Continued growth in Gravatai

Dear Dad,

I'm really excied to hear that Trevor Sjogren is headed out on a mission. I do
remember him a lot from the times that Brother and Sister Bankhead brought
him to church. My time is already out, but I want to thank you for the
updates from home. I love you Dad!

Dear Mom,

What teams are still undefeated in the nation? If we ended up beating Stanford in the Bowl Championship (I don't remember well, but I'm pretty sure they are in the PAC-12 South division?) could we still make it to the National title? Anyways they just have to stay awesome for next year ;).

My Thanksgiving came and passed before I even knew it. I was planning at 9:30 at night last Thursday and noticed, hey I'm pretty sure today is Thanksgiving. That was pretty much my thanksgiving... Oh well last one I'll miss out on right? That is if the world is still around next year... :O!

Man Sherry's life is like a Brasilian Novella! It's all filled with romance and life-changing decisions and all sorts of crazy stuff. Kinda lame that the commercial ended up being just a student commercial, but hey it looked like a lot of fun, and the BYU film department is one of the best there is, and every opportunity she takes will bring her one more opportunity in the future :).

So far as photos, I don't really have any in particular that I would like, its just that everyone wants to see my parents and I don't have a picture of the kids with Parents. Just of the kids and singles of each kid. Wallet size would be preferable so I can carry them with me everyday in my wallet.

We are headed off to the Temple today which is pretty exciting. In other news I and his family was baptised this Sunday. I'm so relieved to finally have it happen. We've been waiting so long and its just been trial after trial after trial, but FINALLY everyone was baptised on Sunday.

Our next goal is to split the ward. We just need to baptize two more adult men into the ward and we'll divide the ward. We are going to be working overtime now to find, teach and baptize these last two people in order to split the ward. Unfortunately we really don't have anyone that's progressing. We have a couple people with potential, but we are really doing a lot of finding right now. Fortunately we received a bunch of referrals from our ward members this Sunday so we will be contacting these people and helping them go to church.

I feel like the more and more I'm on my mission the shorter and shorter my letters home become, because we just do the same thing over and over, just the faces move. I'm going to attach some pictures and then send this E-mail.

Thank you for caring for Kelsey while I'm gone, and taking care of me as well :). I love you so much Mom,

Love,

Elder Henry

Sorry can't send the pictures because the stupid computer isn't recognizing the device. I am taking pictures though!

New companion from Africa!

Elder Henry with Elder Glessing, from here in Southwest Washington

Dear Mom,

Life is GREAT!  I'll answer your questions and then get moving on to the week.

I absolutely love my new companion.  I'm very grateful for the move in companion to motivate me to get back to working hard.  Elder Roman's farewell party was good, he wasn't very sad to go though, because he had already said goodbye 3 times, this time was pretty certain it was going to happen.

That's WAY awesome that Sherry is going to be in a commercial!!!   I totally want to watch TV just to see the commercial with Sherry in it!  Send me the video when its all finished up.

Wow Spencer scored pretty high on the ACT for a first time.  Just remember 36 gets you a free ride at BYU Spence!

Of course I'm interested at working for BYU housing when I come back.  I also have my eyes on a job at the MTC, but those are pretty hard to come-by.  The nice thing about the MTC is you make 13$ per hour.

I was looking at the photo of our Family in 2004 and really our family looks like many families that I've seen on the mission.  It's really surreal to see my family so... Young?

So my new companion is Elder De Pina from Cabo Verde.   I'm really excited to have an African companion.  His Portuguese of course is a little strange but he's a super hard worker.  He's also 26 and joined the church when he was 17.  He and a few siblings are the only members of the church in his immediate family, but he has uncles and other relatives that are members.  Also he works -hard-.  It reminds me of me times with Elder E. Black, oh how I am grateful for those times to return.

We finally marked N and S's marriage in the office and they'll be married on Dec. 15th.  Also I and his family are all ready for marriage and baptism this Saturday, so I'm quite excited for this week.  We had a busy week last week with Transfers, P-day getting moved, and also a conference with Elder Aidukaitis.  So our work week got cut a little short, but the little time we had we worked hard finding new investigators and helping them receive the gospel.

Sunday was especially cool because we had a Priest from the ward accompanying us to our lessons.  It reminded me of when I was a Priest and would go out with the missionaries every week :).  We met a few new families with potential and will spend the rest of the week preparing I and family and our new investigators to head off to church and set baptismal dates.

Anyways I better e-mail some other people before time runs out.  I love you, thanks for taking care of me so far away.  I hope my packages make it here before time runs out, but we will see.

Love,

Elder Henry

Sherry's commercial

Luigi, Peach, and Mario

Hair and makeup

After she got "thwomped"

Staying in Gravataí!

Dear Mom,

I'm not exactly even sure if its mosquitoes that are biting me or a different animal. I don't really think I need a mosquito net or I could buy one here. I'm keeping my eye out for Brazilian nativity sets don't you worry :P.

Everyone here was asking me about the Elections on election day it was absolutely ridiculous. Everyone stays up to date on American Politics here in Brasil except me. I thought it would take a little longer to have a winner but better sooner than later I suppose.

Great news about the Ducks! So we just have Stanford and OSU to play before the championship game? I don't remember if we beat Stanford already or not. Who's number one, Notre Dame?

I'm super excited for Sherry's mission papers to get started up. How exciting it is to have another missionary preparing to leave on a mission!

