Hey so I got your photos and grandmas package this week and I got my birthday photos from you guys when I was in Pachuca ha-ha but I forgot to tell you. Oh and I get Grandma and Granddad Hendricks letter every week....well I get every one of the letters but not every week usually it’s like 3 in one day because they pile up at Presidents house, but they really cool!. Well sounds like a riot at home with Justin winning some contest I don’t really know what that’s all about... but it sure sounds cool!! I guess he won a trip to Italy on face book to watch a bike race. Hopefully it’s not a scheme ha-ha! No but really sounds cool discovering other cultures are really interesting. Sounds like Mom is busy with Natalie and Haylee and institute.
Well here is the news from Mexico. I have 4 weeks in Tulancigo but it feels like yesterday when I got here. There is a hymn that I always think of when I feel like time is flying. It’s like #225 I’m not totally sure but its Improve the Shining Moments. The second verse is kind of cool my Branch Pres in the MTC showed me it. Anyway this part of the letter is for parker.
Last week I played piano in church and this week I played “Nearer My God to Thee” with the Relief Society singing and a violin accompaniment. It was really good. It was a miracle that they picked one I could play. So now everybody in the ward thinks I can play any hymn, so they pick the hymn for me and I have to tell them “No I can’t play that one”….and I always feel stupid. The moral is practice so you can say on your mission, “No problem bishop I can play that one without practice.” I wish I was good enough to say that but right now I’m not, but I have improved a lot. Anyway that’s the cool part of the story. The bad part (I have a terrible habit of focusing on the bad, but I figure it’s just the truth and what really happened) is that the pres of the Relief society wants me to play in stake conference, but she didn’t really ask me she just said be here at the church at 6 on Tuesday to practice next week’s hymn. It kind of got me upset, because we have things to do as missionaries I don’t have time to practice 3 hours a week. So I talked to the zone leader about it because he is in my ward too, and he said did you come to Mexico to play the piano or preach the gospel. Of course I told him to preach the gospel. He said well what you need to do is tell her that you can’t play...she is kind of the type of lady that would get mad if somebody told her that. But oh well it will be fun to tell her that there are more important things to do than to play hymns every week. Honesty I don’t really know -- I would like to do it and learn more hymns and be able to play better. But honestly ¨why did I come to Mexico? To preach and teach-- not to play the piano. So anyway kind of a bummer because there is absolutely nobody else that can play in the ward. So everybody wants to do this that and the other now that we have a piano player. Parker this isn’t your excuse to not practice. Practice!!
Anyway another cool story we have this investigator who has a problem with religious artifacts. Mexico has a lot of these and they pray to them and it’s kind of creepy but it’s the way it is. so basically he has this Santa Muerte in his house if you want to know what it is you could probably look it up on the internet but I know one solid fact –it’s of the devil and that’s the truth. When I saw it was like something bad touched me I think it was the spirit of the lord leaving to be honest because this thing is creepy they have bigger ones in the street that I have seen. My comp took it down from its shelf on the wall and had it in his hand --it’s not super big the one he has. I didn’t want to touch it, because it’s super creepy. I had this urge to take it and throw it on the ground and I almost did it --my comp said he felt the same way. That’s probably not the best way to deal with it. So basically we told him that if he is worshipping that then he is worshipping the devil. It sounds pretty harsh but this guy was pretty lost and he was telling us that he thinks the Santa Merete guards him from evil and a whole bunch of other things. It was pretty rough but that’s alright. I think he will get rid of it after a while hopefully this week. I think we are going to take him church pictures to put up in his house because he doesn’t really have anything he’s pretty poor. I’m pretty sure he’s just content with what he has because he has a nice job but I guess he just doesn’t want make his house better because its just 4 concrete walls and concrete floors and trash and a bed...oh and one Santa Muerte. Oh Santa Muerte means sacred death. Sounds like something of Warcraft or something. Anyway he really likes the crosses and the virgin and a whole bunch of other stuff but this one was the hardest for him the Santa Muerte. Any way I think I will tell you about my shoes. My shoes are slowly dying. I was hoping to get a year in the mission with them and I think I can as long as I keep getting them repaired every once in a while. The seam on top is starting to rip I don’t know if you remember what they looked like but I have had them repaired 2 times already and they do a pretty good job. So I guess one more time and hopefully they will be good for a while. ok is anybody sends me a package they should throw in some socks...good socks almost all of mine have holes in them except the gold toe ones I bought with Landon in Mr. Mac. They are like this special water flex or something I don’t know but there a little thick and really fit nice.
Oh and I took my laundry out to the cleaners one week and they stole like 3 pairs of my socks so basically I have 4 pairs right now. Grandma Hendricks says I need to wear clean socks everyday so I don’t get sick. I don’t really understand that but it’s Grandma Hendricks who has served 2 missions and has a lot more experience in these things that I do so if she believes it I should too. So doesn’t worry I clean my sock by hand every couple days and always wear clean ones grandma!
Anyway the area is pretty rough night now. On Saturday we made a list of every single person that might attend church and we decided to pass by every single one of them. So we took a combie like 3 towns out or like 10min and walked all the way to church knocking on every single investigators door we knocked 22 and not a single one came to church that day. We had one investigator that came to church with a new member and we had never met her so that was good. The ward is helping us out but it’s a little out of the 8 investigators at church that is the mission norm. In times like these you start to wonder if God wants to have success. The truth is God can’t make anybody join the church. People have their agency and if he did that would be the devils plan no? So in these times we just count our blessing and keep working. We are building the Kingdom of God whether we are having success or not because we are building ourselves. So I guess we are going forward with faith and don’t let this get us down. Tulancingo is known for its people that have closed personalities.
My camera card I’m pretty sure its toast I might just send it home there is something really wrong with it I’m going to have somebody take a look at it in the ward and if they can’t fix it ill just send it home in a little envelope its pretty cheap. I can take pictures but I can’t send them. The computers can’t open the file plus it looks funky it has my DCIM folder as a shortcut with all of the other files too they all show up as shortcuts it’s kind of annoying but oh well. Anyway that’s about it for this week have a good one!
Elder Hendricks
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