Week 72: Merry Christmas from Tenerife!

Merry Christmas from Elder Hendrix.

Elder Hendrix and his district.

A family in Tenerife shared dinner with the missionaries.

I hope you all had a great Christmas! It's weird to think that I'll be home for next year's. Time is flying by so quick. It seems like just yesterday I was opening presents that my family had sent me last year. Christmas here was fun! My companion and I woke up and opened our presents that we received in the mail. And then we had church. There were a ton of tourists in sacrament meeting. Some from England, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Scotland. Our little chapel was packed full. Tenerife is a popular place to be during the Christmas season. There's a Finnish family that came that offered to buy us dinner one day this week before they go home. After church, we went to eat lunch with some members. They made us a giant paella, so that was cool. And then we got to Skype home! Skype is so weird. I feel like I was just with my family yesterday. Next time I Skype, I'll only have like 2 months left. It's scary :-) 

Well, transfers are today and I'M TRAINING! I'VE BEEN PATIENTLY WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT FOR OVER A YEAR. I'm so excited!! Elder Knaphus is headed to Madrid. My hijo will get here on Thursday morning. So that'll be super cool! I've been wanting to train forever! Wish me luck! Updates to come.

I don't have a lot of time to write, so I'll just add a few of the highlights from this week. We have an investigator named Maria and she invited us over for paella on Christmas Eve. I love her, she's awesome. We got to meet her family as well. She has two boys that are 7 and 17 and they're really fun! We ate lunch and played UNO together for a while. They're an awesome family! Another cool experience we had this week was meeting with Alexandra! She's another investigator and she's a champ. I think I wrote a little bit about her a few weeks ago. She's the one that we have been trying to contact for months. We finally got a hold of her a few weeks ago, but then she went on vacation for two weeks. Well she came back this week and we got to meet with her! We had a great lesson! She has been reading the Book of Mormon and has told us that she knows it is true. We invited her to be baptized and she accepted! So that was a huge miracle we saw this week! I'm excited to continue teaching her.

Anyway, this week should be really interesting having a greenie. I'm a bit nervous to take over the area now that Elder Knaphus is leaving. I'm still learning where everything is and where everyone lives. But it'll be a fun experience. We have a lot of stuff to do this transfer. I see a lot of potential in the people that we're currently teaching, so it will be cool to see the progress we make in the next few weeks! I'm excited for my hijo too. This is a great place to start the mission. The people are awesome and the weather is amazing. 

Oh here's another story real quick... So Friday morning we woke up and it was pouring rain outside. It was so weird. It's sunny here every day usually. But that morning it was like an Arizona summer monsoon. It was like a flood here. I was honestly kinda nervous. Elder Knaphus and I were considering staying inside and just doing a lot of work in our area book. But we felt that we needed to get outside. It sounded crazy because the weather was just absolutely ridiculous, but we headed out. It was crazy wet outside, but we saw so many miracles that morning! We were able visit a few inactive members and pass by a few homes of old investigators. So because of our decision to leave that morning, we found a few more people to start teaching again! The Lord blesses us when we make a constant effort to be diligent and strive.

I love each of you and I hope you all have a great new year! Until next week!

Elder Hendrix

Week 71: #ILUMINAelMUNDO

We had our ward Christmas party last Friday. It was a huge success! We had a ton of investigadores and potential investigadores come! It was so much fun too! Everyone loved it. We started with a little meeting where the youth talked about Jesus Christ and shared their testimonies, and then we had a huge dinner. One of the members made a HUGE paella. It easily could have fed 100 people.

A huge paella is served at the ward Christmas party in Tenerife.

Anyway, we had zone conference this week! All of the Canary Islands make up our zone, so for the meeting everyone had to travel to Gran Canaria, the island right next to Tenerife. That was an interesting trip. We went to the airport and took a 20 minute flight. The plane goes up, then they give you a piece of chocolate, and then you come right back down haha. But it was fun! There were 10 missionaries from our island on our flight. We were the only passengers in the whole plane haha it was weird. The planes are tiny. But anyway, we landed in Gran Canaria and had to take a bus to the elders' piso over there. With us and the elders from the other islands, there were 16 of us staying the night in one little piso. So that was definitely a night that went down in the books!

Elders Hendrix and Knaphus board a small plane for Gran Canaria.

The small plane is filled with missionaries headed to zone conference.

