Elder Henry May 20th

Beautiful family Michael, Elder Chidester, and Bishop Pugin baptized Sunday.

Dear Dad,

I cannot believe what I'm seeing. Just being here in Brasil see the picture of the Zilla (controller for the electric truck they built) sitting on you desk leaves me with an excitement that I didn't even know was there. Finally a -Zilla-. I feel like our little truck has finally grown up and made it to -Zilla- status. Now we, with the rest of the EV's will be able to dominate Tokyo with our ZILLA's MUHAHAHAHA.... err I mean drive the streets of Vancouver at a relatively normal speed for about 10 miles until our batteries run out of juice...

      Tell Marko to take all the good EV stuff out of his Fiat and throw it into a car that deserves to live. Then take that Fiat and through it into the nearest junkyard and forget about it. If there are 4 car dealerships that I have come to hate here in Brasil its the Fiat, Peugeot, Citröen, and Renault (with Renault being the brand of car I least hate). We are not missing out on anything car wise in the states.

      You always make me laugh with your reactions to Sherry's boyfriends. It's absolutely hilarious.

Anyways I have to get going. Love you Dad. Don't blow up your zilla.

 

Love,

Elder Henry

Dear Mom,

Yup, V is our next baptism coming up this Saturday.

      Happy 24th anniversary! Mmmm, Beaches sounds really good all of the sudden. One thing I do miss about the states are nice restaurants. Here you've got a ton of cheap all you can eat buffets, which was AWESOME when I got here. Now I miss going down to Vancouver and trying out all the little restaurants that they have down there.

      So yesterday was a record day for me. We baptised a family of 6 people, the most baptisms I've ever had on any one single weekend. I was super happy to see them finally come into the church, especially the Mom, who actually found what she needs inside the church. We are looking at about 3 more baptisms next weekend, and I'm super excited for this week as we continue our work. We also have a ton of references we have to visit and get caught up on. Yup we are pretty busy these days, which is Great! I love when there is so much work and so little time, because you just work all day long. Its awesome!

      Love you guys. I'm attaching a photo of the Baptism. The other Man in the photo with the glasses is the Bishop, and then the kids, and the Mom in the back.

Love,

Elder Henry

Photos and update from Elder Henry

With Elder Paula, one of the zone leaders



Bishop, Elder Chidester and me, Super-Heros of Mathias Velho!

 

We had a wonderful Skype visit with Elder Henry, and no technical difficulties this time (although he called an hour later than we expected, since our time changed and he didn't realize it).  He loves Brazil so much and he is going to miss Rio Grande do Sul a lot when he comes home he said.  They are working on continuing to build the ward in Mathias Velho, and his English is a lot better than it was at Christmastime because of his American companion Elder Chidester.  A few highlights:

They continue to teach and baptize people and have found a large family who are embracing the Gospel. 

The ward and the Bishopric are doing great things to strengthen the ward and even though they didn't like the food at his Mexican Fiesta, they appreciate the effort that was put into it and Michael appreciates that they still give him a hard time about it hahaha/kkkkk.   (kkk is haha in Brazil).  The family who's computer he used to Skype us was really funny and made him tell us about it!

Michael and his companion have lots of fun on Pday, they had a churrasco (barbeque) this week with an investigator and sometimes play games like Risk.

 He told us about some crazy things in Brazil like how there are dead chickens left in places as an offering and people go around with chicken blood on their heads to become part of some cult down there. 

He was sort of awkward like it seems like all missionaries are toward the end of their missions--it will be "fun" to have him home and adjusting (aka sending him to Provo asap! haha).

He will be training for his final transfer and is SUPER excited about it!!!!  He is not cruising toward finishing his mission, he really serves with all of his heart each day and we are so proud of him!

Elder Henry this week!

Looks like a delicious meal for the Elders!

