Keep going! Keep working. I love you!

This was an interesting week. After a really strange week of meetings and divisions, we had a nice solid week to work in the área.

     It was really, really, sunny this week. Which reminded me a ton of Washington summer mornings. It was such a beautiful scene to go out and see all the trees in the morning sun. It just made me wanna go preach to people haha. So we were able to work a lot harder than normal, which was nice :) We've been improving a lot and have really exciting plans for the future.

     Elder Vazquez and I have just been having huge difficulties bringing people to church. This week was no exception. But we've been trying, and we are trying, and we'll find the solution one of these days :) I'm not letting it get me down. And I see all these little, sometimes funny signals that I feel are like God just urging us to keep going, keep on working. Like one day that someone gave us papaya, then another person gave us something else, and we ended up with our hands full of bags of fruits and things. It was just like God saying "good work! Enjoy the food. Keep going! Keep working. I love you!" That's how I felt. I think that the tough times really make the tender mercies stand out in our lives. Yeah, it's been a struggle, but I'm really grateful with God for it. I feel like I'm learning things that I wouldn't have learned if we were having success right now.

     In my studies this week I've been loving the book of Mosiah. I love the story and the principles of leadership that are shown by Ammon, Limhi, and Alma in their different stories. I just feel like these chapters are full of small, delicious principles to learn, woven within the individual verses as well as the overlapping stories. For example, Limhi is a great example to me, I love how he tries to lead his people but there's just this obvious imperfection in him, and I get that feeling as I read the whole story, but there's also verses which greatly impact me, like when Limhi felt sad as he heard that his dad died, because he loved him, even though his dad had ruled in wickedness.

So yeah. Lots of learning this week.

Have a great week, everyone! Enjoy your scripture studies :-)

-Elder Henry

Q&A with mom--
Are you feeling trunky? " I really don't feel trunky. And I don't feel like it's that close, either. I just feel like a happy Little bumblebee."
How is the District? "we all get along super well in the district. One of the best districts I've had in my mission :)"
Shavonne's brother Aaron getting engaged to a young lady he served with: "Clasico. Ask Shavonne if he was her zone leader. It's always the zone leader." (except our son Michael was his now wife's Shavonne's District Leader, not Zone Leader, hahaha--and it is a reconnecting at BYU thing--that BYU magic turning mission friends into eternal companions!)
What are you eating/favorite foods/how much do you walk each day? "Rice and beans, rice and beans, the restaurants sell rice and beans, and a lot of miles. ;-) I love food here, but I would die for a hamburger from Ivannia. She makes the best hamburgers in the world haha" 

Keep your head up and keep working

Some of my favorite animals!

This was a pretty good week.

I cannot describe how much I enjoy studying the scriptures nowadays. I remember when I started the mission I was so tired and didn't understand a lot of things (oh, Isaiah chapters) and just fell asleep so much during studies. Obviously I didn't want to, but that's life.

Now, I really feel that I feast on the scriptures. Every day's like an adventure for me opening the Book of Mormon and reading all of the stories, interconnecting and understanding the details, and looking for the principles and what God wants to teach me.

And I think that God really wants to teach me something these days. We've been working hard but just not seeing the success that I'd want to see. I have the surety that we're trying hard, but we're truly in search of what God wants us to learn. And we're keep searching :) I was reflecting on it this morning and realizing that the easy times don't make me a better person or better missionary, but rather these challenging times where I really have to look deeper to see what needs to change. That's where my biggest lessons are learned.

But it is still so sweet to teach the Restored Gospel to people. We've been teaching G. a lot these days, getting him nice and ready for baptism on the 30th of this month. While he couldn't go to church because he was busy watching our for his brother, we went there last night and taught him about following a living prophet, and what a great blessing it is to have a living prophet and apostles on the earth. He, as always, had lots of good questions really looking to understand deeply the principle, and after the lesson it was so sweet to hear him give thanks to God for the opportunity to have living prophets and apostles to guide us. There is nothing in this world which makes me happier than knowing that someone else has found the restored gospel and really wants to follow it. It reminds me of the prayers that Cristofer always said in Paso Ancho.