The next morning we had the conference. It was great! President Pack shared a lot of great counsel. We talked about building our faith as a mission, as well as taking advantage of this Christmas season to work extra hard and talk about Christ with the people. It was such a cool conference! We talked a lot about the initiative that the church is doing with the 25 ways in 25 days. I love the video for it. Here's the link if you haven't seen it: https://www.mormon.org/?cid=HP_FR_25-11-2016_dMIS_fmorg_xLIDyL1-A_  We talked about using the video in proselyting. In our mission, we have iPads, so we can show the video to people in the street. We've done it a few times, and it goes really well! People love it! 

Anyway, I was asked to provide a musical number for the conference. I came up with a really cool piano arrangement of Christmas songs. I learned how to play the song from the video, so I started out with that. And then tied in 4 Christmas hymns. It went really well! I love every chance I get to play the piano for a musical number. I've had some of the most spiritual experiences playing the piano in the mission. But this one in particular was just perfect. I love playing piano. I remember at the beginning of the mission I was always so nervous to perform. But practicing the piano has really helped me build confidence in myself. I love being able to invite the spirit in the room through music. At the very end of the conference, President Pack asked if I would play the song a second time before the closing prayer, which was really cool. Afterwards, he asked if he could take a video of it so he could post it on YouTube or something. So we'll see if it gets put up this week! Anyway, after the conference, we went caroling in a small town and gave away Books of Mormon all wrapped up like presents. Because really what better gift can we give than the evidence of the restored gospel? It was such a cool experience! 

That night we flew back to Tenerife (once again 20 minutes) and that was pretty much how zone conference went. It was such a long day, but such a cool meeting! I'm so grateful for all the counsel and instruction we received. We got all of our Christmas mail that day as well, so today for P day, Elder Knaphus and I wrapped up all of our mail and packages and stuff we got and we're gonna open them on Christmas. We bought a little Christmas tree for our piso too. I'll try to attach a picture.

Elder Hendrix wrapped the gifts from his family.

Well, I hope you all have a merry Christmas! I love the Christmas season so much. It's not the same here in the Canary Islands, but I'm still grateful for this time that I have to teach others about Jesus Christ. The zone conference made me think about how much I've been blessed with this past year. God has blessed me with an amazing family, awesome friends, good health, talents, the gospel, and so much more. So it made me ponder this... God has given me so many gifts, so how can I repay him and give to Him? The best thing we can do to express our love and gratitude for God is by keeping His commandments and by sharing His love with others. He loves all of His children, and wants each of them to be able to recognize His care. So this Christmas season, something amazing we can all do to give back to Him is serve Him. Just like the video says. Be the light! Share the light!

Juan 8:12 - "Yo soy la luz del mundo"

Mateo 5:14 - "Vosotros sois la luz del mundo"

Merry Christmas!! 

Elder Hendrix

Week 70: Doubt Your Doubts

We had a really great week this week! We talked to a TON of people and place several Books of Mormon! We're working on increasing our teaching pool so we can fill our days with more teaching appointments, and it's going well. We've been doing a lot of street contacting. We received quite a few phone numbers this week and we're excited to meet with a lot of potential investigators in the next few days. 

We met one woman a few days ago named Helga and she just so happens to have a daughter getting baptized this week in the ward in the northern part of Tenerife. So that was kind of a miracle meeting her! She said she's interested in learning more about the church and wants to see what it is that has brought so much comfort to her daughter. So we're very excited to teach her! We had our first lesson with her this weekend and we explained the restoration of the gospel and gave her a Book of Mormon and she committed to read it! We called the missionaries in the north that are teaching her daughter and and they're gonna talk to her about supporting her mom with the missionary discussions. Running into Helga in the street was not just a coincidence. I know that we were led to her. I love miracles like this!

We met with Victor this week. He's the coolest guy. He's super nice and always offers us Coca Cola. He's an old investigator that was found in our area book. He loves talking about God and is very receptive. This week we talked about the restoration with him. The only issue is that he's blind so he can't read the Book of Mormon. So we're working on reading it to him. But he's such a nice guy and just wants to learn!

We got to do a cool service this week! There was an English family that had just flown in for vacation and they were getting off a bus and we saw them struggling with carrying all their luggage as well as handling a baby in a stroller. So we offered to help them carry all of their stuff. We walked them to the taxi station and had a nice conversation about the gospel. We got talking about the Book of Mormon and why we're called Mormons. That morning before we left our piso, I had the impression to pack an English Book of Mormon in my backpack. It was weird. I haven't placed a Book of Mormon in English since good ol' Torrejón town. And Elder Knaphus and I had been praying that day to be blessed an opportunity to share the gospel with a tourist. After we helped the family pack their bags into the taxi, I pulled out the Book and gave it to them. And they were so grateful and they said they're excited to find the missionaries in their town when they get home!

