Week 55: Fear Factor

Elder Hendrix with Elders at the temple.

Sorry our p-day got changed again this week! It'll be Monday again next week. But hey this week was pretty crazy. Here's some of the good parts!

1. I love my calling as district leader! I LOVE doing district meetings. They're a lot of fun and I love getting creative and thinking of different things we can do in the meeting each week to help all of us improve. This past week, we talked about trusting in the Lord and developing confidence in ourselves so we can leave our comfort zone. The mission often requires us to do things that we may feel awkward or uncomfortable doing. For example, talking to someone in a transportation setting. You never know if the conversation will go awful and then you just stand there in silence until you get off. But the more you practice, the more you will learn and grow. We did a little fear factor type of thing as an activity to demonstrate. Each companionship had to do something that they would not want to do at all. Sing I am a child of God in your best opera voice, make a dance video to scripture power, act out a Book of Mormon scene chosen by the district, and rap the restoration. It was so funny! Everyone just embarrassed the heck out of themselves! They were so uncomfortable and it was just perfect because we were able to relate it to missionary work really well. Sometimes we don't want to do things, but we just gotta trust the Lord and do it! And the more we do it, the more our testimonies will grow. Leaving the comfort zone results in growth! It was an awesome meeting.

2. Maria is so golden! She's a Dominican woman we're teaching. She's getting baptized on the 17th of September. She's so ready and prepared. I love teaching her. She has developed such a strong
testimony of the church. She's hilarious too. She ALWAYS makes us this Dominican drink called Morí Soñando and it always makes us so sick. It's straight milk, lemon, and sugar. It tastes pretty good, but she always gives us way too much. But hey, I'm so grateful for it anyway. She's such a nice woman! She invited us and the hermanas over yesterday and made us food and it was so good. Dude, the woman is just amazing. We're so pumped for her baptism day!

3. Kevin is progressing really well! I can't remember if I've talked about him before, but his girlfriend is a member and he always comes to church with her and her family. He will be baptized with Maria on the 17th. He's a good kid! He's reading and praying and we're super excited for him!

4. We have a crazy investigator named Joaquin. He is so weird, but he's awesome haha! I love having lessons with him. He's a 60-year-old Spaniard. We met him in the metro a few weeks ago. He's the nicest guy, but man it's gonna take some time with him. He thinks we're prophets. He's come to church a few times, so we're working little by little. He's a fun investigator haha.

5. I gave a talk in church this Sunday about missionary work. I had about 15 seconds to prepare it, and I had to speak for 20 minutes. But hey it went alright! One of the speakers didn't show up, so the bishop came down from the stand during the sacrament and asked if I would speak. It was rough, but I've come to love public
speaking. Especially when it's on a gospel topic. I just love sharing testimony and experiences I've had!

6. I got to do a few baptismal interviews last night! And man that was one of the highlights of my mission so far for sure! The hermanas in our district have been teaching a family, and they had their interviews finally. And man it was such an amazing experience having the opportunity to do it. I've never met these people or taught them,
I don't know their life story, but as I did the interviews, I could just feel that they've made changes in their lives. I could just see in their faces that they know that this gospel blesses lives. It was so cool hearing their testimonies and hearing them talk about their experience with learning about the church. They're so prepared and I'm so pumped to see them in the font!

And that's about it for this week! I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Hendrix

Week 54: Winter, where u at?

Time crunch: ready, set, go!

So transfers came out this weekend! Elder Lopez and I will be staying here in Barrio 4! We're super excited for another 6 weeks here in this area! We're teaching some solid people! We've got a few people we're helping prepare for baptism!

We had a family home evening with the Perez family and the Hermanas in our district. It was a ton of fun! They asked me to bring my guitar over, so we just played music and sang songs together. They're such an awesome family!

Ugh, no time! I'm so grateful to be here in Spain serving all these people! I love the mission so much! It's blazing hot every day, and the fact that there's a pool right next to the church isn't really helping, but hey what's a mission without challenges? I love coming home soaked in sweat every day. Makes me feel accomplished. haha.

Love you all! Have an awesome week!

Elder Hendrix

Elder Hendrix and his district in Barrio 4
prior to transfers on August 22, 2016.

