Michael's homecoming--video

It took me this long to be able to watch it.  I hope you enjoy it, too.  You can read about some of the funny things he said when he first arrived home.

Culture shock! Elder Henry is home!!!

Elder Henry has actually had a pretty good time adjusting back to normal life, but I was typing some of the funny things he said when we first got him back from Brasil. Oh and btw, the family from last week did get baptized, yay Facebook for keeping in touch with members from your mission.  Enjoy!

THERE HE IS!!!!!!!!

Ahhh!!!!!!!!!

The Mom hug!!!

Family hug!

Tori taking a photo with her "new" phone (aka Sherry's old phone)

I couldn't stop hugging him or smiling!

WHOA this phone is like a computer!!!

He looks great!

Good old American Root Beer.

Tori also inherited Sherry's guitar

Elder Henry and Sister Henry in the MTC!  I LOVE THIS PHOTO!!!!!

Seeing Sherry at the MTC

Reunited with Gran Gran

Sherry's good friend Andrew served in the mission next to Michaels so I made them wear their matching soccer jerseys for  a photo to send her!

Michael's initial reactions to the USA:

These cars are so big!

I love carpet!

The highway is so big!

Tina is so fat!

Is the cell phone 3g or 4g?

What can you all do on the cell phones?

Oh look its the carpet in our house (Tori showing him a photo of the cats)!!!

Every single house has 4 or 5 dogs and there are lots of street dogs they are nasty they bite they have Sarna a black skin disease you can get from them they are all deformed. Terrible smell.

The cats take care of themselves

Telling us about how the Brazilians thought mild mexican food was so spicy

BAH is an expression of surprise or excitement

Uhhu means yes or uh huh

MOM! I want to do all the laundry when I get home! I can't wait to use a dryer instead of hanging everything! And I want do all the dishes!!!

Where are the dirt roads?

Wait we have unlimited minutes?!!! In Brazil I had 100 minutes a month! The United States is great!

I'm cracking myself up with my own accent! English is weird!

SCREENS ON THE WINDOWS!!!!!!!!!!

I LOVE AMERICA!!!!!

The first time he ate tacos, without hot sauce, he thought they were spicy.  hahaha!

Leaving his "son" with 4 pending baptisms, Elder Henry heads home.

Dear Dad,
     You hit the nail on the head.  I simply feel super surreal, I feel like a deer staring into the headlights waiting for the car to hit me lol.  At least -I- remembered Spencer's birthday.  Of course, a lot of good that does him, seeing as I'm still here in Brasil LOL.
     I'm pretty confident that my greenie will be able to make it here no problems.  Unfortunately for me, we have 4 more baptisms lined up for next week that the next missionary will be able to inherit. (Michael trained his current companion, so he is his "son" in mission tradition).
     I'm pretty excited about our mountain climb.  You know I've never hiked to the Y before?  I would love to go with you guys.
Love you Dad, until Thursday!
Love,
Elder Henry

Yeah, I'm pretty anxious to see you guys again.  Man it really doesn't feel like the end of the mission.  I feel like there's still another year or so left for me, now I understand why everyone says, the mission is so short.  When you are in the mission it feels like it will never end, but now that I'm here, it all seems surreal.

Also I'm planning on leaving most of my Shirts/Pants, my trench coat, a pair of shoes, and the camera here with some members and recent converts.  Paula, the bishop's wife has needing a camera for a long time, and with your permission I'd like to give it to her as a parting gift.  It probably isn't worth that much in the states, but a new camera here is out of reason for a Brasilian.  They are super expensive for what they make in a month. 

I have flip-flops and tennies, as well as tee-shirts.  Cargo shorts would be good, but I also have a pair of gym shorts (only problem is they are pretty raggy already).

I love you all, until Thursday!

Love,
Elder Henry

Last baptism of his mission! And 4 Elders in the ward now!

Last baptism of the mission!  In beautiful Mathias Velho.

Dear Mom,

Of course I'll write next week. It will probably be super short. But for sure I'll send at least a "I'm alive!".

