Not a lot of time

Not a lot of time.

That has prety much defined my week.  

I have been really busy.  We spent a lot of time doing what missionaries do.

Work and sweat and slave...(anybody recognize the John Bytheway reference?)

I don`t have a lot of time.  I feel like I have been here along time.

We went to the temple as missionaries with investigadores.  It was good.

We brought 2 investigators G. and I., who we have been working a lot with.  This time was different than the others as we gave classes about the temple.

It was a good week, with a good mix of personal development and hard work.

I invite everyone to look at everything that is normal, and try to look at it in God´s eyes.  Many times, what is normal, can be something that we need to do better.

I love you all, I had a good week.

Elder Henrie

Interesting week

This was an interesting week.  I made some mistakes and learned some lessons.

Not to worry, nothing serious, but yes interesting.

As I believe I have already mentioned.  I have begun reading the Book of Mormon de nuevo, desde el principio.  I am underlining every reference to the savior or to God.  There are a LOT.

Today, I was reading about when Nephi broke his bow.  I noticed two things that I never saw before.  First, Nephi talks about how God led them in the fertile parts of the wilderness, and second, there is never a mention of lack of water.  It made it so much more serious for me when they began to complain, because they had forgotten the blessings that God had given them.  It made me remember Elder Uctdorf´s talk from the last conference.

In other news.  I am still here in the Guaymuras zone, and in the same area.  I feel like there are still a few loose ends that the Lord needs to teach me, and I´ve already seen some of them.  I am busy and happy.

I am still with Elder Parker as well.  We get along well, and as we always seem to eat in the house, we bought a TON of food today.  I wish I had taken pictures.  We bought 16 cartons of orange juice (8 liters), just to give you an idea.  The goal is that we have enouph food for the entire week, and we don`t have to buy food again.  I was proud on the overall healthiness of our purchases, including 2 bags of peanuts just for me (I just finished one now).

We have a lot of great people we are working with.  I. would like to get baptized, but her mom doesn't want her to.  She is technically above age, but we don`t want to cause problems in the family.

We also found two new part member couples this week that we want to begin teaching.  I constantly wishing we had more time.  To help, we have been following the advice of Presidente Duncan and planning better.  We have been dividing the area into small zones, and we are planning on working on one zone per day.  It helps us be more effective and also makes it easier to call members to accompany us.  

Things are great here in the ward.  The other Elders (Day and Mendoza) had 2 babtisms last week.  One was D. a little girl that was our investigator that we passed over.  We unfortunately couldn't go to either baptism because we couldn't bring anyone.  It was a good week.  We have already seen miracles of having 4 elders here.

Things are doing good.

I love you guys!

Elder Henrie

This week was pretty much AWESOME

(If Graig doesn't send a picture I ask him to send me a selfie.)

It was also really busy.  We had a lot of meetings.  

The best was by far the Zone conference with President Duncan.

Elder Smith (also from Lehi, and in my group) said it something like this...

That guy came here and in 2 days changed the entire mission.

That pretty much sums it up.

He gave a lot of small but great suggestions, and in general animated us to work more effectively.  It will take a while to put all the suggestions into practice, but it will help us out a lot!

I really liked one of the illustrations he used..

VISION

              meta

              meta

              meta

              meta

              meta

Planamiento

Meaning, once you have a vision, you first set the goals that you will need to lograrlo (make it happen) and you make plans for every goal so that it happens.

Then of course you have to do it.

He made a lot of suggestions, but I will give the ones that most impacted me:

30 minute lessons (only teaching a few principles)

Each missionary should only talk 10-20 seconds (it keeps things energized and is easier for the spirit to participate)

When teaching Menos Activos, just sing a hymn and read a small lectura del libro de Mormon.  Then let the spirit work.

He also really emphasized the need for good planning.

The cool part about it was that I had already heard or seen many of the suggestions.  But he wrapped them together into a marvelous tapestry of effectiveness.  It will definetly change the mission.

