Week 94: Gijónmania

Our ward pianist just moved to Madrid. So I've been called to be the pianist! So I'm excited to be forced to learn to sightread. I've been trying to do that my whole mission.

Anyway, this week was pretty good! We had zone conference in León on Thursday, so we had to do a lot of traveling that day. I was asked to organize a musical number for the meeting, so I played the guitar and the four of us Gijón missionaries sang Acompáñame. It went well! We're planning on starting a band actually. We're gonna call ourselves Gijónmania. It'll be incredible. Anyway, I really enjoyed the meeting. We talked a lot about how to be more motivated to talk to the whole world and be excited to work hard. I really appreciate President Pack. He's a great president and always teaches us what we need to hear.

We had a really cool noche de hogar with the JAS this week. The JAS here are super cool. We have a noche de hogar with them once a week usually. Irene, who was the pianist, moved to Madrid, so we had a testimony meeting. And it was sooooo cool to hear all of these young adults share their thoughts. They have solid testimonies. And it's cool to think that that room was filled with perhaps the only JAS in Gijón who have testimonies. So let's put our testimonies in to use and share them! There was such a great spirit during that meeting. I'm grateful for their examples and faithfulness.

Hope you all have a great week! Sorry this email was so short... Here's some pics from a hike we did today! Oh and shout out to Hunter for turning 23 on Saturday! Haven't seen you since you were 20. Weird.

Elder Hendrix

Elder Logan "naps" on the coast of Gijon.

Elder Hendrix "naps" on the coast of Gijon.

Week 93: Fun Finding

In zone conference last transfer, we received some great instruction from our mission president, President Pack. He talked a lot about speaking to people in a more natural way instead of just saying "Hey we're missionaries! We have a message!" We discussed fun finding activities that we can do to have conversations with people. Like go
to an ice cream place and try the flavors and get to know the employees, or go to a park and find a family and ask if they want to throw a frisbee around. Elder Goodman and I have been thinking of creative ways to start up normal conversations with people, and we had the idea of walking inside every suit place we see to ask about their
ties. There are suit places EVERYWHERE here because Spanish fashion is boppin. And we've been having some cool experiences doing it! We always walk in and introduce ourselves and such, and then tell them we're interested in ties. So they show us their ties and we look and stuff and then the employees ALWAYS ask us the reason we wear ties every day, which perfectly transitions the conversation into who we are and what we do and why we do it. We've been seeing some miracles with this strategy haha. On Saturday, we were on our way to an appointment really far away and we arrived like 10 minutes early, and there was a conveniently located suit store right next door. So we walked in and the lady greeted us and we started talking neckwear. And man this place had some groovy honey snatchers. Polka dots, stripes, checkered, paisley.... I kid you not, they even had holographic. Anyway, we got talking to this woman Paula and she was super friendly! She asked about what we do as missionaries and such, so we got talking. We had a real nice conversation! We talked about Jesus Christ and the atonement, and we invited her to hear more and she said we're welcome to pass by the store any time when it's not too busy and we can talk. So that was a really cool teaching experience we ran in to! She even gave me 20% off the purple paisley. And now I'm out rockin this new accessory without shame. Moral of the story: Teaching the gospel results in blessings, which may or may not include discounted trendy Spanish neckwear.

When I was in Tenerife, a member taught me a really cool card trick that's super easy. So I bought a deck of cards here and started showing it to members and the youth. But then I had the idea of doing it in proselyting to see what happens. So one day this week, we were out contacting in the street when we passed by a huge park that's
always full of youth playing futbol, etc. Actually, there's parks everywhere here in Gijón. They're like every 5 minutes walking. There are soooo many. Anyway, we saw a huge group of kids like 15-16 years old I would guess and so I had the idea of asking them if they wanted to see a card trick. We walked over to them and started talking and they said yes. So they called over all their friends to come watch, so there was like probably 15 kids. I did the trick and they were totally amazed. I trolled them good. Mage Hendrix leveled up in wizardry that day. We talked to them about our English classes and they seemed really interested! Hopefully they come this week! But yeah it was a really successful contacting attempt! I was really surprised how well it went. I actually tried it again last night. We were on our way back to our piso and we still had like 5 minutes before we had to be inside, so we were just talking to the people in the streets when we ran into another park. There was a table with a few youth sitting
down. I approached them and asked if I could show them a card trick. Once again, minds were blown. I earned a milestone with this one. We invited them to come to English classes they all gave us their numbers. So that was a cool miracle! This card trick thing is working really well! I've only tried in the streets those two times, and both of them had some great results! One more and I'll master wizardry. We might have to fill the font soon...

