first presidency:

"Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

"Let us make Christmas a time of rejoicing and celebration, a time to share the marvelous truth that Almighty God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem the world! May the joy of that knowledge be with each of us this Christmas season and throughout the coming year."

I love you all!
Sister Hyer

Me and one of my favorite elders/best friends here on the mission and fellow dart/k-town resident, Elder Holt 

we had to make an ornament for our mission Christmas tree...so I printed this picture out and wrote, 'It's all about Love!'

Service Project 

Bowling with some of my favorite sisters!

the 2 sisters I've trained! I'm one proud mama ;) (that's what they call the trainers)

Me and Sister Jarman!

Tis The Season of Miracles

Hey Ya'll!

yes, I did just say ya'll. The country is gettin to me! :)

Winter is here. and it's beyond freezing. It's a different kind of cold here...the Kansas winds and humidity adds extra bitterness to the already low temperatures. Hopefully I can survive a Kansas winter just like I survived a Missouri Summer!

It was a week full of Incredible miracles here in iola! Here's just a few:

Miracle number one: So, missionaries keep records of everything. We keep records of people we are teaching so that missionaries in the future will know people that have been taught in the area...and what and when they were taught. Sometimes investigators don't progress, so the missionaries stop teaching them for a while. Missionaries in the future are encouraged to go through these records and try some of these people again to see if their hearts have been softened....we call these former investigators.

One night, my companion and I had nothing to do, so we decided to pull out our stack of former investigators. We randomly chose one from the pile of papers and headed to the address listed. We knocked on the door and a lady answered. When I introduced myself, she replied, 'yeah I remember you....I am just about to leave to pick up my daughter...can you come back in about an hour?" We agreed, of course. That entire hour after we left I was trying to figure out where I knew her from..and it just wouldn't come to me! It was driving me crazy. So I said a prayer.

When we went pack to the house, she opened the door, and the moment I stepped inside her house it hit me! She had been at a member named patty's house one night at dinner! I mentioned that I remembered where I knew her from and she said: "Yeah...and actually, I just saw Patty when I picked up my daughter. I told her she was in trouble for sending you girls over to my house. haha. She said she didn't know what I was talking about." I felt this warmth overcome me and I knew at that moment we were supposed to be there. I said: "Patty didn't send us. We didn't even know you lived here. We just randomly picked a house and knocked on the door. We know that our Heavenly Father sent us here to express His love for you and to let you know that the message we have to share is true and that He wants you to accept it so you can receive the blessings He has to offer." She was amazed.

We sat down and taught her the message of the Restoration of The Gospel. We expressed Heavenly Father and the Savior's love for her over and over. We taught her how to pray and invited her to read the Book of Mormon....then we took a leap of faith and invited her to baptized. She accepted, and is now preparing to be baptized in January!

Miracles happen. Even if is by a record written about a former investigator from 5 years ago who no longer even lives at the address you tried.

Miracle number two: We went to eat dinner at a member's house and they had invited their two nieces over...Paige is 13 and Trinity is 9. After dinner, we shared a message about Christ's birth and how it's important to remember 'the reason for the season' and why we really celebrate Christmas. As we shared this message, the girls expressed that they had no idea who Christ was. My heart broke. These sweet girls had never felt of the Savior's love in their life!

We talked about how they are daughters of a Heavenly Father and that He loves them. They were full of questions and excitement as we shared this with them. We invited them to come to church with their aunt. They came to church with us yesterday and loved it. They took notes in sacrament meeting, and after it was over paige said: "you're coming over after this right?" I told her we would, and she said: "Good, I have lots of questions." We went over to their house after church and spent 2 hours answering their questions and teaching them about the Gospel. At the end of the lesson, we invited them to be baptized and they said yes with more excitement and enthusiasm than I've ever seen!

Before we left, Trinity asked to say the prayer. Neither of them had ever prayed before, so we taught them how and I helped her say one. I started off the prayer with her repeating after me, then she added a few of her own things...one of them being 'thank you for the sister missionaries teaching us'...something I had not told her to say. She finished her simple prayer and opened her eyes with the biggest smile on her face. My heart was filled with an immense sense of warmth and love. I had just helped a sweet Child of God pray for the first time...and the smile on her face was significant evidence that she felt of His love as she prayed.

Again...miracles happen. Even if they start with a bowl of hot soup at a member's house, a message about Christ's birth and 2 sweet girls who are yearning to know their Savior and Father in Heaven.

Oh how I love being a missionary!! How rewarding it is and how blessed I feel to be able to be apart of this work!

Much love to you all during this magnificent Christmas Season!

Sister Hyer

Thanks to my cute mom, we have the cutest mini 'Jesus Tree' ever! :)

this is how you know you're in the middle of nowhere...not a single road or city around for miles! haha

December Already?? Thanksgiving REcap

Wait...what? It's December already....what the?! I can't even believe it! Time is flying here in the mish!

Thanksgiving was great! In missionary life, it's not much different than any other day...but it was still good. We spent the morning helping another church serve a Thanksgiving lunch to members of the community that had nowhere to go. It was really rewarding. We met a lot of great people, and the church we helped out was really grateful for our service. People are always so impressed with us and are amazed that we work so hard and choose and pay to be here! I love representing The Church and sharing with others what we do as missionaries!

After that, we went to a family's home for Thanksgiving dinner. It was so great to be with some of the members of the ward and feel at home. :) We ate a ton, then played some football and volleyball. It was a great day!

I've been thinking a lot about life as a missionary lately. And if you think about it, it's kinda crazy. We sort of stick out in public...and people notice us with whatever we're doing. I have to constantly remind myself what and who I represent so I can to my best to be a good example. Sometimes people look at us funny, and I catch people looking at my name tag all the time. (I've been asked if I'm a nun a few times haha) It's great because this often provides us with an opportunity to share the gospel. We are taught to talk with everyone we meet because the Lord places people in our paths who are ready and prepared to hear the Gospel.

This morning was one of those times. While we were doing our laundry at the laundromat, we were studying 'Preach My Gospel' and talking about some principles taught in the lessons. This guy was standing near us, waiting for his clothes to dry. He turns to us and says: "You girls studying for a test or something?" We smiled and told him that we were missionaries and that we were studying the gospel of Jesus Christ. This provided the perfect opportunity to ask about his faith and teach him about the restoration of the Gospel. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and offered him a copy and invited him to read the account of Christ's ministry to the people of the Americas (found in 3 Nephi 11) He said he'd definitely read it and said, as he was leaving: "Thank you. You ladies have a great day. May the Lord bless you...I'll be praying for you."

Who knows if anything will ever come of this simple encounter at the local laundromat...but we were able to plant a seed of truth and invite him to come closer to Christ through the restored Gospel. It reminded me that as members of the church, whether missionaries or otherwise, we must ".....stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in...." even if that place you're in is the laundromat. :)

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Hyer

Our turkey veggie tray! :)

Happy Thanksgiving

The FEAST

Just the coolest missionaries in the M.I.M

We got Elders in our ward! We make a good team! :)

There's this weird meal out here that everyone eats called 'chicken and noodles'.it's a traditional Midwest/Kansas/Missouri dinner. we told our neighbors we'd never tried it, and they FREAKED. So we got a knock on our door thanksgiving night with a few plates of chicken and noodles for us to try. it's basically chicken, noodles and gravy, served over potatoes. Not your typical Thanksgiving dinner, but not too bad!