I'll miss having P-days.

Entertaining the crowd, that's our boy!

Well. My last p-day! I'll miss having P-days.

There's not much to say, but I just want to add my testimony to all those who have gone on missions that these really were the best two years.

I've learned so much, and grown so much. I feel so much happier now. I know more, I feel more, I love others more. I feel like a better person, a better neighbor, a better brother. I have a stronger testimony and know that what I've preached for 2 years is true. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really does have the power and authority of God to act in His name. It was restored to Joseph Smith! Who later translated the Book of Mormon, which is the Word of God, by the Power of God. I know that's true thanks to the holy witness of God's Spirit.

But more importantly than what I've gained, I've been able to see the lives of many others change. They've decided to apply this gospel in their lives, and have seen the changes! They're happier, they know this is true, they've become better people. They've started a lifestyle which will influence generations, and have been converted to become the salt of the earth. They are now being examples to others, a light unto the world.

I love this work. When we serve others, our life has meaning and is valuable. I love the scriptures, I love the people, I love my companions, and I love Costa Rica!

See you all soon!

Well Mom, I love you tons! I'm so happy to be able to happy to go home to my family. I'm happy that were a happy little gospel living family.

See you on Thursday!

-Elder Henry

Meeting his fourth "grandson," Elder Guirola is training again!

Special Farewell Dinner at the Mission Home with the Hayes

Signing the handprint quilt the Hayes made for their mission

With Presidente and Hermana Hayes and the missionaries who spent half their mission in the San Jose Costa Rica Mission, and half in the San Jose Costa Rica East Mission. Well done thou good and faithful servants!

Goodbye to this wonderful district! Hermana Zerilli and Hermana Moon had changes this transfer to new areas.

Good bye to this wonderful zone and country!

Being dead is strange.

Chilling with my companion Elder Colindres!

Being dead is strange. We've been wondering if the funeral shops sell name tag sized caskets (casket? The dead person box?), but we've been too embarrassed to ask.

(Don't worry friends, when a missionary goes home, it is mission slang to say he or she is "dying" and "dead.")

     We got to see President and Sister Hayes on Saturday for the sisters' wedding and baptism that their investigators had, and Sister Hayes asked how I felt. Diay, happy! Haha. I really haven't felt sad because I'm ending. I believe that it's just because these last few months, I feel like I've really met my potential as a missionary. So I don't feel full of regrets or "What-if's"! I just feel good and happy to end and be able to say I ended well. Well, I've gotta work hard 1 more week to be able to say that, but that's the idea.

We had some lessons with some of our favorite investigators this week, the work marches on, Victor's awesome and he said he's gonna come to church in a white shirt and tie next week so that we can take a picture before I go.

So yeah. That's the update from a dead missionary! Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Henry

 

We surprised Hermana Zerilli for her birthday, and I have plans to surprise my companion this week for his too!

   

    Hey dad! Sounds chill haha. Thanks for writing :) yeah studies are a scary thing to think about right now haha, but whatevs. I'll go die hard this week and worry about that next week! haha. 

     Love you tons dad :) thanks for everything! Have a great week!

    -Elder Henry

It is the Spirit that counts.

This was such a wonderful week.

On the first page of Chapter 4 of my Preach My gospel, How to recognize the Holy Ghost, I have a quote by Ezra Taft Benson written:

"Remember, brethren, in this work it is the Spirit that counts."

Oosh! Only in the Zona Sur.

I think that just with that quote, I pretty much summed the week up!

President Hayes, our mission president, changed the schedule to help us have our full 3 hours of studies every day. So he pushed district meetings and weekly planning to the afternoon on their respective days, and we have all our studies in the mornings. It's made all the difference, because in this work, it's the Spirit that counts. It's been so wonderful to be studying every day. I feel the Spirit so much more in my life. Between those regularities in the schedule, and things we have to do as Zone Leaders (exchanges, extra meetings, etc.), I really had been deprived of my study time in these past few months. As I study every day again, a wonderful Spirit fills my life and the work becomes much more meaningful.

We met a new investigator. When we started talking to him in his doorway, he expressed to us that he didn't believe in Jesus Christ -- at least not the way that many of the churches talked about him nowadays. As we entered and started to listen to what he believed, it was clear that even he wasn't sure what to believe! And so we read in Alma 22 when Lamoni's father prays to God, asking him to be made manifest if he existed. And we started to explain to him that we weren't there to contend with him, rather explain to him the Doctrine of God and invite him to pray and know for himself it's truth. And this men just lit up. He started to explain to us that he didn't even like to share his beliefs anymore, because whenever he talked about religion, people just starting condemning him and saying that he was going to hell for not believing. And we could just feel the Spirit so sweetly with him. We went back and had a 2nd lesson and kept helping him with his doubts, an explained to him the Book of Mormon. But it was so edifying, both for us and, more importantly, for him. He's got a long ways to go, but he really has let the Spirit touch his heart.