Anyway, it's been a great week for finding new people. I'm really enjoying these ideas that we've put into practice. It's so true though that if we start a conversation in more creative and natural way instead of just saying hello we're missionaries, we'll find people. And those people will want to hear the gospel!

Hope you all have a great week, and remember that sharing the gospel is fun! So do it! I know that living the gospel brings such great blessings. Keep on! Until next week!

Elder Hendrix

Week 92: Go JAS!

On Friday night, we did a little noche de hogar with the JAS (YSA) in the branch. There's like 3 active JAS here in Gijón. For the message,we had them teach us the Plan of Salvation. We pretended to be friends of theirs who have never heard about the gospel. Two of the JAS, Fernando and Irene, taught us the lesson and it went really well! It was really cool to reflect on how it went. Fernando and Irene are both returned missionaries. They served in France and Argentina. Which made me realize two things: 1) They know the plan of salvation very
well and 2) they're two of the very very few JAS in this whole country who have served missions. Which means they're probably two of the most powerful tools in Spain for helping the JAS here be introduced to the gospel. There are about 500 active JAS in all of Spain. Some JAS here don't realize how blessed they are to have the knowledge of the plan of salvation. I'm sure there are thousands of young adults out here looking for a purpose. They "are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it--" (D&C 123:12). JAS have lots of friends, and those friends are also JAS! And those JAS are the future leaders of the church. It was a really cool experience to watch Fernando and Irene teach us. It made me think about how blessed I am to have been raised in an area where the church is big. I'm really grateful for the examples that Irene and Fernando are. We challenged them to share the plan of salvation with their friends, because it's pretty likely that these two are the only way their friends will be able to hear the gospel while in their youth. They seemed to have felt very motivated and proud to be young members of the church. It was such a cool noche de hogar and I think it was a great lesson for all of us.

There's an 81-year-old recent convert here named Enrique. He's a champ. He got baptized last year after meeting the missionaries on a bus. He just got the Melchizedek priesthood last week at stake conference. He helps us out with lessons like every other day. He's such an awesome old Spaniard. He's so willing to serve and help out. He gave a blessing for the first time this week and it went so well! He was so grateful to be able to do it. It was really cool listening to him as he's guided by the spirit. He's a great example to the people in the ward. An old Spaniard investigating the church is almost unheard of, so it's really cool to hear his testimony and his conversion. He always shares with us that it's never too late to follow Christ. An 81 year old can be just as faithful as any other member. Youth isn't required to follow the gospel. He's such a great guy! I love hearing his testimony.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day yesterday! Shout out to all the moms out there for being the superheroes of the world. Missionaries wouldn't be missionaries if it weren't for you!

Have an awesome week!

Elder Hendrix

Week 91: Asturias

This place is definitely not Tenerife. haha. But I'm reallyenjoying my new area! I'm glad I finally made it up here. All it took was a 90 minute bus ride, 25 minutes on the tran via, 3 hour flight, 30 minute metro ride, 3-1/2 hour train ride, then another 4 hours on a different train, and then another bus ride, which got me to a town called Oviedo around midnight, where I spent the night with the elders there. Then the next morning, I took one more long bus ride to finally arrive in Gijón. So yeah, it was a painfully long trip, but hey I made it alive! I had to travel alone too which was honestly really nice.

This will be a cool place to end my mission. It's a lot like Galicia. It's really rainy and it gets pretty chilly, but it's a beautiful area. It's really green. It's a really big change from Tenerife. I went from a desert in the middle of the ocean to a rain forest. But I live right by the beach again! So that's really nice! Today it's a bit overcast, so I think we're gonna go play frisbee on the beach. But yeah I'm super excited for this area. The members are really good people! There are quite a few YSA which is awesome. We play futbol with them on Saturdays.