Phew, I feel like I was talking a lot there and a need to take a breath.

.

.

.

Ok, done.  Things are looking good this week.  It is changes.  If someone leaves, it will probably be me.  I just don`t know where.  I started giving out thank you notes and feeling sad, so it would be funny if I don`t have changes.

Anyway.  Things are good!  I made some random art this week with things around the house (I now have about 5 pounds of Honduras coins, kind of funny seeing as they are going to stop using them).

Thank you for your prayers and your support.  I love you guys"

Elder Henrie

Meeting with the Leaders of the Districts

This week was pretty interesting. 

First of all we had a consejo de lideres de la mision.  Era muy interesante como pusieron ideas y hicieron sugerencias.  I loved it.  I took a lot of good notes and made some goals.  

First of all, I made a dat posterboard, that was a lot of work with a ruler and a permanent marker.  I laminated it so that it is reusable.  I also decided that I have to live cleaner.

The cool part is everyone in my group was there.  We are all lideres de distritos.  Changes are on the 17, so we will see if that lasts!

This week Presidente Duncan (president of the area) is coming to talk to us.  It should be great.

We had our stake conference last week as well.  We invited a lot of people and only a few went.  But our investigador Ingni le encantaba.  She should get babtized this month.  We found a lot of new people, and we are filtering them to see who we want to concentrate on.

There I got to see a lot of people from my last area (Guaymuras, en la misma estaca).  They were surprised to see I am still here.  I will probably leave here soon, but we will see.

This week I learned the importance of listening, even if people aren`t talking about or too you.  In the meeting of leaders, they gave a mountain of ideas for the missionary work, too long to count here.  It helped me realize many things that I can do better.  

Today, we also had to do a Preach my gospel survey to prepare for President Duncan, and that also helped me do an evaluation personal.

So things are good here in Honduras and in my area.  I still feel like we have a lot of space and not much time, but working when you should always helps!

Thanks for your love and support.

Elder Henrie

Safe and Happy

So this week was pretty good.

We did a lot of contacting this week.  We decided that we needed new people, so we got on it the old fashioned way.  We had our normal mixture of :No:, :I´m cathloc:, and :I am really busy today:.  We also had a good number of :YES: (those magic words that make a missionary´s heart beat faster).  As always, we found people from all walks of life, the students, the single mothers, the interesting back stories.  It is interesting that God has blessed us all with a unique life, a unique personality, which shapes how we react to the world.

So I´m pretty happy with this week.  We lograred (met) several of our goals, and we have some better goals for this week.  It made the week feel longer, but it was satisfying.

Important news....not really anything.  I am safe and happy.  

We had Ward conference on Sunday.  I honestly didn`t hear part of it, we dragged one of our investigadors out of sickbed (honestly, maybe it wasn`t a good idea in hindsight) and I was trying to make sure she was ok.  She is pretty pilas though, to go to church sick (or I am really pushy).

This week we have Stake conference, meaning we will be doing the same thing as last week, inviting, inviting more, and finally, dragging people out of their comfortable homes to go get spiritually fed.

It is all a fun practice for the big one...General Conference.  I am excited for general conference!  

Our ward is great, 4 missionaries makes me feel a difference in the energy of the ward and the work.  

I am satisfied, a little tired, and happy.  

The biggest spiritual thought I have for this week is the importance of studying.  I know it is something I have considered before, but this week I was thinking about it again.  

Just seriously.  Eat the scriptures.  Read them slowly.  I did it well with the Book of Mormon, but do it with other scriptures too.  Keep a notebook so that you can remember and recieve revelation.  The spirit cannot bring to your remembrance what you do not know.

Just that.

Thank you for all the birthday well wishes.  I loved the cards from Snowbird, and the ideas for popup cards!  I am glad you all loved snowbird!  I promise to put the stickers in places where they will not get lost!

Elder Henrie