And there's just been a ton of experiences like that this week! People are just coming out of the woodwork and we're having these spiritual experiences with them. And I know that it's a fruit of our efforts to be better missionaries and, especially, of studying every day.

I love this work. I love it with all my heart. I love it because I do it out of good will. I want to study, I want to work, and I want to teach, I want to obey. and the Lord helps me do what I could never do on my own. I know that He lives. He loves us. I've felt His love this week.

Have a great week, everyone! Love the simple details of life.

Proselyting with Shiblon, he is true to his name ;)

A little bug that always makes a ton of noise

 

 

Bird got into our house! Things always seem to fly into our house....

There's a bird on my towel!

Celebración de Navidad!

So, I don't really have time to write today. The computer that we used was super slow and there were a lot of photos to upload. But I've felt a lot better this week. I feel like I managed my stress a lot better, which is especially good considering the fact that this weekend was insane. Wedding, talks in sacrament meeting, classes to prepare, meeting, 3 dead missionaries  (heading home, for those not familiar with missionary slang) to send out and 3 mini missionaries to find for the ones who stayed. So, even through that, I managed to stay pretty stress free. It will be exciting to have a normal-ish week with more time to work this week.

-Elder Henry

"The cool kids' table"

A little stocking full of gifts that the Hayes made for each missionary.

Ciudad Neily, from the mountains heading to San Vito. How absolutely gorgeous!

Pupusas with the San Vito district!

Look how many tamales Ruma and Ruth made! (and they were delicious!)

Some nifty pools in Rio Claro's area!

The hill we had to climb to get to lunch. It was way longer that that little section, obviously...

Hna Perez, a Mexican, got rocked by this pepper. It's called the "Diablo" pepper. Ridiculously hot.

Pineapple plants!!!

I kinda broke a PVC tube, so we had to plug it up with a whiteboard marker...

Just walking in the sun with our umbrellas open...

#swag

Wedding time!

With Ruma =)

Ruma and Ruth's wedding!

The river in which I will, one day, swim. haha

Christopher and Aaron with their Christmas presents (CTR rings)

Celebración de Navidad! with the mission! 

View from our study area at 8am

I got Elder Ruiz a little dirty... (long story)

Way too many awesome things!

 

Elder Morales & Elder Henry

 

Hello Gringos!

     So this week was pretty interesting, just as I expected it would be. Tuesday we had our district meeting and everything like normal, and Wednesday at 7 AM we were on the bus headed to Puerto Jimenez. It took about 3 hours to get to a school where we got down and President Conejo picked us up in his minivan. Puerto Jimenez was awesome. It was pretty strange not really working, but we went and found a house for the missionaries and for the chapel, and met the members there. It's a pretty strong little group there, 4 faithful families. We got to see lagoons, the gulf, and mountains! so it's got a little bit of everything there. it's right on the peninsula, so one side is the gulf and the other is the Pacific Ocean. In my 1 day stay there here's a few of the things I saw:

Alligator

some cool 1 foot lizards

a pet porcupine (I held it!)

like 50 parakeets flying over (it's fun to see them because they're always coupled off)

Macaws (beautiful, beautiful creatures)

Scorpion! That's a fun story. We layed down to sleep (we slept outside on the balcony in a cabin-like house) and right where Javier was gonna sleep next to his sleeping bag was a scorpion walking on by! So I told him to get up and we stomped it dead. Luckily, there weren't any more scorpion incidents in the night.

And a hermit crab! on the beach.

I also got to open coconuts with a machete for the first time in my life, eat green oranges, see the cocoa plant, and see a gorgeous view of the gulf from the mountainside.

Also, there's a palm tree that has a red trunk. That's pretty cool.

So that was a fun day. In the night some ticks got hold of my ankles, so I'm suffering from that, but it was totally worth it.

Thursday was a bus ride to San Jose, which, since Puerto Jimenez is farther away, took 9 hours to get there! Woohoo!

Friday we had Mission Leadership Council. It was so wonderful. President Hayes teaches doctrine that's so awesome and makes you realize that you don't know ANYTHING about the scriptures! haha. He talked a little bit about Holy Week and what happened when there and the last supper and sacrament and how all that got started. That was really interesting.