The people here are definitely Spanish haha. It's been a really long time since I've taught Spaniards, which is quite ironic since I'm in Spain. Madrid is like 90% Latinos, and Tenerife is full of Europeans. So really the last time I saw so many Spaniards was in Santiago last year. Gijón is part of a province called Asturias. So the people here are called Asturianos. And they've got the strangest accents. I feel like every time I get transferred I have to relearn Spanish since there are so many dialects and accents in this country. Latinos speak different from Spaniards, and
Spaniards are way different from Canarians. So this will be a fun adventure understanding Asturianos. They've got some thick accents. I feel like serving in areas where the Spanish is different has really helped me improve my ability to speak it though. I'm always hearing different things, so my vocab and such has increased a ton. So that's
cool. But yeah it's so interesting how diverse this country is. It's such a small country, but there are so many different cultures. This is my 6th area. All 6 of my areas have been so different from each other. Torrejon was African central, Santiago has Galicians that speak Gallego and eat weird food, Madrid is all Latinos, Canarians are
kind of a mix of everything, and Asturias is straight up Spaniard. The mission has definitely been quite the cultural experience!

Yesterday, my first Sunday in Gijón, was pretty exhausting. We had district conference in León. So our branch rented a bus to take all of the members down there. It's like a 3 hour bus ride. The conference was really good! They fed us lunch there, and then we took the bus all the way back to Gijón. We finally got back around 8 pm. So
yesterday was a super long day. But it was really fun getting to know the members on the bus! There's about 40 active members in the branch. They're awesome people! I sat with the YSA on the bus and we all told funny stories. They're cool people.

My new companion is basically Court Lake. It's pretty hilarious actually. His name is Elder Goodman. He's from Utah. He has been in the mission about a year. So this should be a fun transfer together.

Anyway, this week was really good! It's been really long and exhausting, but we're working hard out here. We're really excited to teach some people we found in the street this week. The streets here are full of people. There are a ton of parks full of families too which is awesome!

This week during my scripture study, I came across a super cool verse in the Book of Mormon. "Yea, and he looketh down upon all the children of men; and he knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart; for by his hand were they all created from the beginning." (Alma 18:32) I love this story of Ammon teaching King Lamoni. He boldly testifies of a simple truth that God knows each of his children personally. There are billions of people in the world. But I, like Ammon, know that God is real and that he is always watching us and is anxious to bless each and every one of us, and that every single soul on this earth has worth in His sight. He created us. We are His children and He loves us.

I hope you all have a great week over in sunny AZ!

Week 90: Serving around the world

Transfer day! Sorry I'm on an ultra time crunch. I got transferred out of Los Cristianos. Yesterday was my last day. Today I am traveling literally the entire day to get to my new area. Leaving Tenerife was rough. That place is full of amazing people that I will never forget. Last night we had a little farewell goodbye party in the church. Lots of members came as well as several investigators. Leaving an area is never easy. It's hard. I've made so many awesome friends. I'm so grateful for the opportunity I had to serve on such a beautiful island serving such great people. It was a very quick 6 months, but I'll never forget them. I feel like my testimony really grew while I was
there. I was able to preach the gospel to people from literally all over the world. We had lessons in English, in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and even Gallego. And although not every word was understood, the language of the spirit was felt. I was able to express my testimony to so many people who don't speak Spanish, but I know that spiritual impressions were recognized and understood. We've received phone numbers and addresses from people from all over the world visiting for vacation, and I have faith that there were lots of seeds planted. We've passed information to missionaries all over the place which is really cool to think about. I'm serving in the Spain Madrid Mission, but I've also been able to serve worldwide. My testimony of the gift of tongues has increased for sure. I'm so grateful for having had the opportunity to meet so many people. Learning about so many different cultures has been a really cool experience.

I'm really excited for my new area in the peninsula. I'll be serving in Asturias in a small city called Gijón. It's in northern Spain. It's right on the coast too, which is cool because I'll still get to see ocean a lot! So I'm super excited for that. I'll most likely finish my mission there, as I only have 12 weeks left. But that's still quite a bit of time, so I'm excited to make the most of it! I just got off a 3 hour flight from the Canaries, and then I have to catch a train for like 6 hours I think. So today will be a long day. I actually don't even arrive in Gijón until tomorrow... But hey I'm super excited to serve there! I've heard it's a beautiful place full of wonderful people. I'll keep you all updated!

Love you all! Have a great week! I'll reply to your emails next week if I don't get to today...

