How to be Invincible

So...my mind is still processing this day.  

The baggy part of me is like ¨10, 10, 10, 10¨ and my heart is like ¨OH MY, I have had like 2 years here and I am leaving it, how will I ever recuperate_¨.

My conciense mind doesn´t process it yet.  It´s just on autopilot.  Teach, contact, ect.

This is my last full week in Honduras for who knows how much time.  I want to return, but I have so much waiting for me there.  I have so much to do.

Within 10 days I will leave these loving hands that have cared for me for so long...and I return to the loving hands that have cared for me since birth.

It seems appropriate that Olive was born this last week.  Its how I feel. I was 19 years in pre mission life, 2 years in the womb of the mission, and now I have to be reborn.

I want to know what will be different, what will be the same, I honestly don´t know.  I just ask that God helps me make it a good change.

Thank you everyone for supporting me for so long.  I know that my mission is not only mine, its everyone's.

I am so tired, and yet every day my body finds the strength to get up and follow the routine.  Months of developing habits are now maintaining me.  Want to know why the church pushes so hard that people learn to do good things really young, because it helps them push forward when things are not so bright and beautiful.

I have loved every moment, and I will treasure these last few like a cactus stores water from the desert storms. 

I don´t think that my mind will process everything until the plane takes off.  It still hasn´t settled in yet.

I am sharing an area with another missionary that fufilled a year this last week.  I bought him a cake and carefully meditated in the future.  I have so much in front of me and it seems like a marvelous adventure.  I don´t know if you guys have been able to feel the change, but the only thing I can say is that I am now very sure who I am.

I am a child of God.  That means that although I have problems and difficulties, I have the capacity to overcome anything.  I am invincible as long as I have him with me.

I am so happy.

Thank you,

Elder Henrie

Missions are the Best, Plans for when he gets home

Sorry for the sad lack of pictures this week.  But that´s ok right?

I have been busy this week.  I feel like we worked harder than any other week.

I now officially have less days left in the mission than my companion has months.  That´s a little weird.

I am still doing good.  I follow the rules and I work hard.

I don´t reaaly now what to say.  I mean, I can answer all your crazy questions in about 3 weeks.

I love you guys.

For all you guys preparing to go on a mission.  It is the best.  Its like a movie, but real.  And its awsome!

Thank you for all your support.

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Instructions for when he get home:

First of all.  Thanks for all you are already doing to help me come down running from the airplane.  I have this weird fear that if I don´t stay busy I will just melt.

I would like to get a phone as soon as possible after getting back.  If possible, like...Friday the 10th of July. 

I promise its a little more than just tech starvation after 2 years.  Its important for me to stay in contact with people here, and also it will be key in my looking for work and all that stuff.  Depending on how dead my computer is, I will wait on getting more technology.  I want to take it slowly.

As for the rest of it, please don´t go too crazy.  I am tired of everything fried and fatty, so if you can feed me just as healthy as you did before the mission (maybe more so) I will be happy.  I feel like I need it.

Just to warn you guys, based on the time I get in to SLC, I will probably do hugs, kisses, and then want to sleep.  But I really don´t know.  I may be so full of nervous energy that I won´t be able too.  The good thing is that Honduras is on the same schedule.

Anything you want me to bring from Honduras?  I am planning on bringing some things back to you guys.  I promise I won´t go too crazy, but there are some things here that you can´t get anywhere else.

Other than that I just wanted to tell you that I am fantastic and that I am loving life.  Utah feels like a dream, and it will be really weird to go back.  Especially that I  have the habit now to sleep on transportation and I probably won´t even notice the 7 hour flight.

If there is anything I can do to help you guys, just tell me.

By the way mom, I love you so much.  I know I have told you a lot in the mission,  but I feel like a reminder can´t help.  Thank you for everything you give and have given me.  The goal is to be the least of a burden I can for you guys when I get back.  I now understand how expensive it is.

Thank you for everything.  I love you guys.