This week I had the opportunity to do a baptismal interview for one of the hermanas' investigators, Elaina, who has been preparing for baptism for several months. She's from Brazil and has lived here in Tenerife for about 15 years. She's the sweetest woman. I love interviews so much because I get to hear the life stories of others and hear their recently developed testimonies. I didn't know Elaina very well, but during our conversation I could just tell that there had been changes made in her life. She shared with me a lot about her experience of getting to know the church. She has developed such a strong testimony. One thing we discussed a lot was the spirit she has felt as she has been taught by the hermanas. She explained that sometimes she doesn't understand everything, but the things she doesn't understand are the things that have helped her better understand the principle of faith. Trusting in spiritual feelings is often more important than developing a perfect understanding of everything you learn. 

One thing I love about the gospel is that we are always learning. We're not perfect. We are continually growing and developing our testimonies. Sometimes we don't understand everything that we learn from church, but as we continue to trust more in the spirit we feel rather than focusing on our worries, our faith and understanding will grow. Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith. Elaina is one of the most prepared converts I've had the opportunity to interview. The spirit during that interview was so strong. I as well left the room feeling very spiritually uplifted. It's amazing to be able to witness the changes that can take place after seeing someone allow themselves to experience the blessings of the gospel. I'm so grateful for the gospel in my life, and I'm so grateful for Elaina's desires to make a covenant with her Heavenly Father which will result in her achieving an even greater potential to receive such wonderful blessings from her Heavenly Father. After we finished, we all went out for ice cream. She was so happy and I could feel her enthusiasm towards her baptism. The next day however, Elaina had a very difficult trial faced in front of her. Her husband passed away the day before her baptism. It was very unexpected and has been a very difficult thing for everyone to handle. Though we, as a district, have so much faith that she will remember the testimony she has developed and her faith in the plan of salvation. I'm so grateful that she had the chance to be taught these things before this tragic event. I know that the plan of salvation is real. I know that this knowledge blesses everyone. The plan of salvation has brought me so much hope and comfort, and I know that it's the plan of God. 

Well, I wish you all a great week! Love you all!

Shoutout to big brother J who turned 30 this week! Love you!

Elder Hendrix 

Week 69: Monkey Park

Hello friends!

This week was a good one! The weather has been absolutely amazing this week too. It's like high 60's every day and it's so nice! I don't think that being on this island will ever get old. It's hard to complain about walking out in the streets all day long because I got to be in such perfect weather AND preach the gospel. There's always a slight breeze and it's just awesome. Our sacrament room in the church is on top of a building, and the doors are always left open. So we even get to sit through church meetings with that nice breeze coming in. 

Anyway, we had a great week with some great lessons! We've been teaching an 18 year old named Jóse who has a baptismal date for this month. He's a great kid! He came to church yesterday and loves to participate in the classes! We're really excited for his progression. We had another investigator in church named Maria. She comes about every week actually. She has been taught for a few months now. She's really great, the only issue is that she is meeting with about 5 other religions and just wants to know literally everything about everything before she chooses a church. But she has been progressing lately. We're working on helping her understand how to receive an answer through prayer. She has great desires and has a good heart. She always comes to English classes too. We love her!

P-day today was really fun! Mondays are great on the islands! We went to this zoo called Monkey Park. Zoos here are way cooler than the United States because they're not safe at all. You can go inside all the cages. You just gotta be careful. The only exhibit with a cage is the alligator one. But still, if you were a little 5 year old, you could easily fall right over the rail. But anyway, it was a fun p-day! The monkey part was the coolest. They climb all over you and you can feed them. Just be careful that you're never standing right under one that's up in a tree. he might poop on you. Yes, I got pooped on.

Elder Hendrix feeds a new friend at Monkey Park.

Elder Hendrix poses with an iguana.

Elder Knaphus and I are continuing to work hard! We did a lot of contacting this week and received a ton of references, so we're excited to see if there's some success with meeting with them! The work is going surprisingly well here. There are a TON of tourists here, but we somehow manage to find people that actually live here on the island. Probably 90% of the people we stop in the street are here on vacation though. And a ton of them are from other parts of Europe and speak English, so it's been so weird trying to teach in English. It's so uncomfortable. I'm so used to stopping people in Spanish so now when I do it, I try to directly translate into English and then it just comes out weird because direct translations aren't the same at all. So it's been interesting! 

Anyway, that's about the week went. I love my calling and I'm so grateful to be here! I know that this is the work of the Lord and that this gospel brings so many blessings. love you all! Have a great week!