Dear Dad,
Have I ever told you that whenever I tell people that we (mostly you) made an electric truck everyone just thinks I'm the coolest missionary ever? Thanks for that dad ;).
     That's awesome that you all went to the baptism. We have a pretty hard time in our Ward getting anyone to go to baptisms, so I'm sure the missionaries appreciated your presence.
     Our weather is FINALLY getting cooler. Last week was almost felt like summer again. I'm hoping it was our last week of hot weather and that from here on out it will start getting into the cool winter weather. It's a comfortable 18 degrees out right now, right where I like it. (Celsius of course :P).
       That's a bummer about the controller, but I'm kinda confused. How are you gonna get a Zilla? I thought they stopped making them 3 years back. Did they go back to making them again?
     I can't wait till Sunday to chat it up. Love you Dad.
Love,
Elder Henry

M.'s baptism!

Dear Mom,
Seems like you completely forgot that Mother's day is this week lol. From what I remember you guys get done with church at 2 right, which would be 7 for me. So I'm planning on calling home at about 2, 2:15 your time. Same rules as ever, and I'll use my skype account to call.
     Week was good. We baptised M yesterday which was good. Other than that we have been working and ended up cutting a couple of investigators from our teaching pool, but that's normal missionary life for you. We are working a lot with less actives and completing families and the like. The last two days have been pretty hectic with running all over the place doing baptismal interviews and service projects. I'm pretty excited to just relax a little bit today after a weekend rush.
     I got news from BYU that I didn't qualify for a scholarship because my GPA is too low. (its like 3.3-3.4 and the cut off for half scholarship is 3.6). I'll need to get a good job when I get home that's for sure, so I can pay for my schooling.
     That's super exciting for Spencer that he could go to his first Baptism where he helped out :).
I love you Mom, I'll talk more on Sunday!
Love,
Elder Henry

Sherry's fish in Baja

Of course Sherry caught the biggest Pompano that my mom's friend who fishes all of the time down there has ever seen.



They look so much alike <3



HOLA!

She is having a blast with her Granny!  What a lucky girl--who paid her own way for the visit I must add =)

Letter home from Elder Henry 4/29/13

Dear Mom,
I've been a district leader for about 6 months now...(we just got a letter this week from his mission president telling us he'd been called, I thought Brazil regular mail was bad, but apparently email is even slower! haha).

Did you guys have a broadcast Stake Conference this weekend? We had one which was pretty awesome, we heard from Elder Scott, Elder Ellis from the 70, Gary E Stevenson Presiding Bishop and Sister Stephens from the Relief Society Presidency. There were some awesome talks in the stake conference, and was a super uplifting experience in all.

Yup our American recruits have dried up for a little bit. We were supposed to have 26 new missionaries come in this transfer, and only 7 got here (2 of which were American). Sounds like everyone is stuck state-side once again.

What I'm going to need clothes wise when I get home. Uhhhhhh, like a couple t-shirts, some jeans, what do normal people wear in the States these days? Probably some winter clothes, a couple hoodies/jackets. I honestly don't even know how to wear normal clothes anymore. I probably won't need very many new white shirts, and my suits are still pretty intact, as they don't get all that much use. Although, I -may- buy a new suit here because there is a place close to my area that makes suits tailored to you in the range of 25-100$ for the suit coat and pants. If I'm not mistaken, that is a much better price than any new suit you're gonna buy in the states.

This week was actually pretty fruitful. We had our first English Class last week which went pretty well. We had 4 non members show up and 12 people in the class in all. We are hoping to be able to keep this class rolling and baptising because of the class.

We had a pretty cool experience last week. Two weeks ago we were contacting some people on the street, and Elder Chidester was talking with a lady that speaks English.  We taught them last Friday, and the first lesson went really well. We asked her how she knows English and it turns out she works for the United Kingdom Embassy here in Porto Alegre. Anyways we invited her to baptism last Friday and she and her husband accepted. We'll see how everything goes.

