Week 98: Rerouting...

This week was pretty interesting. We had to take a 3 hour bus ride down to Leon for zone conference. It was a great meeting! President Pack gave us some great instruction. We discussed the power of the message of the restoration. That's often the first thing we teach people and so we talked about how important it is to understand and have a testimony of the message. We practiced teaching short simplified versions of the message so that we can be prepared to teach at any given moment. So this week me and my companion were able to see several miracles when putting this into practice! We talked to tons of people in the streets this week and were able to share a brief message of the restoration of Christ's church several times. It was a cool learning experience to know that we don't have to have a formal lesson set up in order to teach others that priesthood authority is on the earth. As missionaries, our purpose is to teach others to come into Christ. And how do we do that? By testifying of the Savior and His restored gospel! We felt the presence of the spirit several times out in the sketchy streets of Gijón this week. I love teaching the restoration so much! It's so simple but so powerful. I know that a good amount of people that we spoke with this week felt something as we shared with them the story of Joseph Smith. For me, the spirit is always present when I hear and teach that lesson. We're excited to continue teaching people this wonderful message this week! I'm grateful for my mission president. I know he's inspired. I love the advice and counsel he gives us. I was able to provide a musical number in the conference as well. So that was a cool opportunity! I arranged Come Thou Fount mixed with Be Still My Soul. It went alright!

This week I'm especially grateful for a member here named Pedro. He's 24 and is such a great example to the branch. He has such a strong testimony and a desire to follow Christ. This week, he shared with us his testimony of the power of the Holy Ghost, and he shared a cool analogy that has helped him understand it. He related it with the google maps app. If we need directions from point A to point B, all you do is type in the address on your phone and then it shows you a route to follow. Sometimes however, we get distracted on the road and we accidentally miss the turn. So what does the app do? It reroutes and finds you a new road to take to get back on track. And so imagine you're about to get to the turn that you're supposed to take to get back, but you again get distracted and you miss it. Like maybe the music was too loud and you didn't hear Siri warning you of the upcoming left? Or maybe you were in the middle of a phone call and ignored it? Well, the app should once again find you another route that gets you to the right road to continue towards your destination. Pretty sure we all understand how that works. You mess up, but it's all good because the google maps app is a champ and saves you. But what happens if you continue ignoring the new routes and you continue driving aimlessly? The app stops finding routes. But the location service is always on, even when you're not using google maps. So what does any of this have to do with the way the spirit works? In life, we all have a destination. That destination is eternal life. But as we know, there's a road we have to follow. There's an iron rod we've got to hold on to. But what happens if we miss the turn? Or in other words, what happens if we get off path? Google maps speaks up and finds us a route. That voice that comes up and tells us to take a different road represents the spirit speaking to us. Our Heavenly Father blesses us with that guide so we can get back on track so we can find our point B. But what happens if we don't hear it at first? And we ignore the new route? We continue to lead ourselves off track and we move further away from the road. However, that still small voice will continue speaking to us and giving us a new route. Anyway, after a while, google maps will eventually stops giving us new routes, until we put the address again ourselves. When we recognize that we want to change and get back to the right road, our Heavenly Father will always bless us and help us recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost so that we can find our way back to right road. But we have to remember our destination and makes plans to get back. The new routes represent the gospel. The gospel is the guide to the road we need to be on. And so what happens if we find ourselves ignoring the "rerouting... take the next left"? We do the simple things we've always been taught. Read the scriptures, attend church meetings, service others, pray frequently... The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the way back to road which takes us to our destination of eternal life. So if you ever drift away, pay attention to the new route that google maps gives you! Trust it! It will take you back! Love your Heavenly Father and trust him. Because He needs you to have faith in him so that He can bless you. After all, we all want to be happy. And what better we to achieve that happiness than by loving him by keeping His commandments? Read Mosiah 2:41. It's good stuff.

Anyway, thanks for all of your support everyone! You're awesome!

Elder Hendrix

Week 97: Ancianas, etcétera

This week was pretty crazy. We got permission to go to a wedding of a member who married an investigator of the hermanas who is getting baptized next month. We got to go to the party afterwards too. It was pretty lit. We actually had a few investigators come too because they're friends of the couple. That night was crazy. We may or may not have been a little late getting home, but it's chill because one of the mission president's counselors was there supervising. All is well. Man that wedding cake was huge. It tasted a lot like a tire, but man it sure was good looking.

We had our first district meeting of the transfer this week. We made a goal as a district to give away 84 Books of Mormon. Random number, I know. But it was inspired haha. So far, it's going well! Me and my comp had a cool experience last night in downtown Gijón while we were looking for people to teach. We went to talk to two old Spanish ladies sitting on a bench. Fun fact, Gijón is actually full of old Spaniards that sit in benches all day and watch the wind blow. Nice people. Anyway, their names were Manuela and Astención. They were super nice! We started chatting about cool stuff to do in Asturias, etc, and then we asked them what they knew about the church. We talked about the Bible for a while and then we introduced the Book of Mormon. They both accepted one! Which was such a blessing because the people here are really weird about the thought of additional scripture. But it was such a cool experience! We have a return appointment with them this Wednesday and it seemed pretty convincing! I'm sure they'll be there. There was a strong spirit when we shared Moroni's promise in Moroni 10:3-5. They seemed to be very interested and ready to read! Miracles are happening!