Elder Hendrix

Elder Hendrix in Tenerife
with Mayalene & Miguel

The Villalobos Family in Tenerife

Week 89: Faithful Endurance

We have an awesome investigator named Carlos. He's Dominican and he's 18, which are two things that automatically make him cool. We met him in the street several weeks ago and we've been teaching him in a park every once in a while when he has some time. We had a great lesson with him this past weekend. He has desires to strengthen his faith and develop a relationship with God. He has been praying for years, but hasn't ever received any witness of the fact that God hears and loves him. He continues praying though because he still has hope that He is there. He explained to us this week, however, that he hasn't experienced any spiritual advancement or change or anything since we've started meeting with him. We asked him why he thinks that is, and he said he wasn't sure. We then did follow up with his scripture reading and such. He was honest and said he hasn't done anything we've told him he needs to do. We asked him what exactly he expects from God. We then asked him what he believes God expects of him, and then he made the realization that we are teaching him exactly that. 

We're here helping people understand how to follow the will of God so that they can develop and strengthen their relationship with Him. Expecting our needs to become reality requires faith, which is action. Here's an example. When we become ill, we often ask for a priesthood blessing, which is a wonderful idea. But we sometimes forget that healing requires two part:.God's and ours. God is not obligated to heal us if we rely on him without doing our part (2 Nephi 25:23). Or in other words, I can't receive a blessing of health and then go and eat several unhealthy junk food snacks and chocolate and ignore doctoral advice, etc, all while expecting this miracle of quick recovery. That's not how we do our part. I would need to do things that promote good health and would theoretically lead to a recovery in order to show God that I am willing to do my part and that I am in sincere need of His help. 

Now, applying this to Carlos' situation... Expecting God to manifest himself unto us and to cause that all of our problems disappear, is a solid way of defining hope. However, in order to turn that hope into faith, action is required. But how do we act? By doing the things God has asked us to do. By keeping his commandments. By going to church. By constantly praying. By studying His gospel. Yeah, but I read the scriptures once but didn't hear anything. Well, as we know, we're here to be tried. Maybe the doubts we have are trials of faith. God loves us and wants to bless us. And he delivers His blessings to those who have faith, to those who continually trust Him, and to those who endure. Carlos smiled when he responded, "Well, I guess he has been testing me for 18 years now." Could be. Carlos explained to us that our conversation really changed his way of thinking. He recognized the spirit during the lesson. He has realized some changes he needs to make. And he seemed to have left that day happier. He had a greater sense of hope. He's a great kid and we're excited to help him continue understanding the fact that we have a loving father in Heaven who is anxious to bless us. He wants to see us happy. So if we ever have doubt in God's love, we must remember to just trust Him. He gives us trials as opportunities to exercise faith. And even if that trial lasts a very long time, it doesn't mean that He has left us. He's always there supporting us. And so to those of you who may have struggling testimonies, 

I invite you to ponder this question. Am I fulfilling God's expectations of me? If he isn't fulfilling mine, is it because I'm not fulfilling His? Be humble. And remember His expectations are more beneficial for us than ours (Isaiah 55:8-9). I promise and testify that God loves us. He gives us trials to humble and strengthen us. So trust him! Keep His commandments. Chickfila has a limit to how many barbecue sauce packets you can get in one meal. I'd like to have one per nugget, but maybe it's for my benefit that I don't get that much. I don't understand it. But a perfect knowledge isn't necessary to have faith (Alma 32:21). God works the same way. If we just trust him and do all we can to fulfill His expectations of us, He will do His part, and He will manifest himself unto us.

The church is true. The Book is blue. Scooby Doo. Elmers Glue. 

Elder Hendrix

Week 88: Update from the Canaries

This is the coolest mission ever. I get to meet people from all over the world here. Tuesday morning, we went to street contact and knock doors in a small pueblo for a few hours. In those 2 short hours, I met a Peruvian, Argentinian, Nigerian, a family from Switzerland, some Bolivians, half the population of Senegal, a bunch of Chileans, Italians, a German volleyball team, a cat, a brick, a sweaty Colombian with only 8 fingers, and a Swedish fish. There are so many cultures here and it's so cool to learn a little about each of them. I feel like I've basically served in every country in South America haha. I've tried all the typical food from each country too which is awesome. This mission is also really weird though because you would think that Spain would be filled with Spaniards. Wrong. I've actually met very few Spaniards in my mission. Madrid is all South Americans. And Tenerife is like half Italians and half Canarians.