Thanks for helping me out with Christmas Presents. I'm sure everyone here will enjoy the new cards. Hopefully they'll get here in time. Packages and Letters get to me pretty slowly nowadays XD. The Address hasn't moved at all. It's still Caixa Postal 13008, Porto Alegre, RS - Brasil 91010-971.

Sorry I didn't write yesterday, the Zone Leaders called on Sunday Morning and told us our P-day was going to be moved to Tuesday and transfers on Wednesday. We also got the Transfer calls today and Elder Roman is leaving and I'll be here in Gravataí for another little while. 6 months in Gravataí, oh yeah baby. I actually don't feel like I've been here for that long, but by the time I leave I'll start to realise how little time I have left on the mission. Fortunately this next transfer should be really good as I and his family are all set for their baptism on Nov. 25th and their marriage on the 24th.

Another one of our investigators (a lady) is progressing really well. Also L was confirmed yesterday and went out and bought a suit so that he could go to church. I'm really happy to see him doing so well after such little time. The Bishop talked with him on Sunday and it sounds like he's looking into serving a mission in a year. I hope he goes to the United States and then I could see him in his mission there! How awesome would that be?

Also N went to Rio Grande once again to get the papers all ready for their marriage. Looks like they'll get married in December and S will be baptised soon after :).

So we have 6 people that are really quite close to baptism. Only problem is we cut all of our other investigators, so we will have to find a whole bunch of new people now ^^;.

Anyways I better wrap this up so I can write Dad and President Wright. I love you all, thanks for always writing.

Love,

Elder Henry

Dear Dad,

Sounds like this Christmas is going to be a good one. I'm still not convinced on these tablets, I like my computers just the way they are, with a keyboard and a mouse, but we'll see when I get back. Definitely won't be buying an I-pad that's for sure :P. I feel a little bit sorry for Sherry because I know how lame it is to only get stuff you need for a mission instead of all the cool new things that everyone else is getting :P. Oh well it'll pass and she -will- need stuff for the mission.

I feel really bad, because your E-mail to me was super interesting, and I already said all of my interesting stuff to Mom. Also my time is just about up for the week, but thanks for sending such a detailed account of what happened this week. I love you very much. Also I spent 30 dollars on a farewell party for Elder Roman and 25 dollars today on contact solution. Thanks for always keeping me well stocked with money to get by.

Lots of 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

Elder Henry Oct. 16th

Dad,

I'm cracking up over here about your un-manly oil change experience :P. It's pretty stupid that a job that takes us 15 minutes at home without all the fancy tools they have at the Oil change took 30 minutes there. One thing I'm learning a lot of here in Brasil is the People don't have money to go to a specialist to fix stuff, so they just fix things on their own. It really doesn't take a whole lot of knowledge to change a tire or oil, just a little bit of time. Everyone here is their own handyman ;).

The weather is just the opposite down here. We are enjoying a beautiful spring down here, its not to hot yet, but the rain stays away for most of the time. Although it is still pretty grey down here, about as grey as Washington. Its funny but Rio Grande do Sul is just about as close to the weather in Washington as any other place I've visited in my life. The only difference is it gets hotter here than Washington.

Meh can't say I'm surprised BYU lost to OSU. BYU is still back in the glory days of the 80's and never seem to change their strategies. At the least it sounds like it was a fun game.

So Sherry will wait until April before she leaves? Depending on where she goes we may still have a quick moment to see each other :). We all know how long visas can take to arrive!

I'm glad Spencer has learned from his older siblings mistakes. Nothing is more trouble than a girlfriend at 16. I only wish I had had the wisdom to listen to my parents when I was younger >.>. Oh well we live and learn. Way to go Spencer :).

So today we are heading down to the Temple, that's why I'm e-mailing on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. We are pretty excited but its always super hectic to get P-day done with and go to the temple in the same day o.o. Thanks for the E-mail.

I love you all tons :)

Love,

Elder Henry

Dear Mom,

Sorry about the switch of E-mail days. We are headed off to the Temple today, but since the Temple is closed on Monday we have to go on Tuesday. Anyways we are doing well and excited to be working.

We are working with a couple of families right now and are super excited. I and L went this weekend to pick up the last few papers for their marriage papers as well as S and N. Of course its taking longer than we had hoped, but sometimes our planning isn't the same as the Lords planning. I'm sure he's got things all taken care of upstairs.

We also started teaching a family of 7, M and her 6 kids. They unfortunately weren't able to make it to church this Sunday because of M's work schedule but she is really quite excited about the church and our visits and is reading the Book of Mormon. We had a Family night with her and 2 of her kids last night (the other 4 decided to stay home). It was a lot of fun, we played around a bunch and also taught them about the Plan of Salvation.

J went to church this Sunday and is really excited about her Baptismal date of the 26th of October. I'm hoping that the rest of her family will have the same desire to go to church and read the Book of Mormon as well. Its crazy just how powerful the Book of Mormon is. It really changes our lives, thoughts, and outlook on life. I only have to look at my life to see the change the Book of Mormon brings, but yet I have so many more witnesses here on the mission of people who have read the Book of Mormon and have changed their lives because of it.

Anyways that is pretty much what happened last week. Yesterday we have a big Churrasco at one of our member's house that was absolutely delicious. I'm pretty sure I gained a kilo or two.

I love you all and are always in my prayers and thoughts.

Love,

Elder Henry