He also talked about something which I absolutely loved. He mentioned how missionaries will have success when they be themselves, because when you're yourself you gain the confidence of people. It's so true. I spent a nice chunk of time trying to be the perfect missionary instead of being Elder Henry and it makes a big difference. In Paso Ancho I really love that I was myself and I could love the members being me and they could love me. It's so much more enjoyable that way, and that's really how it should be. God gives us personalities for a reason! So he encouraged us to help our missionaries recognize that.

Apart from that, Friday was another 7 hour bus ride into the area. Saturday we divided and conquered. I was really happy to go to a less active's house who had come to church the week before. I explained the lost sheep parable and just kept telling her how happy I was that she came, and that that's how it is when the lost sheep comes back. And I was really happy to see that yesterday she came again, all on her own :) so that was fun.

We have some great people in our area but we have a lot to do this week, since we didn't have almost any time last week. I went to see some investigators and realized that we hadn't gone there for 2 weeks or more! Craziness.

So that's life this week. I'm enjoying being out here in the jungle :) I know that some people would get annoyed by the heat or the bugs or whatever but there's way too many awesome things to spend my time grumpy for those little things!

Have a great week everyone!

-Elder Henry

From his letter to his dad:

Oh, a funny thing that happened that I think you'll enjoy this week

Yesterday we had the group meeting in the farms, but nobody brought bread or little cups for the water, so it was a sacrament meeting without the sacrament. Oops!

Funny little thing from his email to me, he says his new shower is nicer but he laughed when I asked him if he has hot water now (that was a "no way Jose" haha). 

Don't forget to switch on the breaker when you move into a new house.

Diana's baptism! Sorry that there weren't more photos, the camera was dead until I went to San Jose...

Hello, English speakers!

I sure do miss speaking English sometimes haha. 

This week was pretty unusual. Actually, thinking about it, I haven't had a usual week since I got here to Zona Sur. I think it's just part of being down here and being a Zone Leader, haha...

So Monday and Tuesday were indeed quite normal, but that was it. Wednesday I was on a bus all day to San Jose, with Elder Carbajal and Elder Aviña, to get our Cedula's (ID) renewed! So we stopped on by Paso Ancho to eat a nice dinner with the Alvarado family, and say hi to the Paso Ancho missionaries. It was so great to see my kid (Elder Gonzalez). He's doing great and I'm so proud of him. He's really become a great missionary.

So after that nice Wednesday of waiting around all day to get to San Jose, we had some nice Thursday waiting to leave the office so that we could go wait to get the cedula so that we could head on over to wait for the bus where we would, of course, wait 7 hours to get to Zona Sur, where a house change was awaiting me! It was a pretty boring 2 days haha. The cool part though was that missionaries from the West Mission were there too, including some friends that I hadn't seen for a while.

Then on Friday we had a change of plans and, instead of going into the super fancy but really small apartment we had found, my companion had found a much larger, nice, 3 room house! So we headed over to check it out real quick, called the owner who lives far away, and made plans to move in the following day because we didn't want to have to pay another month in our then-current apartment.

So Saturday morning at 6:30 we get to meet the landlord, who's a cool guy, we see the house from the inside, which everything was good, and we're gettin' ready to pack up and head over at 8 am when we realize that there's no water, and no electricity! The people who had been living there before didn't pay their water bills. Oh dear.

So we kinda hijacked water for 2 days, and were living without lights. Luckily, today, we paid the water, and realized that the problem with the electricity was that the breaker was flipped off (oops hahaha).

So that was my unusual week.  Today I went to Panama to shop (with permission of course) which was weird because they use the US dollar, and have lots of US stuff, but they don't speak English haha. And this coming week we've only got 2 days to work in the area, because on Wednesday we go 3 hours away to find a house in Puerto Jimenez where missionaries will be heading down next change, and Thursday we head up to San Jose again for the leadership council. 

We lead interesting lives down here in the jungle!

I love you all. I really know that the work we're doing is the work of God. The adventures are great, but the most special thing about this week was knowing that my convert Isabel was able to enter into the temple and be sealed with her husband and start an eternal family. That's what the work's really about :)

Have a great week, all you English speakers!

-Elder Henry

Some highlights from emails back and forth:
"Everyone calls me an elbow here :) It means refusing to give or spend money haha." (he's a Henry kid ;) )

Mom: no pictures from Panama?
"No it's just really ugly where we go, haha just a bunch of malls."

Mom: Have you seen any cool animals yet though? "Um iguanas, and iguanas. I see a lot of weird bugs though. Did I ever tell you that some caterpillars here are like deadly poisonous?"