This week was a good week! It's starting to get really hot. The Canarias get heat waves every once in a while that are accompanied by a sand invasion from the Sahara. A few days ago it was low 70s, but yesterday it was like 93. It's really weird. They usually last like 2 or 3 days. So yeah this week has been brutal as far as the weather goes. It's super humid too which is also killer. Makes me miss dry Arizona heat.

Sacrament meeting yesterday was really cool! There were a ton of tourists here for Holy Week. This entire week has been a holiday. Nobody has work or goes to school. So we had a full chapel. The four of us missionaries were all in different classes during Sunday school so we could help translate. I got to be with the youth to translate for this 17 year old Scottish. He made several comments in the class that I had to translate for, and man it was rough. I still don't believe that their language is English. I can't understand half of it. I don't know how you do it Elder Oxspring. Spanish is way easier than Scottish English. Either I just don't understand what they're saying, or it's just straight gibber talk. I don't know man. But hey they're nice people. :)

Mayalene and Miguel came to church! Man I love that couple. They're amazing. The ward members keep asking us when they're gonna be baptized because they would be such incredible leaders haha. Which is totally true. And our ward needs more leaders! They're doing really good. They're such amazing examples to me. As I've explained previously, Mayalene works taking care of an abuela in a small pueblo up north. She has to live in her house. She starts working Monday at 6 am and gets off Sunday at 9 am. So she and Miguel only get to be together for barely 21 hours a week. But the amazing thing is that they come straight to church when she's off work so they can get there on time for sacrament meeting. They know that it's what they need. I'm sure it would be easy to not go, as I'm sure it's not the first thing that the world would do when they only get to be with their spouse for that day. But Mayalene and Miguel feel the spirit there and they know that it's what their Heavenly Father wants them to do. We met with Miguel this week, who is still living here in Los Cristianos, and we talked a lot about baptism. He explained that they have discussed the subject a lot lately, and that they've decided they want to do it. They're ready. So we talked about a date. We're gonna have a lesson with the both of them this week so we can talk about it together. Updates to come! But woah they're so awesome. I'm grateful that they're recognizing the blessings of making sacrifices by coming to church. I know that they will be blessed for it!

Beach volleyball went really well this week! We play every Saturday morning. This past week, lots of new people came! A member family, the Villalobos, came and brought a friend! We also had several of our investigators there! This activity is continuing to grow and we're really grateful for it! We love getting together with those we teach as well as the members to have fun together and play some sports. It's gonna be tough getting transferred from this area. Apart from living on a beach, the people here are awesome. We have some awesome friends, and the Villalobos too have always been so supportive with our activities we plan.

Here's an interesting experience I had this week. I had the opportunity to do a baptismal interview for one of the hermana's investigators named Jose. He's a really cool guy. He had an interesting question that made me think. With his permission, I'll share that he has had a difficult time overcoming a smoking addiction. It's been a rough battle for him to leave cigarettes. He has been smoking for over 30 years, so it has been a hard change for him, and continues to be a struggle. As we were discussing the Word of Wisdom in the interview, we discussed that the our bodies are gifts from a God who loves us. He expects us to take care of them and to do the things that promote good health. However, perhaps others have had the same question that Jose asked me: We know that we will all resurrect with perfect bodies (Alma 40:23). So if we'll eventually have a perfect body, what's the purpose in working so hard to take care of the one we currently have? Smoking is not good for the body, but why is it still so bad even though we won't have these imperfect bodies forever? Well, God promises blessings to those who keep the commandments. One of those commandments is the Word of Wisdom. He wants us to be happy, and He promises us everlasting joy only if we do what He has asked us to do. A scripture that comes to mind is Mosiah 2:41 Read it. I, like Nephi, don't understand the meaning of all things. But I do understand the fact that God loves us and wants us to be able to live in His presence again. And to do so, it is essential that we keep His commandments, which is an expression of faith. For some, the Word of Wisdom can be a trial of faith. But we must remember that endurance through trials results in blessings.

Hope you all had a Happy Easter and ate lots of recess peanut butter cups for me. Those don't exist here. :/ Neither does Chick-fil-A. But man the bread here is bomb. Until next week!

Elder Hendrix