Fainting companion?!

Selfie for Mom--Go Ducks haha

This sure has been an interesting week. 

On Monday we got out of the hospital at 6 because my comp had to take a bunch of exams, and on Tuesday we got out at 5 because the doctors was diagnosing his exams and figuring out what they should do and everything. So we had to miss a lot of appointments :( but then Wednesday and on we have had a really good time. We've been looking up all the people of the list of members here in Paso Ancho and finding out where they live and marking it on our map, and we've been seeing lots of miracles with that lately. This week 4 more people who had a looooot of time of not coming to church came! So we've been really happy working in that. 

     After a couple good days of that, on Saturday, my companion fainted in the morning. We were in studies and when I come out of the study room I just found him laying on the ground knocked out with a broken plate all over the floor. That sure was scary! But I measured his blood pressure and sugar and everything turned out fine. But it freaked me out haha. All in all it's been a good week, just really tiring. Like some weeks are!

I'm really grateful to be here in the mission. The challenges and differences from day to day make it 1) interesting and 2) A wonderful opportunity to grow. I think that a lot of times we get so scared of challenges that might come into our lives but they're really, really helpful to be able to grow. 

It's been rainy and cool weather too, which just makes everything better. Yesterday I forgot my umbrella (still gotta go and look for it..) when it started to rain a ton. So we got nice and soaked haha. 

We've been finding a lot of new people who are listening to us. Some of them want to get baptized, some of them have family members who are members, we're even teaching quite a few Jehova's witnesses, so we've got an interesting mixing pot of people to visit.

We've been leaving on visits a lot with the young adults here, especially with Leo y Marco. I've been having a great time really getting to know the members here in Paso Ancho. Especially thinking that I might have the influence that some missionaries had on me before the mission. (shout out to Elder LaRue and Elder Thomas--who was married this week!)

I'm really grateful to be here. I love it! I love you all too, and hope you're doing well. Have a great week!

-Elder Henry

Hey Dad! Thanks for writing :)I love your letters. Missionaries were showing how their dads wrote them like 2 sentences and I was so grateful that you always write a lot :)

On Saturday we all ate together in a members house (the food there was suuuuuper tasty!

  I FINALLY found some super friendly cats! In a less active's house where we're visiting :)

Stress---> Sunday success and a baptism!

On Wednesday we went on divisions! I went to Pavas with Elder Whitlock and we put baptismal date with this family for the 30th of this month. They're way awesome =)

Surprise! Bishop bought cake and pizza for Elder Ortiz's birthday :)

It was super tasty!

Birthday hats!

Marlon (junior) got baptized this Saturday! :)

Today in the office I saw the chapin (Elder Velasquez)! He's the bomb

Hey Dad!

Sounds like life's good. How is Tori doing in school? I haven't heard anything lately so I assume well haha.

    It was pretty crazy seeing the pictures of Sherry in the wedding dress haha. Nephews & nieces!!!!

    Sometimes I tell people about your electric motorcycle and truck and they are like wow that's so awesome your dad is the bomb haha. You are the bomb!

     I'm super happy today. We saw Meet the Mormons! And I saw Elder Velasquez my best friend.

Have a great week dad! I love you! You guys are the bomb!

-Elder Henry

Hey fam! and friends.

     This week was suuuuper stressful. I can't even explain how stressed I was. We got home to plan and it was just like whelp, what do we do? Because we have very few investigators to plan for. But at the end of the week everything turned out very well, and we saw a lot of miracles. 20 people more than normal came to church this week! and Marlon and Oscar both got baptized.

     Sometimes I start stressing myself out so much for what's going on and it takes a while to remember that I don't need to be perfect nor does god expect me to be. 

     I had a really rewarding experience yesterday. We were in divisions, and I went with our ward mission leader, D'janko (like Janko). We went where we were going to meet up after divisions, and my comp was running a little behind, so we just got to chatting. I just felt a peace and a realization that I don't have to be running around every second. Sometimes, you just gotta take a minute and enjoy where you are. Because if you're not enjoying what your doing, you're doing it wrong! I really enjoyed taking the sacrament this week and just letting the stresses of the week fall off my shoulders. 

     I hope you all have a great week! We gotta run a little bit today for some doctors appointments, sorry for the short letter. I hope you're all well, I love you, I hope you're enjoying whatever it is that you're doing!

-Elder Henry

PS the foot's great. It didn't even hurt! Hallelujah. Didn't have to take the whole nail out, and I could walk on it immediately.

 

Goodbye Heredia, and first week in Paso Ancho

763 Elder Acuña in the kitty kat alley way haha

My sad good-bye-Elder-Acuña face, but he didn't get the message

Addition to the dog album...

Not in the cat alley way, just a nice random cat

Our favorite cat in the cat alley way (and how we found Alan, who's gonna get baptized soon) Oh man I miss that street full of cats!

Freeway selfie!

a nice daytime picture of the Mojados (the ghetto in our area)

Hello!

Ok, this emails gonna be about the past 2 weeks, since I couldn't write this last week.

My last week with Elder Acuña was the bomb. He is such a great missionary, and together we grew so much. We had an awesome week with lots of miracles :) And when I got the call that I had changes, I felt super let down. Even though I knew and know that it was god's will, it was really a bummer. Especially because I talked with him today and 4 of our investigators that we were working with are gonna get baptized this month! So I'll be missing the baptismal services :(.

But I also had a pretty great week here in my new area, Paso Ancho. We're in the heart of San Jose, here! Pure cityscape. After having 2 huge areas it is pretty weird being able to walk from corner to corner of our area here in like 40 minutes. But it's cool :) The ward is pretty big here, like 100 members, and they are just the best. I've only got a week here but I feel nice and pampered! hahaha I just feel like part of the family here. We've been working a lot with a few investigators, but one family has been really special this week..The dad, is a member who recently came back to the church with his wife and his son who's not a member. They've been in the church for about 5 months now, but the father has been struggling with a really difficult smoking addiction. We went with him my first day and I didn't know much of the situation, but later in the week we passed by and taught with the Hermanas. He said that he had dropped from 20 cigarettes every day down to 15, but that he didn't know how he was going to be able to stop in order to be worthy to baptize his son the 16th of this month. We shared about their future sealing in the temple to become an eternal family the blessings that they would receive as they did it, and the spirit touched all of our hearts. The dad testified, crying, that he wanted that and that he was ready to give up his addiction. The sisters went with him on Saturday and he said that he was doing well, and when we went there yesterday, he broke to us some AMAZING news! 4 DAYS after that spiritual moment with him, he dropped down to only smoking 3 cigarettes on Sunday! He's going to be ready before this week ends to stop smoking in total so that he can baptize his son, and they can start to prepare for their sealing. They are such a special family :) And it warms my heart to think about the blessing that they're about to receive. The coolest thing? He is a luchador (fighter)! No, not the coolest thing, but it is pretty awesome. :)

I love to be a missionary so much. It's such a special feeling to be an instrument in the Lord's hand :)

I love you all so much! Hope you have a great week! Pamper your missionaries! It's the bomb! hahaha.

-Elder Henry

Answering Mom:
I live in a nice house in a normal area. Ward is awesome I love them all a ton :) We don't have much (going on as far as investigators) in this area but it's got a bunch of potential and the ward is super pumped because the hermanas (Hermana Ortiz and Hermana Ponce) just came!

     PS Working with hermanas in the ward is the best thing ever! Super fun and there's a lot of cool stuff that we can do together.

     I'm doing super good. :)