Mom: Nope, stay away from those. Oh wait, you are my cautious child. Thank goodness! Were you scared going over that suspension bridge you sent the picture of? Are there a lot of those?
"No the suspension bridge isn't scary at all. And it's the only one I've seen.
But yeah as far as monkeys and sloths I'm still waitin. I think that this week we'll be going on a boat, which will be a fun story. :)"

Mom: Best mission ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =) 

 (about his convert Isabel's wedding photos) "I was super happy too :) The photos turned out super awesome and they look happy as can be."

Mom asks about mosquitoes which carry Dengue down there.
"The mosquitos haven't been a problem anymore. I think I've gotten used to it. Tomorrow when I was my clothes (washin my own clothes oh yeah!) I'm gonna apply the repellent spray when I hang the clothes up."

"Oh hey about BYU housing and all that, I'm gonna room with Tullis for sure. 

And, I was talking with Elder Nelson, the secretary, and he's totally down to room with us too. He's way awesome :)"

Two pics from Pres. Hayes and a couple from his surprise visit to Paso Ancho:

 

Jungley everywhere and cucarachas too

 Some bridge raining selfie action!

 Just a cool moth I found on the wall

  Trying out Javier's hipster glasse

 What you see while walking on the road in Golfito :) If you go there early in the morning, you see all the monkeys jumping by (sadly, I didnt see them :(

 Just your average working area here in Zona Sur... A few houses and a whole lot of green

 Happy Birthday, Elder Ferrin! President Hayes bought him a cake :)

 Estevan's baptism! He's a really awesome young man.

  My comp Elder Morales selfie'd me while I was putting in the zone's numbers haha

Hello everyone! Another week in the jungle to report on.

So the week started off pretty normal. Monday we played a little bit of soccer where everyone blew me out of the water (like I said, normal haha), and Tuesday we had a good old working day.

Then, Wednesday, the divisions started. I headed on over to San Vito! A 90 minute bus ride from my area, it's straight up the mountains that surround Ciudad Neily. So I finally get up there, and it's a beautiful day. Since it's in the mountains, it's not hot! It's like normal, standard, Washington weather. A little sun, a little rain, but pretty cool temperatures. I had a great time with Elder Aviña, Who started the mission when I started in the MTC. We had a blast, he's super awesome.

Thursday morning I head on back to Ciudad neily to get another day's work in.

Friday morning, I'm out to Golfito! This area is on the beach. It's called Golfito because it's a little gulf. So it was really really pretty there. and I saw a guy with a huge fish on his shoulder. Like, 4 feet long. that was cool. And I saw iguanas. that was fun. It's really jungley there. It's really jungley everywhere, actually... haha. But I was with Elder Luna which was also a blast. He's a really nice guy. Calm, collected, focused missionary. So we had a fun time together :)

Then on Saturday, instead of ending divisions normally, we headed on to Zone meeting with President Hayes! Which was incredible. He gave a great lesson about Mosiah 1-5 and looking what more we need to improve to keep becoming better people. it was incredible. Then we celebrated Elder Ferrin's birthday with a cake, handed out the 'birthday presents', a new blender for everyone (uush!) Ate a nice lunch, and had interviews with President. It was a really great, really spiritual experience. From there we headed out to prepare Estevan's baptism, which was also really great.

Then on Sunday, District conference! So we were on the road again, to Rio Claro. It was also awesome, and a new district presidency was called. Our Branch President is now District president, and we have a new branch president. Changes are always fun, so I'm looking forward to working with the new leadership.

Apart from that, every thing's going well and normal! I really love the people here. They're pretty awesome. It's just so different from that city "I don't ever have time for anything" attitude that there was in my old area. You can just start talking to someone and, even if they don't want to receive us, it's a nice conversation.

So those are the adventures of this week. I'm pretty sure I'll have more next week :) Oh, one more!

Our house is pretty well infested with cockroaches. Luckily President already gave us permission to change houses, so this week we're gonna found a new one and change, but it's pretty gross showering with cockroaches there in the shower too. Just thought everyone would love to know that :)

Have a great week!

-Elder Henry

Q&A:
No, I can't go to the sealing :(

No, the card didn't come with the AP's.

I have 3 pairs of shoes, not 1. Remember that I bought 2 more?

I didn't do divisions with the AP's haha, I was on divisions with Golfito when they came... oops!

Today I'm going iguana hunting! Uuush.

The Halloween pic is awesome haha. It's not too often that you get to use a pregnant costume!