     Well we had yet another baptism this week, but beyond that we don't have any perspectives for this week in baptisms. We had a super productive week administratively as we received two new missionaries in Mathias Velho. I feel pretty good about that, as I took a ward that was baptising 3 per year, to a ward that needs to have 4 missionaries because of all the work here. Of course not everything is perfect, and our apartment is SUPER cramped (its basically a studio apartment, with one tiny little bedroom. The poor other pair of missionaries are sleeping on the floor because they don't have beds, and not even space to put two more beds). We hammered out a ward mission plan, and for the first time since I got here, the bishop actually seems excited to work. Yeah, I feel pretty satisfied with what I have done here in Mathias. Now I just have to find something productive to do this week as we have hardly any investigators >.>.

     Yup. I'm pretty excited to come home next week, but its super surreal. I feel like just like I felt like before the mission. "I'm actually going home? I'm actually going to live in a different country here in a week? What's it going to be like?" <- Pretty much the thoughts passing through my head. The new companionship here are Elder F. Oliveira and Elder Luz, both are from São Paulo. They are both 4 months into the mission, so we've got 3 greenies all in one house with me lol. Well I guess I'll attach a photo of the baptism before I go.

     Love you Mom!

Love,

Elder Henry

Looks like they were having a good time with some of the new converts and YSA's.

Strong to the finish.

I can't remember if this has been on the blog already--reliving his childhood by playing in the ball pit with children in Mathias Velho.

 

 

Dear Dad,
     I wanted to let you know, because of our conversation a couple weeks ago of how we had baptised yet another mom (without the father) into the church, that miracles still happen. Heavenly Father was able to help their marriage, and here we have the last member of the family being baptised into the church. L, the father.
     Ah man, how I am dying for some fresh home baked chocolate chip cookies!!!
Love you dad,
Love,
Elder Henry

 

Dear Mom,
Sherry is completely right. Absolutely ridiculous 35$ for a piece of paper that says "I've never done nothing wrong here in Clark County". (Sherry had to pay for her police letter and her Apostille this week and was none to happy with the fee system).
     Yup we watched the missionary broadcast on Sunday, it passed here at 7 o'clock, so I'm pretty sure they taped it and showed to us afterwards.  How crazy is that! Missionaries will be able to use facebook and blogs now to proselyte! Of course it will probably take a while to hit here in Brasil, where we still don't have cars, or cell phones that can text :P. Fortunately for Sherry she'll probably be able to use Facebook on her mission (lucky!).
    This week we finally finished off I's family. Her husband was baptised into the church. I really hope things continue to go well for this family and that they will stay strong in the church. I've done my part, now its up to the ward and them to make the right choices. They are going to have a rough road ahead of them, but I believe that they can make it to the temple one day. Oh man, I hope that here in a year I see a picture of them sealed in the temple :).     

     Speaking of temple, we are going to the temple today with President Wright. My last time going through the temple here in Brasil for probably a long time.
     I forgot to tell you, we are 100% safe down here, I don't know if there's been anything on the news about it in the states, but there are a ton of Protests going on here. Nothing super serious, and there is some violence but much less than the TV shows. Also everything is happening in like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. There are protests happening here in Porto Alegre and there was one yesterday in Canoas, but we are so far from the center of the city that I didn't hear or see anything.
     Love you Mom, can't wait to see you in a couple more weeks.
Love,
Elder Henry

Going strong to the end.

Dear Dad,

That's awesome that the truck is up and running once again!
The travel plans aren't too bad for me. I don't really mind a road trip, but I will be released for the trip right? Because I do -not- want to spend 14 hours in a car without music or movies to watch. Heck, I'll be able to use that time to catch up on Dr. Who with the whole gang ;). Also after visiting Sherry in the MTC I was planning on heading up to the Provo Temple, and meet up with some of my friends for a little while to chat and say Hi. Nothing that will take the whole afternoon, but something like 30 minutes to see everyone before heading back to Washington.

Well I better go e-mail Mom before I run out of time. Love you Dad!

Love,
Elder Henry

 

Dear Mom,

Well life is pretty normal here in Mathias Velho. We didn't really get a whole lot accomplished last week. It was one of those weeks where you pass by your investigators and they aren't home all week long. Like it was a conspiracy against the missionaries. A.L. was confirmed yesterday which was good. L went to church, and has a baptismal date for next Sunday, and most of our recent converts were at church as well. So yeah everything yesterday was pretty pleasant.