Don't get pooped on by a monkey.

Elder Hendrix 

Week 68: Gaining understanding

Elder Hendrix in Los Cristianos.

Hey there!

This week was good! I really like this area here in Tenerife. The weather has been soooooo amazing! It's like 70 degrees every day. We wake up early to go run on the beach pretty frequently. The mission is the best haha.

I really like the members here. The ward has about 45 active members and they've all great! I love our bishop too. He's such a champ. He's from Argentina and has lived in Spain for a long time. He's one of the smartest guys I've met. He helps us with lessons a lot and he is so helpful. His name is Obispo Beccaceci. I love how supportive he is.

This week we had several incredible lessons! We have some great investigators, one of which is Jyoti. Jyoti is from India and has been meeting with the missionaries for several months now. She's the nicest woman! She has been keeping commitments and is progressing really well! I see so much potential in her and I'm excited to see her continue to strengthen her testimony. Our lessons with her are very spiritual. This week we went over the word of wisdom. She had several doubts about not being able to drink coffee, but we were able to explain it to the best of our ability, and with the help of the spirit she was able to understand. It may not seem like coffee is damaging, but I testify that God is all-knowing and has a knowledge much greater than ours. He has given us the commandment of the word of wisdom because He knows that it will benefit us. And these benefits are not only temporal, but also spiritual. I know that God wants to bless us and that he wants us to protect our bodies. And what better way to protect our bodies than following the instructions that our Heavenly Father has given us? Sometimes we may not understand why He gives us certain commandments, but we just have to trust Him. And as confidence in Him grows, our understanding will grow. Like Bruce R. McConkie has explained, understanding is gained by obedience. And that statement applies to every commandment that we have been given. If we don't understand it, then maybe that's an invitation to try it. Obedience really does result in understanding! 

We had a cool spirit gut punch this week. One morning, when we were originally planning on doing our weekly planning session, we had the impression of passing by an old investigator to see if she was home. Her name is Alexandra. We've been trying to pass by her house and trying to get a hold of her for months, but we've never had any luck. Elder Knaphus and I decided to change our planning session to the next morning so we could go see if she was home. So we took a long bus ride out to the pueblo where she lives, we knocked on her door, and sure enough! She was there! We had a nice conversation with her and were able to help her rekindle those desires to learn about the gospel. She's such a sweet lady. She's going out of town this week, but she promised to meet with us when she comes home. I'm so excited to teach her! We learned a lot about patience with this experience, as well as listening to the spirit. Don't give up on someone! Everybody deserves the opportunity to hear the gospel! 

Today we had an interesting start to P day today. We went to the store to buy our groceries and Elder Knaphus tried to pull a cool stunt, but it didn't work. He picked up a box of Oreos off the shelf and tried to throw it across the aisle into the cart, but right as he tossed it a woman walked in the way and he ended up throwing the box right at her face. It was a lot more intense than it sounds, but basically it was hilarious.

We had a zone training this week! Our zone is all of the islands in the Canaries. So they put all of the missionaries on two islands and then on a Skype call. Tenerife was one of the islands, so we got to stay here with half the zone. But yeah it was a good meeting! My district did a musical number and it went well! We sang Señor te necesito and my companion played the guitar. He's a pro on the guitar. He's been teaching me a lot of songs lately. He bought a ukulele last week, so we've been having some good jam sessions. Anyway, after the zone meeting, the senior couple in northern Tenerife made us Thanksgiving dinner! It was super good! Except we didn't have turkey or pumpkin pie cause those things don't exist here really, so we had a bunch of ham. It was good!

And that's about it for this week! Love you all! Have a good week!

Week 67: Tenerife

Elder Hendrix in a tree in Tenerife.

Overlooking the island.

Still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I'm preaching the gospel on a tiny island just off the coast of Africa that was once an active volcano. Cool stuff.

It's been a crazy first week here in Tenerife! I already love this place! It's way different from Madrid. It's way warmer to begin with. It's a cool 70 degrees with a nice breeze all day, every day. I've been in short sleeves every day. It's been great. It's sunny every day. The island has a ton of palm trees. Oh and our piso is a 30 second walk from the beach. I have nothing to complain about. We have a beautiful view of the island from our balcony in our piso. I love this place! We leave the back door open every night so the breeze comes in, so I've had zero problems sleeping. I know you're so jealous Aunt Carly! I could brag all day long about this paradise I'm in. Not only do I get to testify of Jesus Christ every day, but I get to do it on a tropical island. How could it get any better? The only downfall is that we have to buy our own water because the tap will turn you into a zombie.

