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

 

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

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

Another wonderful baptism & admitted back into BYU!

From left: V (Neighbor of L who brought him to our english class), L,  Elder Roman, and Me at the baptism

Me, Bishop, L. Elder Roman, and R (who was baptized last week) at L.'s baptism.  L asked the Bishop to baptize him which was really neat.

Hey Mom,

Great news, I heard back from BYU already and I've been readmitted to the school :).  Looks like I'll be headed back Fall 2013 to my dreams!  I'm really quite relieved that I received a decision so quickly, I wasn't too worried I wouldn't get back in, but there was always a chance.  Now the future is as certain as it will ever be.  I also gave a look at MyMap to see how things turned out with my Associate's degree, and I'm only missing the religious requirements and another English class to finish up the GE's, so I'll be able to focus on my major when I get home.  I'm very excited to see everything work out so well :D.

Great news that the Ducks won against USC this weekend!  I'm still pretty much against the Ducks headed to the National Championship without me, but if they win I won't complain ;).

Its starting to get pretty hot.  It stays about 25-32 degrees Celsius but its very humid.  Yes the mosquitoes have returned and with a vengeance, fortunately I have OFF, but we'll see how long that holds them off.  I'm scratching pretty much every part of my body already and we aren't even in summer yet :P.  I'm sure I'll get accustomed to them soon enough.

This week didn't even feel like Halloween, I didn't even eat one piece of chocolate on Oct 31st :(.  Oh well, there's always next year...

So we had a pretty cool experience yesterday.  We didn't have anything planned for the afternoon, but L one of our Investigators was progressing super well.  We had already taught him everything and he had quit smoking and working towards a baptismal date of this coming Saturday.  As Elder Roman and I sat planning for our Sunday I told him, Elder, why don't we baptise L tomorrow?  We couldn't think of any reason to wait, so we called up our Zone Leaders and asked if they could give L an Interview after church.  After some deliberation they made room in their schedule for us and we marked for them to do the interview.

Sunday Morning we asked the Bishop, "I know we don't have anything planned for today, but could we have a baptism?"

The Bishop replied with a grin on his face, "Elders you only bring me good news!  Lets do it!".

The only person who we needed to confirm with was L, so after sacrament meeting we asked him, "L next Saturday will be a little bit tricky with your work schedule for the baptism."

He replied, "Yeah I know, what are we going to do?"

"Let's have your baptism today!"

"Today?"

"Yeah why not?"

"I don't know, one more week of preparation..."

"What's going to change from today until one week from now.  You are prepared for baptism already."

After a moments hesitation L replied, "Alright lets do it!"

So at 6 in the afternoon we had a baptismal service for L.  It was great, completely spontaneous and fun.  The bishop's daughters made a cake, and we had a great time.  Nothing has made me more happy than to see L baptised, because I brought a leader into the church yesterday.  Someone who will go off in a year and serve a mission.  Someone who will marry in the temple and be an Elder's Quorum President, Bishop, and who knows Stake President someday.  After the baptism, all the men from the ward surrounded him and made him feel at home.  What an awesome Sunday.  :)

The rest of the week was pretty hard, we didn't really find anyone new, and cut a lot of people we were visiting.  It's always hard to leave the people you've established a relationship, but sometimes these people just aren't ready for the gospel yet.  One day they will be and Missionaries will pass by and help them back.

Anyways I'm going to send this E-mail so I can reply to dad and e-mail our president.  I love you very much.

Love,

Elder Henry

Hey Dad,

Glad you guys had a fun Halloween :).  That's a bummer about Tori's tablet
dieing.  I'm still not convinced that a Tablet is for me though, I've seen
an I-pad or two here as well as a couple tablet/phones that have a few cool
tricks, but I'm still a big fan of the Tower/Monitor desktop computer ;).
You guys ended up buying a Chromebook?  I know a couple weeks back (maybe
months) you were talking about looking into one, but I didn't know you
bought one.  What's it like just having an internet browser?  Is it a lot
like having a tablet, or is it better or worse?  I suppose the cool part is
it still has a keyboard and mouse which I like a lot better than touch
screen technology, but still.... It's just an internet browser.