Elder Henrie

Peña de San Marcos

Things were cool this week.  We did divisions with Elder Rivero and Elder Foster.  I got to go and visit Las Unidas, a quite bueatiful community just outside of Choluteca.

We had interviews with President Bowler.  He basically told me that he would see me the 4th of July for my final interview.  We talked a little about the area and about our investigators.  I think things went well.

I am happy with what I am doing and how I am finishing.

Today we went to the Peña de San Marcos.  Its basically a cool hike where you are next to what looks like a huge drop, but isn´t that big.  But there is a lot of wind, and so it feels higher.  We did a stick pull, and enjoyed the cold (rare here in the south).  It was very beautiful.  I would have taken more photos, but my camera died.

Thank you for everything you guys do for me.

Elder Henrie

No Longer a Leopard

Again I am so happy this week.  I don´t know how to describe it.

I feel weird as things seem to be resolving themselves and finishing up.  I typed my final report today, ready to present to President in my interview with him on Wednesday.

This week was full of being really really busy.  I am trying to have the best change I have every had.  Our logro of the week was that one of our investigators named Isidrio went to church. It means that if he continues going that he can be babtized this month.  He has health problems, so it has been a fight, but he made it.

It is raining super hard right now.  But that´s Honduras during this time of year.  Rain, Rain, and more Rain.

I love you guys.  I don´t know really what to say.  I can only share what I found in my spanish to english dictionary when you look up honduras.  It says basically, to be out of one´s depth.  That´s how I have felt here.  But at the same time, I have loved it.  I just had to learn to scuba dive first.

I want to testify that the mission has been the best 2 years of my life until now, and it will be, until I get married and eternity starts.

Thank you for everything you guys do for me.  I love you.  Take care of yourselves this week.

Ps.  I am no longer a leopard.  I changed back.

Elder Henrie

Turning into a Leopard

First of all.  I am not dying, I do not have any weird tropical disease.

I am simply turning into a leopard.  Or at least that´s what I tell people.

What I have is basically a heat rash.  It happens when you take a white gringo from cold utah and make him sweat more than he has sweat in his entire life, in a matter of 7 weeks.

It is not dangerous, I just have to put on a lotion every day and bathe twice daily.  It should go away in 3 to 4 days.

This week was great.  First of all great because I stayed in my area.  I will be finishing my mission with Elder Hernandez.  All the other missionaries are trying to make my baggy, but I strive onward, leaving them all behind.

I am doing my best to make sure I work just as hard (or harder) than I have in all previous changes.  Thus the skin
condition for sweating a lot.

I am happy, happier than I could ever describe, and I am sad, sadder than I could ever describe.  I feel the ending, and at the same time, a beginning.  But I always feel the saddness knowing that I will never be a missionary here again.

So I follow onward, or as they say it here, Estoy en la lucha.  The fight against evil, and tiredness.

I am so grateful for my time here, I have loved it and I don´t want it to end, but all things have to end.

Please take care of yourselves, and I will do the same here.

I love you,

Elder Henrie

What was the most important thing you learned on you mission?

That when you stop worrying about what others think, and it only matters what God thinks, is when you are so happy nothing can cover it.

How did the Atonement change you?

It helped me change little by little, slowly recognizing weaknesses and making them strengths.  As I realized how much it cost, it helped me make sacrifices to help others.  As I understood what it has done, it made me eager to help others be changed by it.

Did you love your mission? Why? How did you develop that love?

Please don´t talk about it in past tense yet, I still have 39 days left.

I have loved my mission more than anything I can describe except maybe my family.  I have learned firsthand that there are wonderful people in all places, languages, and walks of life.  As I received so much love, It just became normal to give it back.  As I worked and helped people, and I saw how it helped them, I felt that joy that only comes from the spirit.  It became like an addiction, but a good one.  The children of God are happiest when they fufill their purpose, and their purpose is the same as his, to bring to pass the inmortality and eternal life themselves and others.

I also love it because I learned what is really important, and it basically is that you and your family are truly happy and bound by covenants that you are constantly living.