We actually had a really good finding week last week, as we ended up the week with 20 new investigators. I wish all my weeks were like that. Unfortunately hardly anyone went to church, so now we have to get back to work with these investigators.

I hope everything goes well with Bailey's first missionary lesson tonight! How exciting it is to have missionaries in your home.

Love,
Elder Henry

Dear Dad,

Well Sherry's off to Mexico today huh? How exciting is that! I loved my two week stay with Gran-Gran in Mexico. Of course, I think I would understand the people there a lot better today than I did then lol. Dad that's a crazy temple story. I could just see a great title to this story like, "The Pants that went WRONG!" Of course that kind of sounds like a Dr. Who episode more than missing a pair of pants at the temple :P. You know the funny thing here in Brasil is that if you rent temple clothing you don't get charged, even normal members, because usually people go to the temple on a Bus from far away, and they don't always have temple clothing or money for temple clothing. The temple here is super small too, about the same size or smaller than the Newport Beach temple in California.

I love you Dad, thanks for keeping me updated on life back home!

Love,

Elder Henry

Not getting transferred, hooray!

Dear Mom,

Did you ever know that I hate writing? I could never be an author, just sitting down and thinking about the huge task of writing everyone back after reading the e-mails just makes me sick to my stomach. Well here we go!

So tomorrow is transfers, and I and Elder Chidester are staying together. I'm super surprised by this, because I thought for sure we were having too good of a time together to stay together. All my other companions I've had that I absolutely loved I only got to stay with them for a transfer. Well I'm not going to complain about it :P.

Yup, Elder E. Black lived in the same part that Sherry is going to serve in in Switzerland.

This week was pretty rough in the work again. I don't really understand it, because we were doing everything right, and we simply didn't find anyone home... Oh well, I'm pretty sure we are passing through some hard times because we need to become better missionaries and we only become better through trials. I'm hoping with the start of our English Class this week we will be able to turn things around.

Transfers sure are anti-climatic when nobody gets transferred. Like today was supposed to be a super crazy day, and now its just another normal P-day. Oh well...

I think all Missionaries write less and less the closer we get to the end of the mission so, don't feel like its a personal thing Mom. I'm looking forward to Mother's Day :).

All my Love,
Elder Henry

What kids with Autism Spectrum can do.

My Tori has always been really afraid of crowds.  I couldn't take her to the supermarket when she was little, she would freak out at all of the sensory input there, and every Sunday was a huge struggle at Church because she was so frightened by the crowds.  Of course, we didn't know what the problem was, luckily she was our fourth child so we were so much more patient with her than the older kids!   She was diagnosed with developmental delays when she was almost 3, major speech delays and Sensory Integration Dysfunction.  It has only been in the past couple of years that we realized she had PDD-NOS on the Autism Spectrum, she was always "too friendly, too loving, too social to have autism."  So we all thought.  We are grateful for the continuing research into Autism that helps Tori and other children on the spectrum achieve to their capabilities.
    Anyway, Tori really works hard at things.  She never succeeded in giving a talk in Primary at Church her entire 11 years.  She couldn't do class presentations.  She would prepare and practice, then up in front of all those faces she had meltdowns.
    Well, look at her now---singing in front of a few hundred people at her school choir concert--singing a SOLO!  All of her teachers and therapists have a part of this, as well as Monika Tabor who was her choir teacher for her first 3 years at Laurin and helped her to believe in herself and overcome much of her fear of standing in front of crowds, the support and encouragement of Jana Hart her current choir teacher, and of course Tori's interim vocal coach ChristyAnne Ford.

And here is one with her speech therapist---Mrs. Nitsch has been Tori's speech therapist for a total of 7 years I believe, 3 in preschool, 4 in middle school---on the guitar, I love watching Tori's complete trust and appreciation for her in this song!

We are so grateful for all the people who have helped us to help Tori become the amazing young lady she is blossoming into!