It's funny because homemade grape juice and eggs woulds seem like such a
treat in the US, but here its an everyday phenomenon.  For example
yesterday we had homemade Mango Juice, made from real mangoes, eggs are
commonly produced in the back yard (not everyone as them but quite a few,
and the ones you buy from the grocery stores are produced here in
Gravataí), and all our meals are cooked from scrap.  Nothing is pre-canned,
ready to cook, fast meals here.  You have to work to eat here, much
different from life in the US.  But real good grape juice is really good.
I'm excited because lots of our members have grape vines at their houses,
so here in a little bit we should be seeing home-grown grapes.

Got to go, but I hope you guys have a great week!

Love,
Elder Henry

Elder Henry~Gravatai 10/29/12

 

Elder Henry, Miguel R's Home Teacher, R. and Elder Roman at R's baptism =)

Finally I have a decent amount of time to write to you guys!  I'm really grateful for the help with those essay questions, I've forgotten a lot of the eloquence of English writing (not that I was ever all that good with English in the first place).  The questions looked a lot better after the revisions.  I just put all the questions in the boxes and submitted my application for BYU.  All that's left now is to wait until February/March and see what happens.

     I'm glad you are enjoying The District (a show on BYU-TV, Michael doesn't know this is the second season, not the ones he has seen).  It's actually pretty old, the missionaries had it for training purposes even before I left on the mission.  I think its about 2-3 years old, and I've watched it over and over and over, but it is pretty much what life was like in California.  Of course they weren't serving in Compton, its most similar to when I was in Whittier so far as demographics go.  Yes it does feel like a long time since I've been in Long Beach even though its only been about 6 months.  I'm 100% Brazilian nowadays. (Well as far as an American can be Brazilian)

     Politics are such a funny thing.  Here in Brasil all I ever here is how amazing the political system in America is, and how great it would be to be an American citizen.  Here in Brasil all the politicians do is rob rob rob rob rob.  For example, a city councilman in Vancouver receives something like $30,000 a year in compensation for his work.  Certainly a nice bonus, but nothing unreasonable as he will have to continue to work at his other job in order to continue to live.  Also Vancouver has 5 city councilors. Gravataí is a little bit bigger than Vancouver with about 250,000 people but its more or less comparable.  Here they have 25 city councilmen that gain R$10,000 per month, or $60,000 (american) a year.  Plus for every act they make they gain 30% of the expected cost of the bill.  So if they make a great big bill to build a hospital for 200,000,000 Reais, they'll gain 60,000,000.  Its absolutely absurd!  I've learned to appreciate our politicians much more, because for all their faults, at least they are working to gain an honest pay unlike the politicians here.

     I've never been robbed on the mission, but I always keep a little bit of money on me to give to thieves if I were robbed.  Fortunately I'm working in a very nice neighborhood, Gravataí really doesn't have nearly as much criminality as Porto Alegre.  Also I keep my money and my ID in different places, and Identity theft isn't a huge threat here (criminals are pretty stupid here), plus my Passport is locked away safe in the vaults of the Mission so I'll be able to return one day ;).

     I see Elder Glessing every now and then, but we are in different zones for the moment so I haven't seen him for about 4 months.

     Yup I can buy milk chocolate here, even Hershey's Chocolate.  I never thought I would see the day when I thanked Wal-Mart, but thanks to wal mart I have almost all the American products I'm used to.  The only things I don't have are Dr. Pepper and Root Beer :(.  Also walmart brand peanut butter isn't all that good, but its better than nothing.

As for my Christmas Wishlist:

Photos from everyone at home

And I have one really weird request, Could you send my decks of Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon cards down here?  I was talking with some people and they are really expensive here, so they make for a good presents, also helps them to learn English.

     So far as Weddings go, we marked the wedding for I and his family last week or two weeks ago.  Finally after a 5 month bureaucratic nightmare we marked the date for their wedding for November 24th, and the whole family will be baptized on November 25th.  I was so relieved to have that taken care of, now its just a wait for them as well as arrange everything for the wedding.

     S and N are on a bit of a hold, but they are only missing one paper and if everything goes right we should have the paper we need in hand here in 2 weeks, so they'll probably be married in December close to Christmas time.

     R was baptized which was very exciting on Sunday, and now we are going to work with his Grandma to help her into the church.  She was in sacrament meeting this Sunday and she really liked the church.  She also has a strong Christian background which means that the commandments won't be a problem for her at all.  I'd love to see the whole family in church together every week.