Anyway, the work is interesting. Street contacting is a little difficult because about 90% of the people we talk to in the street are tourists from other parts of Europe. And half of the time they don't speak Spanish or English. So it's hard finding new people to teach off the street, but it's been so interesting having conversations with these people! We've met a ton of English people. It's so weird contacting in English. I much rather prefer Spanish. I don't even know what to say in English. 

The ward here is great. There's about 40-50 active members in the ward, which is a ton compared to the other islands. A lot of them are Italians. There's actually a ton of Italians that live here on the island. So it's been interesting studying a little bit of Italian this week! I'm learning very basic conversation stuff. There are so many cultures here. Not nearly as many South Americans as Madrid. Its mostly native Canarians, Italians, Spaniards, and Africans. It's weird to think that I'm still in Spain. There is a Peruvian family in this ward though, which is fantastic because Peruvian food has come to be my favorite. Bishop Bececcecci is the coolest guy ever. He's from Argentina and has lived here in Tenerife for quite a while. He's so supportive and loves missionary work, so I'm really excited to work with him! He helps us out with lessons pretty frequently. There's a kid named Luis in the ward from Mexico, who is also a stud. He made us real Mexican tacos one day this week which was awesome. I remember before the mission I always thought that typical Spanish food would be like Mexican, but it's not at all. So it was nice to have some real Mexican food.

Moving on... We have several investigators that are champs! They're some good people who have desires to change and follow Christ. We've had a few very powerful lessons this week. I'm very grateful for my companion, Elder Knaphus. We're a powerhouse together. He's a really hard worker and has such a strong testimony. Oh and he plays the guitar super well! I managed to get my guitar on the plane over here, which was such a smart move in my opinion. He's been teaching me some cool songs. He bought a ukulele today for P-day, so now we're all set to have some solid jam sessions. So yeah, he's a stud. Actually, let me explain to you guys how much of a stud he is: He killed a fly one day this week by flicking it right out of the air. I kid you not.

We teach English classes on Tuesdays and Fridays. They've been a huge success as a finding activity! This past Tuesday, we had 22 people in our class. And ZERO of them are members. So we have a lot of potential investigators. A ton of people in Tenerife apparently want to learn English! We also have a Book of Mormon reading class one day a week, where we just read out of the Book of Mormon and help people understand it. There are a few less actives that come, and we even have one investigator that comes regularly.

We spend a ton of time traveling. Most of the members and the people we teach live in small pueblos outside of Los Cristianos. We probably average 2-3 hours on buses each day. Buses here are called GuaGuas. OH THE BANANAS HERE ARE ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS. The banana farms here in Tenerife ship to all over Europe. The biggest banana company on the continent is here. Anyway, we spend a lot of time traveling.

So basically, I love my new area. And the ocean smell. And the bananas. I'm so grateful for work here and for all of the people. As I mentioned, there are a ton of tourists here in Los Cristianos, so contacting as a method of finding has been rough, but it's still so cool to be able to at least invite these people to listen. I love meeting people from all over the world and getting to know different cultures. I love being a missionary. I love teaching. I'm so grateful to be here. I'm happy, healthy, and I feel so close to the spirit. I thank all of you for your love and support!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Hendrix and his district at a restaurant.

Elder Hendrix with his district.

Elder Hendrix with his district and a local member.

Week 66: Island bound

I got transferred! Leaving barrio 4 has been very hard. I loved that area so much. I made so many great friends and I just have so much love for those people there. Yesterday was my last day, so after church we just spent the rest of the evening visiting members and saying my farewells. Being in that area was such an amazing experience. I was able to witness so many miracles. One thing I do like about being transferred is reflecting on the time I spent in the area. It's hard to say goodbye, but at the same time I am so happy and grateful for all the experiences I had. My faith and testimony increased there. I'm so grateful for all those miracles and for the spirit I felt there!

I'm now in my fifth area. In the Canary Islands! I got transferred to the islands!! I'm so excited! The name of my island is Tenerife. I'll be serving in Los Cristianos with Elder Knaphus. I just arrived this afternoon. All it took to get here was a 30 minute metro ride, a 3 hour flight, 20 minute bus ride, and then another 2 hour bus ride. We live in a crater of a volcano, so that's cool. It's a lot warmer here than Madrid! It's pretty humid. There's trees and beaches and it's sunny all the time, so this will definitely be interesting! Updates to come!

And that's about all the time I got... Have an awesome week!

Elder Hendrix

Looking out the airplane window on
 Los Cristianos, Canary Islands.