January 7, 2013

WOW! The bike looks super sweet! It looks like something you would see in a back to the future movie! Super Sweet! Anyway this week was pretty sweet also as I have been trying to get my companion to focus in on some of the investigators. What happened is that a lot of missionaries after the changes came out and gave up on baptizing. They just started working with pure less actives. My companion seems to have fallen in that rut. I still feel the need to baptize and if there is no investigators to teach then we teach members, but right now we are teaching a lot of part member families. This week we went to the temple, well just the distribution center next door because my companion didn’t have garments and the temple is closed on Mondays. On the way home this girl was following us in the metro station -- it was kind of wired. She was really white and kind of looked like an American. So she got on the metro behind me and started speaking a bunch of English telling me that she was from Chicago and a whole bunch of other weird stuff about her life. It was kind of strange, but kind of cool. On the way we talked about the Sears Tower and she told me that if I ever make it back to Chicago that I have to go to the Water Tower because its free and a bunch of stuff. Turns out she is a Jehovah’s Witness and is in Mexico preaching in English, but is also fluent in Spanish because her dad is Mexican. It seemed kind of hard to believe because she was super white. She told me that she was going to go home in 1 month and is counting down the days because she doesn’t like Mexico City very much and likes Chicago. I felt bad for her because it sounded like she really didn’t like what she was doing, but I guess it’s her decision. Anyway kind of cool experience though.

 

Mom’s Questions

Are you working out? 

Yes. We work out at 6.30am, but sometimes it’s not a very good work out. I get it done and it consists of push ups and  pull ups on an iron gym that some missionary left in the house here. I do some sit ups and we have a few weights. I do a little bit of that. I can tell you that it’s not the most difficult workout, but it does the body good. President says that we can’t say that we are obedient and not exercise. 

What is your daily schedule since you do not tract? 

Visit less actives. There are 350 members in this ward and about 80 actives so that’s what it’s all about. We have a list of 50 less actives that we work directly with that are chosen by the bishop and are more likely to come back to activity.

Who did you teach this week? 

One guy we are teaching is Paulino. He is the husband of a member --they got together when they where 15 and 18 and she had her first child as a 15 year old and they have been together for 15 years, and have never gotten married. She is a member from birth and he is a great guy but there seems to have been some abuse of some type so she wants to separate from him. We told her to give us a chance to talk to him and see if the gospel of Jesus Christ can save their family. He is not the whole problem as they are both fighting. It has gotten to the point where they have punched one another.......so as you can see we are swimming in deepwater on this one. I know that everything will work out and they can go from a super beat up family to a eternal family, but they have got to chose the right and follow what we say or else they will never find the joy that there is in the gospel.

Are you teaching any investigators or all members? 

We have like 4 investigators that is incredibly low from what we used to have.  We had weeks of 7 progressing investigators when we contacted but I am happy with the changes that there has been.

What is your favorite part of missionary work? 

Seeing real change in the lives of the people that you care about.

Do the members take pretty good care of you? 

They feed me if that’s what you mean, and if you get sick they give you about every pill known to man and every remedy as well. At the end of the day you’ve got 30 pills in your pocket. I think Mexicans pop more pills than Grandma.

Are you washing your clothes in machines now or was that a onetime thing? Well it was supposed to be an every week type deal, but the sister is not very reliable. She’s never home when we pass by. So I have been washing by hand surviving until we catch up with her.

 

My comp got sick on Saturday so I had the first day in my whole mission that I hadn’t left the house to go work. I always wondered how it would be to have a sick day like that.......it was terrible! 12 hours of church movies. I watched “The Testaments” in Spanish then “The Mountain of The Lord” in Spanish. I listened to a lot of talks Dad gave to me in Spanish, and studied the Book of Mormon in Spanish. If I’m going to be hanging around doing nothing I might as well be learning while I’m doing it. The entire time my comp snored like a lion. It was pretty ruff, and I never want to have a sick day again. They’re terrible!

 

That’s pretty much the week. It sounds like dads old pride and glory is about resurrected. Just a few more pieces. Dad said blowing up gingerbread houses would have been my favorite part of the New Year, but I think it would have been the bike. I would have put a whole lot of time into that if I was there. But that’s alright as it is something I will have plenty of time to do in a few more months.

Later,

Elder Hendricks

 

 

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.