     Well that's pretty much my week.  Oh I almost forgot, this Saturday we had a huge ward party for the Youth to raise funds for EFY.  It was a blast and our investigators loved it!   I attached a couple photos of the activity.

Love,

Elder Henry

Dear Dad,

Man how I miss halloween, last year the missionaries got a TON of candy for Halloween, and this year nothing.  They don't even have Halloween here, how sad is that :(.  We had a pretty good week, and I'm excited to see our mission grow.  We really need more missionaries here to help the work.

     The LAN House is closing up, but thanks for keeping me up to date on the family.  I'm glad to hear Tori is working hard on her homework, and that the Ducks are creaming their opponents.

Love,

Elder Henry

Everyone gathering for the prayer at the ward party.

A picture of our ward activity, the place was packed with over 300 people who showed up.  More than double our weekly Sacrament attendance

August 27th, Gravataí

Family Home Evening with Ivo and his family and a family in the ward.  The kid to the left in the black shirt is a good friend of mine Nicolas.  He returned from his mission about a month ago and has been helping us out a bunch.  He also learned English on the mission and loves to practice with me.

Dear Mom & Dad,
What a weekend!  Sounds like you guys had quite the ride, and I'm glad everyone made it home safe and sound.  Send Grandpa & Grandma Nichols my love, and let him know I'm praying for him.  I'm glad everything turned out for the best, and that you can see the Lord's hand in everything.
     So now we have big Bear and little Bear in the family?  How will we be able to distinguish between the two?!  They can't both have the same nickname :P.  I had no idea Sherry was so into snowboarding.  I really want to pick up skiing when I get home, and I'll have ex-comps willing to help me out.  How crazy, Sherry will be skiing on the Alps 2013-2014.  Bah!
     A new senior couple has agreed to bring me a years supply of medicine in their bags so we don't have to worry about shipping it in, and I have enough to last me until they arrive.
So my week kind of turned out the same way as your weekend.  We had a lot of stuff just blow up in our face, but nothing really was damaged.  We didn't coordinate very well with the ward last week.
First on Thursday, we brought a bunch of Young Men to play soccer at the church, but the ward wasn't there.  They had told us every Tuesday and Thursday we will have activities at the church.  Turns out Thursday last week all the Adults went to the temple, so no one was there to coordinate the activity.  We had a handful of unhappy young men on our hand, but nothing too serious.
     Our Second boo boo happened on Saturday.  We had a big Choir Festival at our chapel last Saturday, and they had announced this for several Sundays in a row.  Elder Roman and I decided it really wouldn't be a very productive proselyting activity as most of the people would be from outside our area.  So we had planned on just going out and working, since Saturday night is a good night to catch people at home.  Turns out our Bishop had different plans.
     Soon after the Baptism on Saturday (actually during the Baptism) The Bishop yanked Elder Roman away to usher people into the chapel. Poor Elder Roman didn't even get to see the Baptism :(.  Afterwards we turned to leave and a couple of members begged and pleaded for us to stay but we had already marked commitments with investigators.  This did not detour our members from their purpose of convincing us to stay.  So we ended up rescheduling with our investigators and spending the time with the members.  We ended up not really doing all that much for 2 hours on a Saturday night, and the event ended at 9:30 so we ended up getting home late.  But our Bishop loves us, the members adore us, and they are helping us to find the elect, so in the end everything works out great :D.
     Finally this morning we went to the church to pick up some groceries that we had left in the Chapel on Saturday.  Turns out someone decided they needed them more than the missionaries and snatched them up.  Now I know I can't leave stuff in the church >.>.
     Anyway aside from this, the work is actually going along great!  We had an investigator, P, come to church for the first time this week, and she loved it!  She has already read the entire Book of Mormon and is reading the teaching of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  I've never met an investigator so golden in my life!  She loved church and is preparing to be baptized on Sep. 8th (Sherry's Birthday!).  Of course we were super excited to see L Baptised, she really moved a lot in her life to accept the restored gospel.  The work is moving along great, and have many other investigators with great potential to join the Church.
     Looks like time is running thin, so I'll wrap this up.  I love you, I'm glad everything worked out for the best this weekend.   Hope you and Dad are ready for school to start back up here in a week or two.  Thank you for writing me.
Love,
Elder Henry

The New Chapel at night

An overview of Gravataí with our new chapel right in the center :)

Elder Roman's Birthday, and Irmã Jove (we used to live at her house)

Le and her mom Lo (Le in White her Mom, Lo, is sitting down) at the baptism.  You can see my Chalkboard Display from my free English Class in the background. (names abbreviated for privacy)

 

 

Transfers--finally not transferring!