Yeah, I really love hearing sincere prayers. Actually, that's generally the moment where I know if someone's going to pass the baptismal interview or not; in their opening prayer.

In short? I love this work and I love prayer. And we're going to find the way to have more success :) That's life, day after day, week after week. Keep your head up and keep working. I made a promise to my Heavenly Father that I'd keep working till the last day, even if He didn't want to let me see those fruits of my work while I'm here. It's fine. I'll just thank Him for the challenges and the opportunity to grow a little more.

Have a great week everyone! Keep a smile on your faces :)

-Elder Henry

 

 This sweet family sent Mom a photo on Saturday!

 He worked with these Hermanas, they are all going home from their missions now =(

 

 Elder Vasquez and a coconut in front of our house!

5:50 am at the Temple....selfie.

 District!

Guácimo!

 Some huge evil looking grasshoppers (there was about 50 on the plant in total)

 Manchas (Spots), best little dog EVER

Tribute to Brother Townsend, updates, personal revelation in the temple

Temple trip!

One of our ward members passed away this week who is a special friend of Elder Henry's. This is what he had to say about Norm Townsend, who happened to not be able to see with his eyes but saw so much with his other senses! We will miss him.
I think that Brother Townsend is one of my favorite people to think of. I have just the sweetest memories of him.

He's always been special for me, because he taught my Primary class! I remember so clearly our fear to whisper to each other in class, for Brother Townsend had some mighty ears which could hear whatever faint whisper we uttered.

Then, as a young man, I remember when it was my turn to pass the Sacrament to the front row. Brother Townsend would always be there, waiting for me to guide his hand to that blessed bread and water. He would always take it gently and put it in his mouth as he said to me "thank you." I don't think there was a single time that I gave him the Sacrament that he didn't say thank you.

A few years later, I continued giving him the Sacrament in his home, when it was difficult for him to get to church. I have such fond memories of visiting the Townsend's home. I think that the person who left those visits most edified was me.

It is so sweet for me to think that I had the opportunity to serve someone who, when I was just a child, had served me. I feel so sure, personally, that he is now enjoying his wait in Spirit Paradise, waiting till the day when we will be able to capture all the splendid colors of the universe with our Heavenly Father.

(now for his normal email)

OH! Our investigator talked with his girlfriend. They are living and are going to live the law of chastity! :) But he didn't come to church :( but yeah he's a lot better!

      We went to the temple and I prayed about my major. I think it's going to have something to do with med school. Medicine or Biology or doctory stuff. I feel like it was really special how God gave me that revelation. I was just sitting there praying and started to really analyze for the first time the different things that interested me and my patriarchal blessing. And I remember several phrases in my patriarchal blessing that showed that that type of major was the way that I could satisfy my interests while complying with what God wants me to do with my time. And the only reason I didn't want to study it is being it'd be tough. Figured that's a bad excuse.

     We were really excited because a lot of people had committed to come to conference. As always, lots of them didn't end up coming, but what's more important is the one who did come. We've been teaching her for a while and it's been wonderful to see the change in her attitude. The first time she didn't really want to even receive us and this week was the first time ever she committed to do something -- Go to church! We got to her house, and she and her little daughter were all ready and waiting to go. She's reading more and, very importantly, understanding more what she reads, and it's just wonderful to see the gospel working in her heart. Especially since, walking at her pace, it took a full hour to get to the chapel. It was a true show of her faith.

     Apart from that, members invited some family members and friends to church, who we'll go and teach and baptize :) so it was a good week and I feel that God is blessing us. I've always said it and I think I will always say it, but I feel like Elder Vazquez is teaching me how to love the people more. When I think of our investigators that we're teaching, I love them and know I have the purest desires for them to come unto Christ. And that feels good.

     I'm really grateful to be a District Leader and be with Elder Vazquez. I feel like it helps me solidify the lessons I've learned in the mission as I formalize them and teach them to others.
Oh Mom I need you to do me a favor.  I had totally forgotten about this but our Branch President in the MTC told us that when we had 2 changes left, we should have our parents send us pages 284-286 of the book "Other Side Of Heaven". Can you do that for me? :) (if you have this book, please let me know--we do not own it!)