Its a misty gray Washington kinda day, which is pretty awesome, and we are gonna spend most of our P-day today with Vitor and Ederson. Mmm, I do miss your pork chops and applesauce.

Yeah pretty lame e-mail. but hey that's life right?

Love you Mom,

Love,

Elder Henry

 

Another great week topped off with a baptism!

Sister Ferinho's birthday party with the zone
 

Ana Lúcia's Baptism

Dear Mom,
Nope, I'll probably order the suits next week. I talked a little bit more about prices, and turns out its not -as- awesome as a deal as I thought it was. Its gonna be about 100$ per suit, depending on the fabric I choose there the finished suit will fall between $75 and $125 and comes with the pants, which is still a great deal I think, but its not quite as good as I thought it would be. I'm thinking that we'll only have money for one suit, and I'll probably get another black with pin-stripes because the one I took on the mission is pretty battered up from 2 years...
     Yeah I'm pretty sure there's no way I can afford Alpine Village... Waaaay too expensive for me. I was looking at the BYU website right now and trying to remember a little bit about Southridge, and I'm pretty sure I had a friend the lived there, Dave. What I remember about the apartment is that it was kind of dirty, and had a really small living area. Of course the dirtiness was probably the tenants fault and not the apartment, but I'll ask Sherry a little bit about it.
     Awww, Strawberry Shortcake sounds soooo good right now.... Heh, my companion just got done writing his family in Spanish, and now he's trying to talk to me in Spanish without even realising it :P. Fortunately I'm starting to pick up on his Spanish, but he usually has to repeat 2 or 3 times before I understand. I totally know what he's going through, because whenever I wrote you guys right when I got here, I had a terrible time trying to write Portuguese, because you are thinking in English instead of Portuguese.
     Weather today is grey with a chance of rain. Good old Washington weather. What I don't understand is there appears to be -more- Mosquitoes now than in the Summer! They should all be dead already! Don't they know that when winter comes they need to DIE!? It's not nearly as cold as last year in Rio Pardo. I think it stays a little bit warmer here closer to Porto Alegre.
     Elder Mendoza is speaking really well, because Spanish is really close to Portuguese. Its really quite interesting, because about half the words in Spanish are the same as Portuguese, and the other half are completely different.
     We had another baptism yesterday, an 8 year old who goes to church with her grandma, who is going to church for like 25 years, but never was baptised because of some problems in her documents. Anyways it was a nice service, we'll see if we can't string up another baptism this week, we are on a 4 week roll here! I don't want to stop it now. What's cool is Elder Mendoza can say that he's baptised every single week of his mission until this point LOL. I'm really glad that we are able to have baptisms together, because I remember my first transfer in the mission without baptisms, and I kind of felt like, man this baptism thing is -never- gonna happen.
     Anyways I should go write the rest of the family. Love you Mom.
Love,
Elder Henry


Dear Dad,

It's still quite strange to me that we are in different seasons. You are getting the pool set up, Mom's making Strawberry Shortcakes, and we are starting up our soup season, the wood stoves are coming out, and everyone is settling down for winter. You know there is nothing more awesome than a wood stove. Food just tastes a hundred times better when it's cooked on a wood stove, and of course you keep the whole house warm. Every time I see one here, it reminds me of Great Grandma's wood stove in her house in Eugene.

Love You Dad,

Love,
Elder Henry

Let's learn Spanish again too!

Elder Mendoza, E.'s dad, E., and Elder Henry!

Dear Mom,

Do you have any contact with Elder Black's Mom? Because he pretty much didn't know anything about anything, he didn't know if his Apartment fits 4 or 6. Anyways I can't talk with him anymore about the situation because he went way out into the middle of nowhere and I can't e-mail him while I'm on the mission.

That's super cool that you guys went down to Eugene for a baptism!

Only 6 more weeks before Sherry leaves LOL. I bet she's anxious to leave. (Actually it's a little over  5 now!)

We had E's baptism this Sunday, the other man in the Picture (other than my companion) is his Dad. He felt super good at the baptism and we are going to start teaching him today as well. I'm pretty excited, it would be awesome for both of them to go to church together :).

Anyways the LAN house is closing I'm gonna have to get going. Lots of Love.

