Welcome to the Michigan Lansing Mission - We are Smitten with the Mitten

Dear Loved Ones,

Elmer and I have been here almost a week. And we really do love it.

The best things:
1. The missionaries
2. The stone fruit

The tough things:
1. Trying to go to bed early when it's barely dark at 10pm and adjusting to East Coast time.
2. Trying to remember to call each other by our mission titles in front of the missionaries.

The first thing to announce is that after only being in the mission 24 hours, I was made Vehicle Coordinator Supreme Commander. Just kidding! We have a young, talented, 19-year-old missionary who is our Vehicle Coordinator. But if any of you are in touch with Ernie Brazier, be sure to tell him I am the Vehicle Coordinator Supreme Commander. 

At the virtual Mission Leadership Seminar we attended before we flew to Michigan, we were told that there were 135 new mission leader couples being trained this year. Then they said, 77 couples would be able to go out to our missions to serve on time (arriving on or about June 30th) and 55 couples were delayed (mostly due to COVID-19 travel restrictions). I did the math too, I'm not sure what happened to the three couples who didn't make it into either of those categories.  But we felt very fortunate to be able to come to our mission as planned.  

When we arrived, we spent a little over an hour with the Brennans, who were here before us. They showed us where the mission office was, where the new mission home is being built, brought us to the current mission home, showed us where the keys are, showed us where to find the information on any missionaries who had health problems, and they left. I felt like I did when we left the hospital after having our first baby. After making sure you have an infant car seat properly installed, they let you just drive away with the baby - as if you are qualified to care for a new baby! Elmer was just trying to find the bathroom. 

All joking aside, we have felt very peaceful and happy about all our new responsibilities ever since we were set apart by Elder Todd Christofferson. It was a sweet and sacred experience. Not only have we felt led by the Spirit, but we have lots of help and support from our wonderful mission office missionaries and others. We know this is the Lord's work and He guides it. We are so happy to work with these wonderful missionaries. It is not an easy time to serve for these valiant young men and young women. Some of them have been in quarantine for over 100 days. But they are doing many great things and learning so much.

In July, we will go to the airport 4 times to pick up 33 missionaries. Usually missionaries arrive every 6 weeks. But we have 20 missionaries who have been reassigned from other missions during the global pandemic and 13 new missionaries. We are excited to have them!

We are beginning to get our bearings and can now go a couple of places without using GPS. But mainly we need GPS for every move we make.  We've been able to meet all our missionaries in the Lansing and Mt. Pleasant areas. Tomorrow will go to Kalamazoo and meet our missionaries there. Then on to Grand Rapids, Midland, and then after all our reassigned missionaries arrive (July 13, 14, 15), we will go up to the northern part of our mission for a couple of days to meet the missionaries in the Traverse City zone. 

Last night, we had a mission-wide zoom fireside with Cliff and Jenee Wallace as our special guest speakers. They had such wonderful counsel for our missionaries and such interesting experiences to share. Many of the missionaries emailed today about how much they learned from the Wallaces and how wonderful it was to hear from them. For those who aren't in our home 7th ward, Judge Wallace was the first temple president of the San Diego Temple. He is also a Senior Judge and the former Chief Justice of the 9th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. He is 91 and has a special assignment from the Quorum of the Twelve to work with the judiciaries of foreign countries to help them organize and administer their legal systems and courts in a manner that will give people the greatest freedoms and those freedoms will eventually allow the Gospel to be taught in every nation. He has worked with 65 different nations already in this work. His wife, Jenee, has her masters and doctorate in music from Stanford and is our Stake Communications (Public Affairs) Director. She and our other dear friend, Gay Dixon, have been my violin playing buddies in the ward. Being new and inexperienced, we asked them to help us on Saturday and they were there on zoom on Sunday. Amazing! We are grateful to have such dear friends to support us.

With love,
Elmer & Amy
aka President & Sister Heap


Elder D. Todd Christofferson, his mission companion Gavin, Elmer, me, and Elder Rand Bennett

Just because the MTC was closed due to a global pandemic, we were very blessed to get a private tour.

Here we come Michigan Lansing Mission!

Pointing out our first missions on the MTC map

Getting all the family together for Joshua's baby blessing and a family testimony meeting


We didn't get to rub shoulders with any other mission leaders since there was no MTC, but we did love meeting these fine mission leaders who were headed to Ecuador.

Greeting reassigned missionaries headed to the North Carolina Charlotte Mission where our friends Detlef and Jutta Adler are the mission leaders, and our other friends Ernie and Julie Brazier are the finest senior missionaries in the mission field.

Masked up and ready to fly!

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