Oh yeah, on Tuesday last week, I had a weird dejavú moment. We had to go to Oviedo to be in a trio with Elder Davalos because he's training and he had to wait for his new comp to get to Oviedo in the train and he can't be alone. Elder Davalos is from Mexico and doesn't speak any English, and his new missionary is American and knows no Spanish. So when we went with him to the train station when his companion arrived, it made me think a lot about my first day in the field. I didn't understand any Spanish and had no clue what was going on. So watching Elder Davalos and his comp try to communicate made me reflect on all I've accomplished in the past 22 months. It was a satisfying feeling. Learning this language has not been easy at all. But I feel like I've put a ton of work in it and it has paid off. The mission is so cool. Learning a language has taught me a lot about patience, endurance, faith..... I could see myself in Elder Davalos' new comp. I was there once. And seeing him made my testimony of the importance of endurance increase. Fun stuff.

I'm currently drinking a shake with chocolate and orange. It's alright. Anyway, hope you all have a great week!

Elder Hendrix

Week 96: To the windows

First of all, I'd like to give a shoutout to my brother-in-law Gary for teaching me like 10 years ago how to clean windows like a champ. I was able to put that skill into practice this week and totally destroyed the window cleaning contest we had when doing service for a widow. Way to go Gary. You can take that credit. I would share with you the last slice of cold pizza that I was given as a prize, but I already ate it. But hey the sweet old Cuban lady has some pretty dang good lookin windows now. Now we get an additional 30 seconds of notice for when the bus passes. It used to be only 15 seconds. With spotless windows like these, we can see that thing from a kilometer away. Good things are happening here in Gijón.

We've actually had quite a few service opportunities this past week. We helped a member of the bishopric work in his lettuce field, we dug a big hole in the ground for Enrique, we cleaned sweet old Nancy's windows, we guided an old man into a parking space... Its been a fun week! I have to say though, the highlight was this past Saturday. We got permission from our president to go on a day trip with the branch president to this awesome place called Covadonga. It's in eastern Asturias. We went with his family, some investigadores, and some lessactives. We had a ton of fun! We only had half a p day last Monday, and the other half was Saturday so that we could go. Covadonga is beautiful! The drive up was about the scariest thing ever though. I'm surprised I'm alive and emailing right now. Those roads were sketchy. We went up in 3 cars. But yeah the views were amazing! We saw this really cool lake too. We all had a little picnic thing for lunch and it was a ton of fun! I really love our little branch here in Gijón. They're a lot of fun and they're so welcoming to the people we teach!

Transfers are today... My companion Elder Goodman got transferred to Madrid, and I'm staying here in Gijón. My new companion (who will also be my last) is Elder Burt from Massachusetts. I'm super excited to work with him! He's pretty new in the mission. We're gonna have lots of fun. I'm excited for this last transfer. It's crazy that this is the final 6 weeks. I'm ready to work my hardest and stay motivated until the end!

Thanks for all your support everyone!

Elder Hendrix

Elder Hendrix at Covadonga

Elder Hendrix at Covadonga

Week 95: #Portuzona

Ok first thing's first. I quit Gijónmania and started Portuzona. I did an exchange with an elder in Avilés named Elder Freire and we created the most incredible masterpiece that this world has ever been offered. He's from Portugal and I'm from Arizona (hence the name Portuzona). He's super musical and loves to sing, so I brought the guitar with me to Avilés so we could jam during lunch. Long story short, the exchange went really really well. We somehow wrote this super awesome song based on 1 Nephi 3:7. I don't know how we did it, but we did. During the composition process, I kid you not we said a prayer asking for inspiration because we felt so good about the progress we were making. And in a good half hour, we finished. So we took it to the streets and sung like slayers. Yes. We slayed that song. It's beautiful. So anyway, this week I'm very grateful for my passion for music. I love writing and creating music and I'm so grateful for all the opportunities I've been given in my mission to express and develop this gift I've been blessed with. I love music so much! Here's the link to the video... My mom posted it today.

https://youtu.be/fRH3EeBbEZ8

Anyway, this week was really great! I love this little town of Gijón. There's lots of super nice people here. Asturianos are awesome. The members in the branch are solid. They're mostly from Spain, which is weird since I'm so used to serving with South Americans. But there are some strong recent converts. Enrique is a man I'm especially proud of. I think I've mentioned him before. He's like 81 and he got baptized last year. He received the Melchizedek priesthood a few weeks ago. He just got his first calling, as the second counselor in the branch presidency! And he's super excited for it! We had ward counsel yesterday and you could tell that Enrique was very happy to be able to serve in this position. He has progressed so much. In just about a year, he went from knowing absolutely nothing about the church to being a member of the bishopric. He's an incredible example to me as well as to the members here. He felt the spirit when the missionaries spoke to him, and he has being acting upon those impressions ever since. 

Ugh so little time... Hope you all have an awesome week! 

Elder Hendrix