Dear Mom,
We got the transfer news today and both Elder Roman and I will be staying for one more transfer together. I'm excited, but surprised, because every transfer of my mission either I or my companion have been transferred except for Elder Galke, but our first transfer together was only 4 weeks because of the emergency transfer soooo I was actually expecting Elder Roman to hit the road. I'm excited though because Elder Roman will be able to stay with me for our baptisms coming up :).
So what Sister Wright told me to tell you is to send a package with melatonin, I'll keep looking, but the only melatonin we found so far was in Porto Alegre and costs 60$ which is absolutely ridiculous when it costs 3-4$ in the states but may be our only option. Essentially its not considered a medicine or drug here, but is classified as a vitamin supplement (which is exactly how it is in the states), so the pharmacies don't carry the stuff. I've looked in only two supplement stores and the both didn't have it, but have 3 more leads that I'll try today. I don't know why the stuff is illegal to import, or why its so expensive, but Brasil is full of crazy laws. Yesterday I learned that according to Brasilian law, if you kill someone and then stay hidden for 24 hours, the law can't hold you responsible for the murder so you go home free. What a crazy country this is...
I'm not too worried about Tori looking all grown up and going to dances, mainly because Tori is Spencer's responsibility, I had Sherry to watch after :P.
That's way crazy that Steven Shirley is married! How crazy! At first I thought you said that he was going to be married, then I realized that you said you went to his wedding reception. How weird, I'm going to come home one day and everyone will be married 0.0.
I hope the Ducks don't go to the national championship with a sophomore QB. Partly because they will most likely loose, and partly because I want to be able to watch!
Gravataí is pretty awesome, we had a pretty awesome week to finish up the transfer. We had 9 investigators at church yesterday, and have two baptisms lined up for this Saturday :). I and his family (L, L, R), L (47), Luisa (9), Brian (14), G (longtime investigator) and V(another elongtime investigator...).
We met L last Saturday and she's going to be baptised this Saturday. Essentially what happened is her mom went less active, didn't baptise her, but is active now and wants her to be baptised. Not really a great story, but hey a baptism is a baptism. She's super cute, and absolutely loves our visits :).
L (just baptised lady) is still going strong, she actually brought 4 people with her to church yesterday. How crazy is that! I've never had an investigator so excited about the gospel, she really reminds me a lot of Lynn, and how she received a witness of the gospel, and now is going strong. We taught her the Word of Wisdom last week, and she decided to give up coffee to be able to be baptised. I'm super excited for this weekend :).
B is a young man that we met actually a few weeks ago but started teaching him last week. He's the friend of the son of a former investigator. We invited him to play soccer at the new chapel, and he loved being there with all the young men. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he's read all the way to chapter 8 already. I'm super excited for him, but also a little nervous because we haven't talked with his parents yet. From what he's said his parents don't really like churches, but we will see what comes of it.
Ivo and Lucimara will be married here soon and the baptism of their whole family will follow. Ivo really reminds me of Bro. Gonsalves, they both had family problems before the gospel, and then missionaries and the church entered, and now their family is becoming more and more united.
I'm so excited for the Brown family! That's so awesome that they will all be sealed here soon. Anyways I think that's pretty much it for now. I love you bunches, and send my hello to everyone in the ward.

Dear Dad,
I completely agree.  Monday is a much better P-day day than Tuesday.
So is Sherry disappointed she'll be losing Elmo, or excited for the new
Subaru?  She is so spoiled to have a car at college you know :P.  Some
people have to WALK everywhere or take a BUS :P.  Don't get a sound system
too good, or I might get jealous you know...
There really is nothing better than a Gym in a Chapel to get non-members to
the church.  I took for granted all the times that I brought a friend to
one of our Chapels, because it was so normal to me, but now as a missionary
I think, look at all these Young Men bringing tons of people to the chapel
to play Soccer!  What awesome missionaries!  Its so hard for missionaries
to bring someone to the chapel, and yet the young men bring them in by the
10's and 20's.  Actually last Thursday we had 50 young men at the chapel,
of which 30 were non-members.  The whole neighborhood around the church is
all pumped about the new activities at the church.  I'm sure many baptisms
will follow, hopefully of families :).