Love,
Elder Henry

PS Forgot to tell you, My new companion is Elder Mendoza, from Paraguay! He doesn't speak English, and is learning Portuguese! Maybe I'll pick up his Spanish and speak 3 languages when I get home!

Last transfer of the mission.

Vitor & Douglas's baptism

 

 

Transfers!  I'll be staying here and training and Elder Chidester will be leaving.  I'm pretty excited to train for my last transfer, I can't wait to see who will be my greenie :).
     One more thing about BYU, Elder Black said that there might be room in his apartment for another couple people and I would LOVE to live with him, but I remember you saying something about paying a deposit.  Is there anyway for me still to switch over to his apartment?  I'll see him tomorrow at Transfers so I'll be able to get more details from him. 
     That's super cool about the new mission in Vancouver.  Where are they going to put the mission office? 
So this weekend was the Baptism of Vitor and Douglas.  It still kind of blows my mind how many baptisms we've had, honestly it doesn't feel like so many because it was just one family.  We started teaching a new couple that went to the Ward dinner party last Friday.  There names are Chay (sounds like Shy) and Guilherme.  Guilherme was a really successful investor until the 2008 crash and lost everything.  We had a great first lesson on Sunday, and I just love sitting and talking with him as he pretty much went the same career path that I'm looking at.  Anyways they both loved the dinner and want to go to Church next Sunday.

     Well this E-mail is kinda short, but there wasn't too much more that happened.  I love you all.

Love,

Elder Henry

Burger King & McDonalds with Vitor on P-day

Dear Dad,
 Here its really common as well for missionaries to pick up 9-11 year old kids off the streets and teach and baptize them which I really just do not like.  If this family stays active and continues firm in the church, there will be many missionaries that come from their family :).  The gospel really works the best when the family learns together in the home.

     I'm pretty excited to receive my greenie tomorrow.  I'm really quite happy I'll have the opportunity to get a brand new missionary, although it is a really big responsibility as your trainer really shapes how the rest of your two years go.  I'm excited though :)

Love you Dad.

Love,

Elder Henry

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

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

Letter home from Elder Henry 4/15

Dear Mom,

So here is the deal on the flights, I have permission from president to leave a couple days early to get home in time to see Sherry. The only problem is we don't have any way to control when I come home, just when I hit get on the first plane. Basically what he told me is he doesn't choose the flights or anything like that. He tells Salt Lake, Elder Henry needs to leave on this day at this hour, and then Salt Lake books the flight and sends the passages back. So there is really no way to guarantee that I could show up in Salt Lake Wednesday morning. He said our safest bet would be to send me home on the Saturday before and then I'd show up sometime on Sunday in Vancouver which we have permission from president to do. The only bad part about this is I'd miss out on my final dinner with President and all of the missionaries that are leaving with me which I really don't want to miss out on. So my choice is really between my last dinner with my Mission Friends and Mission President, or see my sister before she leaves for a mission. We can't move the dinner either, because president has put a rule against it. I told the secretary I'd let him know what I want to do next week so yeah, I'm stuck in this situation. (i.e. What should I do?)

I haven't really lost all that much weight on the mission. I was looking the other day and I've gone down to about 202 pounds, before the mission I was around 210, so its not really all that much of a difference, which drives me insane because I'm working my butt off here, and I only eat like 1 meal a day!

Our baptismal dates have all fallen through. We'll probably scrape one back up to be baptised, but the other three just died out this week. We actually had a pretty rough week last week as everything fell through on our faces and we went to teach new investigators and nobody was home when they said they would be. The funny thing is with everything that happened last week usually I would be pretty upset/discouraged, but because of my companion Elder Chidester we are just having a great time together. Of course there are things we need to do better, but I'm just loving my time with him. We are just instant awesome friends :).

AHHHH TIME IS RUNNING OUT SO QUICK! Ever since they made a new but still 1 hour limit of E-mail mission rule I just never have enough time to write everyone. Sorry to cut you short, thanks for all the updates from home.

Lots of Love,

Elder Henry

Happy birthday Elder Henry!

Pancake breakfast at the Bishop's house before Conference on Sunday

Wonderful baptism Saturday between Conference sessions!

