Gangsters Paradise

Last week for P-Day, we went to the south of our mission to go to a mall that was really nice. It made me feel like I was at home. We had a great time with some of the other Elders in our District, that came with us. On our way back home, I began to not feel so good. At that time, I thought it was just because I was a little dehydrated and nauseous because of the bus ride. However, when I got home, I started feeling much worse. I began throwing up off and on for the next hour and then got sick from the McDonalds I ate at the mall.

Besides that, my week has been great.  This week we have changes so Elder Tocigl and Elder Gerrardo are leaving our Ward. They were great guys.  Elder Carney and I are still in my training period, so we will still be together for another six weeks. 

We have one investigator who is really beginning to progress whose name is Venel and is from Haiti. A lot of Haitian immigrants are moving to Chile which is really cool. They are such awesome people who are very humble and want to hear our message. He has lived here for 7 months and already speaks really good Spanish.  For his roommates, we have to do a lot of reading in The Book of Mormon and in the pamphlets(that we hand out) in Creole. It’s really fun trying to talk in Creole. hahaha. Anyway,I’m really excited to see where that will go.

We have another family that we are teaching who are really cool. We were walking down the street and heard them listening to Gangsters Paradise. lol. Anyway, we contacted them and are teaching them twice a week. They are Super receptive!

Elder Carney and I do a lot of walking each day. Our area is about 2 1/2 miles x 1/2 mile, which seems really small, but there are so many people in it! It’s been a great week.

In our lessons, we teach people the doctrines of Jesus Christ. This is just one of the lessons we teach and in it, we teach about repentance and what it truly is. When people think about the word repentance, many times they accompany this word with shame, faults, wrong doings and other negative words. A different word comes to my mind and that is the word Gift. When we exercise our faith in Jesus Christ and truly ask for forgiveness of our sins, we can be cleansed. We can thank our Savior for this gift. Because of His suffering and sacrifice for us, we can continue to repent throughout our lives knowing that we can be cleaned thanks to our Savior. When we recognize our sin, stop what we are doing wrong, confess our sins to the Lord and ask for forgiveness, restitute our faults and then accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we have truly repented. I testify that repentance works; that doubt and guilt can be turned into confidence and happiness through sincere prayer to our Lord. 

Repentance has a drastic of a change as does turning on a lightbulb in a dark room. There is a drastic change from dark to light, just as there is a change of being sinful to cleansed. When we go through this process we can be changed! 

Disfruten su semana. O y hablaremos el proximo miércoles!

Short and Sweet

What a week this has been! The weather’s been freezing cold the past 5 days. On Saturday, we had a ton of rain and the streets (in some parts) were filled with water! That day was so fun!

Last Friday, we had a really powerful lesson on the ability to do hard things with a less active member. We shared the video Mountains to Climb by Henry B. Eyring, which is one of my favorite messages/videos by the church.

Oddly enough in this talk by President Eyring, he explains how he “asked for a mountain” or a really tough challenge to be put before him. I had to think about that for a minute….I don’t know if I have the faith to ask God for a trial (mountain) to be placed before me. Regardless, two weeks later, President Eyring was given a really tough trial.  One of the toughest of his life. Climbing that mountain is tough. We will climb, we ill slip and fall, but with faith we will get to the top of it. That much I do know.  

One of our investigators is getting baptized in 1 1/2 weeks.  We are so excited for her! She is so receptive to everything. It’s as if she’s a member already!

Elder Tocigl (my roommate) is banking on his Visa coming in next week and leaving the country for Las Vegas. He bought 100 rolls (20 mil) of sushi for us two nights ago.  It was awesome! hahaha

Sorry for the short email. Next weeks will be longer.  

I Love it here!!

Chow!

Elder Hendrix

Below is the link of the video that Elder Hendrix referenced in his letter this week:

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-04-1070-president-henry-b-eyring?lang=eng

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Mom note.  When asked if he is having fun, this was his reply:

Ya we are. We play this nutmeg game in the streets to where if we see a rock we kick 

it in between each others leg. I kicked poop that I thought was a rock..... :)

Elder Carney and I with Nefi, one of our ward members. He is a great guy!