Love,

Elder Henry

Christmastime in the Long Beach Mission

SNOW? In Long Beach California????  (nope, hail!)

Pepe's Baptism

Robert's baptism

Dear Mom,
I loved being able to talk with everyone it was like being home for 40 minutes.  I'm really excited that Sherry is LOVING BYU just as much as I did.  I knew Spencer would be psyched to finally have his own laptop.  It's going to be the gift that keeps on giving :P.  Tori is just adorable as ever, I loved getting to talk with her about Dr. Who, I can't wait to watch it all when I come back :).     
     Thank you so much for all the presents.  I never properly thanked you, but you two won the biggest Christmas package in the mission award.  Out of ~140 I had the largest Christmas package :P.  I really really really really like the new pants.  They fit comfortably, look nice (way to remember I like black pants :P), and are machine washable!  All my new clothes are excellent, I can always count on my Mom to buy my good clothes.  Thank you also for sending more toffee.  My companion and I are very excited to munch through it all.  I got SOOOO much candy this year, I'm in heaven :).
     Both P and R were confirmed yesterday.  A very special gift for both of them to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost on Christmas day.  I'm really grateful for the opportunity to serve here and help people to make sacred covenants with the Lord.  There is nothing better than to help other people to be happy, and this Gospel is the best and only way to receive happiness forever.
      Unfortunately we haven't really found any new investigators for the last couple of weeks so nothing really new is happening in the area.  It's going to be a week of finding, but I know that the Lord will lead us to the people we need to find.
      Christmas Eve was a very special day to me.  I got up that morning and decided that we were going to teach a lesson to someone before lunch.  We had one iffy appointment that I figured would fall through, but I wanted to make sure we still had at least one lesson before lunch.  We went from place to place, meeting people at the door who said they were too busy, or wouldn't find anyone at home.  Our one appointment fell through and I started to remember what Dad had said about Holidays being some of the hardest days as a missionary to do missionary work.  Still we pressed on and went by a referral that we still had to contact.  We didn't find him at home, but two younger Samoans (20's) were out on the porch, and had just cracked open their bottles of Liquor to begin drinking for the day.  We began to teach them, and one of them Jo, wasn't too far gone yet, and he actually had wanted to speak with missionaries because he's trying to find the truth right now.  The other guy, Logo (pronounced low-ngo) was completely gone.  The rest of the lesson went well, although it was kind of comical to teach someone who was completely wasted.  I felt really blessed that I had been able to accomplish my goal to teach a lesson even though the odds were against me.
      Of course the rest of Christmas was just as wonderful as that morning had been with miracle packages, and the Christmas Caroling.  Looking forward to this week as always :)
Thank you again for all that you do for me,
Love,
Elder Henry

Ward Christmas Party

Elder Henry with his "Pillow Tie," so he can sleep during church???  haha.  I'm guessing the crown on his head was made by Kelsey's Kindergartners for him.

Some of the families Michael is teaching

Hey Dad,
     I would be all over those car projects if I were home.  I would love to get
into my pair of coveralls and start tinkering with a car, of course these
things sound like lots of fun when you are a missionary.  If I were home
I'm not so sure I would be quite as motivated :P.  I'll let you know before
I go shoe shopping, I'll ask around this week to find out where one can
purchase such shoes and probably go next week (although that will be the
monday after a sunday holiday, so it may not be until the 9th).
     I'm glad everyone enjoyed talking with me as much as I enjoyed picking up
the phone and calling all of you.  Mom was pretty quick to pick up that
phone when I called, had she been sitting there waiting all morning long?
     I'm not going to lie, I'm surprised that Sherry is getting a car for
college so soon.  I thought you were actually joking when you said that, at
first because I never thought you would give up your Insight.
     I want you to know what a great example you are to me of treasuring up not
the things of this world, but treasuring those things which are in heaven.
Everytime I read in the scriptures and think about how to improve the way
I'm living I always look to you and realize you've been showing me how I
should live my life all along.  It's not about how many toys you rack up at
the end of the day, its how much time you spent with your family and made
sure they are raised the best they can be.
Lots of Love,
Elder Henry