Canoas' Skyline

Dear Mom,

We did have a Dinner appointment lined up (for his birthday tonight), but then we decided that we need to go and teach instead of eat, so we postponed for a different day. Although seeing as we are headed off to the Temple today, we'll make sure to use the opportunity to get a nice hearty American Lunch at Outback Steakhouse. Thanks for the birthday lunch ;). 

     They only have crab grass here for lawns, although quite a few of the older folk have their own gardens. But yeah, nothing like the states lol. Our Zone P-day was pretty awesome, we got to play a few hours of basketball, which was AWESOME. There's nothing like playing basketball with Brasilians to just make you feel like a super-star LOL. We have district meeting every week, Zone Meeting every month, and a Multi-Zone Conference every 3 months. Those are some of your best times as a missionary, as you get to see and chat with your friends that are in a different area.

      That's super cool that President Harbertson's son is going to Porto Alegre Norte!

      President Wright told me to talk with the Secretary (about getting home early enough so it's before Sherry has to report to the MTC), so I think that's a yes. I'll have to talk with him to make sure he can book a flight on the right day/hour.
     So this week was just super full of things to do. It was great, and ended with two baptisms! Nothing better than Baptisms right? It was pretty cool because after the Morning session ended at 3, we all just went over to the Relief Society Room,  we had our baptism, and then we had a snack, and went back to conference. Just like General Conference was planned out to have a break just for our baptism ;).

     Other than that, we spent had an exchange this week, so I went with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Paula, and Elder Chidester went with Elder C. Neves to Rio Branco. It was a fun exchange and we worked our tails off. I'm really just enjoying this transfer a ton as I'm with Elder Chidester and we just work together great. We are working towards baptizing 4 more people this weekend, so we'll see how everything goes :).

     I need to get going to take the train to get to the temple. I love you thanks for all the birthday wishes.

Love,

Elder Henry

Dear Dad,

     I'll go ahead and write now as because if I wait, there probably won't be an opportunity. General Conference was really awesome. I just was waiting for it all week and it was just as awesome as I thought it would be. In fact we even got ourselves a pancake breakfast here on Sunday morning from our Bishop and his Wife thanks to mom sending me some maple extract. It was like a normal Sunday Morning at home. (Because here Conference is from 1-3 and 5-7 due to the time zones so we had spare time in the morning ;)).

      We ended up watching Priesthood session on Sunday morning as well because our mission president doesn't let us watch it at night, seeing as its so late (from 9-11 on Saturday night). I asked our bishop if we could catch the re-broadcast Sunday morning and he lent us the keys to get things all set up. It was great!

      New Dr. Who companion huh? Man a lot has happened since I've left on the mission, I can't wait to get caught up afterwords. And who knows, maybe Tori will go to London when she leaves on a mission! How cool would that be?
I love you Dad.

Love,

Elder Henry

"I'm already starting to miss my mission..."

This is an older picture of Elder Henry from almost a year ago, but I hadn't seen it yet and it happened to pop up in his news feed when I was on his facebook accepting friend requests from Brazilians =)

Dear Mom,

     I e-mailed President to see if I could catch a flight on the 9th to get me into Salt Lake City on Wednesday Morning.  I'm sure we'll be able to work something out as its about 16 hours of flight, but I'll be gaining a couple hours on the way back :).  I don't really want to miss my last dinner with President Wright and all the missionaries from my group though.  But we'll see what we can work out.  Although if I fly into Salt Lake, I may never make it back home to Washington ;).  It would be pretty tempting to just land in Salt Lake and go right back to Provo...

     That's crazy that Elder Chadwick is getting married already!  Actually its right on time, about a year and a half since he came home from the mission is a good time to wait.  Well if you don't have someone already waiting for you.

     Yes we do lots of Exchanges down here.  Its a super useful tool that helps you teach a lot more people in a lot less time.

     We've had a pretty good week here.  We didn't really find a whole lot of new investigators as we spent most of our time following up everyday with our current progressing investigators.  We'll have to hit the finding part again this week as we start to drop old investigators and pick up new ones.  I'm really excited for General Conference this weekend, but it seems really strange to me that it will be my last one on the mission.  My time seems really short here, and I don't know if it makes sense, but I'm already starting to miss my mission.      

      I still feel a little bit jipped as I'm only going to have a year and 3 months here in Brasil, but everything will work out for the best right?