Santiago Temple

We Can Do Hard Things

This week has been a great one! On Thursday, we had the opportunity to go to the temple with one of our investigators, Valeria, who has a baptism date at the end of this month! Thus far, that experience had been the highlight of my mission.  It was such a great experience. We took the metro to downtown and from then ere went to the temple. The temple is so beautiful! We walked around the gardens and Valeria was absolutely amazed by everything there. There truly is a different spirit there. While there, we shared a message on temples and took her into the foyer part of the temple. Such a great experience.

The Santiago Temple

On Saturday, we were able to go to one of Elder Carneys old investigators baptism. It was so great meeting him and talking with the other missionaries. I am truly surrounded by such great people here.

Two days ago, we helped a member paint their house. I admire this sisters faith in letting 19 year old boys paint her living room! hahahaha. The too, turned out looking pretty good. After we finished painting the room (and each other) we had a lesson with a girl who is from Sao Paulo, Brasil. She was SO receptive to our message, so I am looking forward to more visits with her!

Yesterday, Elder Carney was throwing up and had a fever and Elder Gallardo (one of our roommates) was sick too, so Elder Tocigl and I managed both of our sectors today! During the lessons in my sector, I was forced to lead the lessons and I thought I did a pretty good job of it. I’ve been here almost a month now and I’m slowly but surely beginning to see results! However, yesterday, I received some very scary news. lol. I apparently have to give a talk on Sunday…..for 15 minutes….in Spanish. Did I mention that I have only been here nearly a month! Pray for me. lol  Other than that frightening news, my week had been good. We do a good job of keeping ourselves busy each day. Each day goes by so fast!

This week I’ve had a few people ask me the question of, ‘why is life so hard? Why do I have such hard trial and why do bad things happen to me?’  Every time I am asked this, I tell them that I do not know the exact reason for their difficulties. That no matter how hard the challenge may be, we know that God will not give us a challenge that we are unable to bare. Despite how overwhelmingly impossible it may seem to overcome, we need to have faith that we, through the help of our atoning Savior, can and will overcome this challenge or any challenge that we will face in the future. A month or so ago, one of my best friends, Benjamin Blessing shared a scripture with me that is directly applicable to this topic. In Romans 8:18 it says, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the Glory which shall be revealed in us.” Though our suffering may bog us down now, when we overcome our trials and continue to overcome them, I firmly believe that every trial will be worth it when we obtain that glory! This much I know to be true.

Chao!

Elder Hendrix

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An email from Elder Carney

Hello sister Hendrix!

So here are some pics from these last few weeks, its been a good one! Your son is doing incredible and is a beast! He is really picking up on the language and is really trying hard! Super diligent. Life has been good here, just living it up with Elder Hendrix! He is an incredible missionary! Hope all is well in your fam! Que tengan una semana maravillosa!! 

Elder Carney

Lost and Nearly Bit.

This week’s been a very good week! I really enjoyed watching General Conference and hearing all the leaders of the church speak. I was fortunate enough to watch it in English with another “greenie” missionary, while all the other missionaries watched it in Spanish.  

On Monday, we had divisions(it is where you are paired with a different missionary, from a different area) with the zone leaders and I stayed in my sector(the area where I live and serve). Now my sector is no more than the size of my neighborhood back home, but there are probably 50,000+ people that live here. Just to kind of give you a perspective, my mission is 11x16 kilometers and 3 million people live in it…..Needless to say, there are so many intricate streets that Elder Martinez and I got lost a few times,but we had a great day. For Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) we had sushi with two families from our ward that are amazing(sushi is really popular here right now) and played a fun game.

In the afternoon of this same day, every appointment we had fell through, but as I looked back at the end of the day, it ended up being good.  While we were walking down the street, one of the less active kids we teach had a basketball in his hands as he was leaving his house.  We asked him if we could go and shoot with him for a couple of minutes.  He obliged and we ended up going to the “colegio” or school in our sector. Every Tuesday there is an after school program for kids(teens) to come and exercise/play basketball at the school.  We couldn’t stay very long, but we had a chance  to talk with the instructor and told him that we would love to help him with the kids if he needed it!  

Overall, it was a great week.  Hope y’all are enjoying your fall weather.  I envy you. It’s starting to get REALLY hot here.  

Talk with you next week!

Elder Hendrix

Just a couple of notes from my personal email with Elder Hendrix.  When asked if he's had anything “interesting” happen he shared this with me, “a three legged dog tried nipping at my heels but I scared him off. A drunk guy tried popping my fingers and almost broke Elder Carneys hand lol”  

Another completo consumed.  Now that is a hot dog!!