Week 53: Slackline Followup

I swear each week gets shorter and shorter. Time in the mission is weird.

This weekend was really good! We had an awesome zone training on Friday. I love my zone leaders Elder Wade and Elder Bennett. They talked a lot about being creative with finding new people. We shouldn't be afraid to put ourselves out of our comfort zone and try new things. Everyone shared ideas and things they've done before as finding activities. It was really fun! I got to participate in a musical number too which was way cool! I love every opportunity I have to do musical numbers. I sang Come Thou Fount with Hermana Wihongi who is in my district. Hermana Campbell played the guitar. It turned out pretty good I think! I'll attach a video if I can...

So once a transfer, we do a temple night as a mission with our recent converts, and so we got to go on Friday night! We took this guy named Luis who was baptized a few months ago. He's a stud! He's 17, from Venezuela and speaks perfect English. He's a cool dude. He said he really liked it! I love going to the temple. Seeing recent converts being baptized for the dead is the coolest thing ever to watch. There were about 25 converts in total that the missionaries brought that night, and for all of them it was their first time entering the temple! It was so cool to see!

Elder Hendrix and his funny zone at the Madrid temple.

Elder Hendrix and his zone at the Madrid temple.

Elder Hendrix with his zone and new converts at the
Madrid temple on August 11, 2016.

Elder Lopez, Luis (a new convert) and
Elder Hendrix at the Madrid temple.

We had an investigator in church last week named Joaquin. We had a follow up lesson with him this weekend and talked about how he liked the meetings. He said it was really repetitive and weird he didn't like it. We explained everything and the purpose of the meetings and such and he said he's willing to continue meeting with us and keep trying it! So that was a miracle! At the beginning of the lesson, I lost hope haha. He basically said there's no way he's returning. But the spirit jumped in the conversation and softened his heart so all is good!

And that's pretty much all that's happened since last p day. It's still blazing hot here. Everyone keeps saying it starts to cool down this time of year, but the temperatures just keep going up. It's not a very funny joke.

Oh I just thought of something else that happened this week! So we found this really cool family from Ecuador when we did the slackline in the park. We called them this week and invited them to a ward noche de hogar activity thing on Saturday, and they came! And they said they really liked it! We talked to them afterwards and found out that they had traveled over an hour to get there though. I felt so bad, but at the same time so grateful! They made a sacrifice to come! And they want to come back! The whole family does! We explained to them that there are missionaries in their area and there's a church that's way closer to them, so we passed their reference. And they were so grateful! The mother was saying she just felt something sweet about the building and the lesson and the missionaries and everything. I'm excited for the missionaries in her area to teach them! Moral of the story: slacklines are awesome.

I love you all! I hope you have an awesome week!

Con cariño,

Elder Hendrix

Week 52: Slack Line

It's been a crazy week! Our P day was moved to today instead of Monday this week because we went to the temple this morning. Whenever we have temple day, our P day changes to that day. So that was a highlight of the week! I love going to the temple and I'm so grateful to have one here in Madrid so close! Here are some stories from this week.

1. So we've been having a hard time trying to find new people. The area we live in is pretty dead. There are literally zero people in the streets. So we've been working hard trying to find people and come up with new creative ways to talk to people. The other day, we were in a member's home eating lunch and their TV was on, and this commercial came up and there was a dude walking on a slackline/tightrope thing across the Grand Canyon. And then I got this crazy idea of using a slackline for proselyting. Like what if we find one and set it up in a really crowded park on a weekend or something as a way to attract attention? So we decided to give it a try. Moises found one online for us and we went ahead a bought it and we got it in less than a day cause #amazonprime. So on Saturday, we went to a huge park and found two trees and set it up. Seriously, in less than 5 minutes, we had a line of like 25 people that wanted to try it. We just stopped everyone passing by and asked if they wanted to try walking on a slackline and we had a TON of success! Everyone asked why we would invite whoever to come try it rather than just use our own slackline ourselves. We talked about how we just want to follow the example of Jesus Christ and serve others and provide an opportunity for everyone to have fun. And that's how we brought up the church and stuff. And we got a ton of references! We met a really awesome family from Ecuador that we're actually gonna teach tonight. There are a bunch of little kids in the family and they had so much fun doing it! I had no idea that the slackline idea would be such a success and a great finding activity! We're excited to do it again this week and talk to more people!