     We have 2 baptisms scheduled for this weekend, in-between the Saturday sessions of general conference.  I'm pretty excited as its been some time since the last baptism in January.  Anyways, we have P-day today with the whole zone and we need to get going to not be late.

Love you guys.

Love,
Elder Henry

Advice from Elder Henry to newly called S.Brasil missionaries

Dear Mom,

Like I would ever forget your birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I'll eat some cake with you when I get back okay?

Before I forget, tips and guidelines for a missionary coming to Porto Alegre North Mission (Lisa's good friend Melisa's son was just called to the same mission!):

Shoes: Don't buy Eccos. Everyone says eccos are awesome and comfortable and last a lot of time. They are, but they just don't hold up to the environment here. I've had numerous companions with eccos that have holes in them. Also you can't buy shoes bigger than size 12 here, Brasilians have really small feet, so if your shoe size is bigger than 12, you'll have to wait for a replacement package with shoes for about 2-3 months, IF they get here. Shoes are also really expensive here in Brasil, so its best to bring a pair you won't need to replace in two years of walking.

I recommend my Missionshoes that you got me. There is almost no wear on the bottom, and the only trouble I've had with them is the leather. They are also waterproof which is great. The leather doesn't hold up all that great, and one of the pairs has a big hole in the side where the leather wore out. Fortunately I was able to repair them because they have people here that repair shoes, only problem is its not waterproof, and the repair left them pretty ugly.

Suits, you will only use your suit at Zone Conferences, and to go to church on Sunday. Also Suits are pretty cheap here, so you can get by with just bringing one suit even though your call packet says two. If you need another one, you can buy a suit with pants here for less than $50 US Dollars

Weather: The weather here isn't colder than Washington. The coldest it gets here is 25 degrees in the winter, but bring some long-Johns because it will be like camping in 25 degree weather as your apartment will not have a heater. It does get REALLY hot in the summer, so you are going to want pretty much all Polyester blend short sleeve shirts. DO NOT BRING 100% COTTON SHIRTS. You will die.

It also rains here quite a bit, so bring a jacket that's waterproof and can be nice and warm in the winter, but also not too heavy for the other seasons. One coat I've seen that's pretty cool, is one Mr. Mac sells, that has a button-in liner that you can pull out when the weather's not very cold. It's also waterproof which is perfect.

Food/Culture: Well this is probably the best part of serving in Rio Grande do Sul, because there is a strong Gaúcho culture here which is a ton of fun. You'll drink Chimarrão, eat a ton of churrasco (the best churrasco of Brasil) and you'll notice that Rio Grande do Sul looks more like Europe than it does Brasil. In our mission we only have a handful of areas that are REALLY dangerous, so you won't need to worry too much about being assaulted, and also we good running water and not really any dangerous viruses around here. Bring all the medications on your call packet, I've used all of them. Sunscreen is really expensive and really bad here, bring it from the states.

I'm pretty sure that's the advise I have to give. All the other stuff you learn when you get here, lol.

That's great news about Duck Basketball! I doubt they'll make it to the Championship game, but at least they are at sweet sixteen for the first time in I don't even remember how long lol.

I'm glad to hear that the Life of Christ event was a success! Good job mom :)

Anyways I have to get wrapping up this e-mail. I spent way too much time talking about what to bring on the mission lol. Before I go I'll talk a little about the week.

We worked super hard this week with a family that I've talked about before, S (less active) and Ju (Investigator).  We have been passing by every day to teach them to help them get to church this week, and then J, S, B (J's Sister), B (Daughter), M (Step-mom) all went to Church. It was so great to see the whole family seeking the peace the gospel brings, everyone together. The church really is for Families. To bring together families and build the relationships of the family to last for all eternity. We went to their house yesterday after church, and  everyone was sitting together chatting, and having fun one with another.  The fruits of the gospel are settling in, moving the future of the family from separation, to resolving their problems and moving forward. I love to be a missionary.

I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Henry

Pig's Ears are yummy

Dear Mom,

Yup I got the new news about e-mails today. That's super crazy, I feel really strange sending e-mails to people that I haven't talked to for like a year and a half. I guess it doesn't really move anything in my mission because I've survived 19 months without e-mail to friends, so another 5 won't kill me, but it'll be great for Sherry and Spencer, right? It must be hard to be a Mom. You had to wait 21 years before you finally started to feel like you did something right as a Mom lol.

     I'm glad to hear that all is well on the home front. Everyone here asks me if my family is doing good, which is kind of funny because I don't ever even worry that something bad will happen to you guys while I'm here, because I know that the Lord will take care of you guys while I'm gone.

     I'll have to be a little bit shorter today, because now I have like 5 e-mails to write instead of 2 and I still only have an hour to do it all.

     This weekend was pretty rough for us, because Saturday almost all of our appointments fell through. Our only progressing investigator is doing great and is going to get her papers for the marriage so that she can be baptised in April. Man I do NOT want to wait until the end of April for another baptism. I'm getting all sorts of panicked because I just don't have that many months until the end of the mission, and I don't want to pass another one without baptising someone.       Anyways we are going to work super hard this week and next week so that on Easter Sunday we can have at least one baptism. I hope that everything will work out so we can meet that goal.

I love you mom, thanks for all the support.

Love,

Elder Henry

P.S. Almost forgot about my new companion, his name is Elder C from Draper, Utah. He's pretty new on the mission, 4 months, and I'm super super super grateful to be together with an American again. You know all my life you told me never to marry/date someone from a different country because there would be all sorts of cultural differences, and I never ever understood what you meant until I had Brasilian and African companions. Not that I didn't love them but there were just a couple cultural things that drove me CRAZY!!! Its funny but its never the big stuff that bugs you about your companion, but its all the little stuff they do that drives you bonkers :P. Anyways I'm loving my time with Elder Chidester and this transfer should be pretty AWESOME.

Dear Dad

That's great news about the Truck! I'm glad that after what 5 years of moving forward the truck has finally come to a halt! Its good to know that there are finally brakes on that truck that will stop us in the event of an emergency. I gotta go because time is up. I love you and love to hear from you.

Love,

Elder Henry

PS One more thing, I almost forgot to tell you. Remember those pig ears that we used to buy for Issac from petsmart that he loved? Yeah I found out last Saturday that Pig Ear is actually pretty tasty, now I know why he loved them so much. You just have to watch out to not eat the eardrum!

-Elder Henry

Elder Henry's letters are getting shorter

Dear Mom,

There really isn't an autumn here that I remember from last year. All the trees are still green but a lot of them will loose their leaves here in a bit. I'm pretty excited for the cold weather to come back. Oh and I did buy a new battery for the camera, but it was super expensive, 60 dollars for a dinky little battery. Oh well, at least I have a camera now right?

So today is transfers and Elder Moura will be leaving me tomorrow. I'll be staying here in Mathias Velho for a little bit longer, and we'll see who my new companion is tomorrow. Also Elder E. Black is headed out of our zone now as well. I really enjoyed having him here close this transfer. Its a bummer that we don't stay close longer than one transfer together. I think he's going to be the new assistant, but we'll see...

Haha, I totally forgot that Sherry will have even less time in the MTC because she knows a thing or two about German (she only has to stay two weeks, she's worked really hard to learn German since she began studying it last semester, her report date will either be changed to May 29 or July 3) :p. That's ok life is WAAAAY better in the field than in the MTC.

So we had a pretty sweet week this last week. First off I went on an exchange with Elder E. Black for a day, and man did that really just give me a turbo boost of what its like to be a missionary. We had some pretty epic lessons on the exchange and we just had a blast together. It was a lot of fun to stay together again for a day after being separated for such a long time. We have both learned a ton as missionaries in these last few months :).

Then on Friday and Saturday we found a ton of new families. At the end of the week we had found 22 new investigators. Only problem is only 2 went to church this week. But things are going well here, and I'm starting to really enjoy Mathias. Hopefully we'll be able to baptise this month :).

Anyways that was pretty much our week. I love you guys, thanks for all the updates from home.

Love,

Elder Henry

 

Dear Dad,

Maybe we'll have to take a trip together back to California for you not to miss it too much ;). That would be super cool if you got the upgrade on the Truck's brakes done and everything. Its been a long time since you decided that we needed to upgrade them haha. It would be super crazy for Sherry to leave one week and me come home on the other. Could you imagine it?