The slackline that Elder Hendrix set up in
a Madrid park.

2. Our phone has hundreds of numbers saved of old investigators that we have never heard of. So we spent a lot of time this week making calls trying to figure out if these numbers are real or still exist. We called all of them, and they were either people that don't have interest anymore, or the numbers don't work. Except for one dude. One of the numbers was a guy named Angel. He said it's been a few years since he's talked to the missionaries, but he was willing to accept a visit from us. So we met him yesterday and he's actually really cool! He's a nice guy! He has two little girls. We taught him and talked about how the true church that Christ established has been restored on the earth. We talked about following the example of Christ and being baptized in His church, and Angel said of course he would do it! So it looks like we're gonna have a baptism is the next few weeks! So we're
super excited to continue meeting with him! He's a great guy and is really faithful and loves God.

3. We had three investigators in church this Sunday! Kevin, the kid we're teaching who's girlfriend is a member, was there! And it turns out he actually has quite a few friends in the ward! Later, we had two new people we're teaching. Joaquin is an old Spanish guy who's a little crazy but super nice. And then there's Dominican María who always makes us morí soñándo when we visit her. All three of them really liked church! They're progressing really well and we're excited for our upcoming appointments with them!

And that's about all I've got time for! Read the scriptures cause they're true and will help you. Have a good week!

Elder Hendrix

Week 51: Is that Kelsee's Hair?

This weekend has been difficult, but my heart is full. Today I am very grateful for a dear friend of mine from home, Trevor Lewis. Trevor has been fighting cancer for the past year and has been a champ handling it. He's been through several operations and medications, but has stayed positive. He's been a great example to me and I have so much respect for him. His friendship has been a blessing to my family. I consider him a brother. Trevor passed away this weekend. It's been a very difficult thing to process, but it makes me so grateful for the knowledge we have of the plan of salvation. Trevor died at 29 years old. I'm gonna miss him to death, but I know that this isn't where it ends. 

I'm so very grateful for God's plan that he has for us. While it's hard to handle and process, I can't help but thank my Heavenly Father for this time that I have to be teaching people that physical death isn't the end. I testify of the reality of God. He knows us all personally. He has a plan for each of us. If we exercise our faith in him, he will bless us with a confirmation that he is there. He wants us to be happy. And I testify that a knowledge of these things really do bring us happiness and comfort.

A few days ago, before even hearing this news, I had a really special experience. My companion and I were on our way to an appointment, when this construction worker ran over to us from the sight where he was working. He stopped us and introduced himself. His name was Ivan. He's from Ecuador. He explained to us that he is a member, but hadn't been to church in over 30 years. His mother had passed away and then he became angry with God and just didn't understand why something like that would happen, so he quit going to church. He was furious. I thought about what he said. It made me think about why God would give us challenges. If he wants us to be happy, why would he allow us to suffer and be miserable? 

We shared with him a scripture in Ether 12:27. "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." This verse makes me think of something interesting. If we didn't know what misery or hardship was, how would we know what it's like to be happy? Trials in our lives are opportunities to exercise faith. They're opportunities to develop humility. And when we show our faith and we put our trust in God, He will bless us! And we will be happy."I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it." 

We asked Ivan if he had faith that God loves him. He said yes. So we invited him to act on that faith and show God that he really believes in the blessings and comfort that come by going back to church. He agreed to do so. We passed his phone number to the missionaries that serve in his area. He went to church. For the first time in 30 years, he went to church. All because his faith was rekindled by the Holy Ghost, confirming to him that God really does know His children and wants them to show their faith so that they can be happy. We experience trials and misery so that we are able to experience joy. We should be thankful for the trials that we are given. They help us grow. They help us progress. They help us understand that we have a purpose. I know that the plan of salvation is real. 

I know that God loves us. And I know that He has Trevor in His hands.

Con cariño,

Elder Hendrix

The subject line is a Trevor quote that only like 4 of you will understand...