     Anyways Dad, thanks for the update on the home front. I hope you figure out these app's and get something started up ;).

Love,

Elder Henry

100th Post! Elder Henry's report from Canoas March 4th: Gauchos don't like spicy food.

We took Tori & Spencer to Disneyland--the older kids got to go on all kinds of choir tours and trips as they were growing up and we cut down on activities with these two.  They are such good kids who make good choices we wanted to reward them for making our life easier!

Dear Mom,

I loved the pictures from Disneyland. Looks like you all had a great trip there! Disneyland is definitely on my radar for things I want to do in the near-future. Especially being so close to Long Beach. I'm glad you enjoyed the sun, This last week we had a pretty mild week in the 90's and today and yesterday its raining.

That's great news about Kelsey being re-hired. I figured she would be, I mean who wouldn't want her as a teacher?

Ever since the beginning of this year, all foreign language missionaries had their MTC time cut by a third. So Sherry will stay in the MTC for 6 weeks instead of 9 (lucky...). The new greenies were supposed to come in this transfer but all the Americans got stuck in the US, so instead of receiving 20 new missionaries we got 12. The first 19-year-old Sisters haven't arrived yet. I didn't get an opportunity to buy a new battery for the camera. I'll have to look around today in Downtown Canoas, there should be a shop there that sells batteries for cameras. For my birthday in April, I really don't want a package. I'd rather celebrate my Birthday in July, and go and buy the things I'm going to need for college next year. By the time I get a mission package here, I'll be just about finishing up the mission and won't really need anything.

Mathias Velho is smaller than Gravataí, but not by much. Gravataí had an average frequency of 130 people in Sacrament meeting. Here its more like 100-110. Also our Chapel is an older smaller model, so the sacrament meeting room only holds 130 people, and the last two weeks was packed. I had a hard time finding a seat! Its the same style of chapel that I had in Rio Pardo, more fit for a Branch than a Ward.

The Mexican fiesta was pretty successful overall. We had 3 investigator families there, as well as a couple friends of the young men. We marked to teach all of them this week, and they all have pretty good potential to accepting the gospel. The food was a bit of a fiasco, because nobody liked the taco meat. They all complained that it was waaaay too spicy. I just laughed in their faces as I told them that I didn't even put HALF the pepper that the recipe called for. One thing's for sure, I'm never going to open a mexican restaurant here in the South. Gaucho's (the name for Brazilian cowboys--Southern Brazil/Argentina area) don't like Pepper, end of story XD. I loved the tacos though, tasted just like home ;).

We had a great lesson this Saturday as well with A. She and M have to get married legally before she can be baptised. We brought a member with us named D. He's a long time friend of M and helped a ton in our lesson. Actually I was fasting this Saturday-Sunday specifically for her to have the desire to be baptised, and at the end of our lesson on Saturday she told us, "Look if it weren't for this whole marriage thing, I'd go and be baptised tomorrow!" Unfortunately marriage takes a lot of time here in Brasil, so probably she won't be baptised until April.

We are also teaching a great family, J and L. They are friends of a less active member, and they remind me a lot of J and M in Rio Pardo. 

I just looked through a couple of the letters I sent home to you guys almost a year ago. Haha, what a trip. Its like I went back in time for a few minutes and was re-living the moments when I was writing to you. Something I saw is that the first week I arrived in Gravataí I said, well Gravataí has about 20x more problems than Rio Pardo, and now I'm feeling the exact same way with Mathias Velho XD. Except now looking back its like Gravataí was an AWESOME area, and Rio Pardo was an AWESOME area. Why is it only awesome after you leave?! I was feeling a little bit down this Saturday after the ward didn't really like the food on Friday, but I was really comforted on Sunday. We had 3 or 4 members get up and bore their testimonies about how they are seeing a change in the ward, and how the missionaries that are here now (Elder Henry and Elder Moura) are doing an awesome job. The members that went on splits with us also talked about how their testimonies were strengthened as they went out with us. It was really good to see that there really is a change going on in this ward, even if times are rough right now, the ward is preparing itself for growth, and when the ward is prepared to grow, missionary work explodes :).

I love you guys, I'm really happy to know that you'll had a great time at Disneyland :)

Love,

Elder Henry