Vacations no bueno!

See you never, Sister Tabora! Changes :'(   (Hermana Moon is staying in Guácimo to train another new missionary)

Hermano Otilio and us all (Elder Vasquez, Elder Henry) wore paisley ties last Sunday :)

 

Paisley crackers, the next best thing

Just a squirrel who visits our backyard to eat our coconuts

A member made us some nice new weights! :)

Whelp, goodbye March.

This week wasn't too interesting, besides the fact that I'll be staying another change with my kid, Elder Vazquez! :) Oh, and Elder Guirola's training again. 3rd grandkid! But it was nice to be able to give the Gospel Principles class yesterday about the Life Of Christ, a neat way to spend Easter.

Apart from that, it was a pretty normal week. A few days were pretty tough since everyone was gone on vacations, and besides that a lot of our investigators have been battling with different challenges. But we're working well and we'll see the miracles :) Just looking at numbers, in Paso Ancho they continue to baptize our old investigators. :)

So yeah, that's life here in Guacimo! We're all excited to see who the new sister missionary will be. On other news, I'm going to the temple on Thursday! Today we don't have Pday, just writing. Thursday will be Pday with our zone and a few more.

      Easter isn't really the big thing, Thursday and Friday are the most celebrated days. and yeah, they all go to the beach haha.

Have a great week, everyone! Enjoy General Conference! :)

-Elder Henry

"I feel like I'm in an all you can eat missionary work buffet..."

Elder Vasquez (Spencer's companion he is training) baptized one of the people they have been teaching: "Baptism todo tuanis! He's super great :) and the sisters had a baptism too!"

This week was a great one. Every week is a great one here in Guacimo :) I feel like the days are so adventurous and long and enjoyable, but this change has just flown by! I just love the mission so much right now. I feel like I'm in an all you can eat missionary work buffet where I'm shoving as much down while I still can. (he has two more transfers, don't tell him though! We don't talk about these sad things!)

This week was challenging for all the right reasons. I really love the principle of seeking after challenges and growth instead of waiting for them to be forced upon you. 

(in my opinion) that's why week 11 exists in the 12 week New Missionary training program. Week 11 is where the New missionary has to do everything! So by confronting this challenge of being in charge of everything before you're obligated to do it by having changes (transfers), the New can learn the same principles as he seeks out challenges and growth in week 11, and in week 12 I can teach him all that he still needs to know so that when he does have to be in charge of the area, he can do it well and stress-free.

That said, it was a stressful week and a tough one haha. I told him starting the week that he'd get frustrated with himself and probably with me too, and that's how it was. But we were able to learn a lot and become better missionaries, and I know that it helped him a lot to see what more he could learn.

So it was a challenging week, but I'm glad it was like that, because the idea is that it helps Elder Vazquez so that it doesn't happen like it happened with me! I started training after my training and got really stressed out since I had to be in charge of everything.

Apart from that, Horacio got baptized :) He's such a wonderful guy and I'm so happy to see that he was able to make this covenant with our Heavenly Father.

The work goes on! Little by little :) A former missionary visited the ward yesterday and talked about how she saw the chapel so empty when she was there and now it was so full.

Have a great week everyone! Challenge yourselves to stretch a little farther and do a little more :)

-Elder Henry

German.

 86 Painting! In missionary clothes! (oops :)

 Sunday Photo :)

 

89 Yuca! Oh, how I love yuca...

  

88 That's a lot of papaya!

 

 103 Mexican Bread! (Forgot to take a picture after we baked it..)

 104 District Guácimo!

 112 Baby birds! (yigüirro, the national bird of Costa Rica)

79 Our new pet bear, Korihor, with my keychain missionary attire :)

84 Nightmares of spongebob

Hey everyone!

This week was a great one here in Guacimo! Lots of wonderful experiences and long awaited progress with our investigators.

I especially want to share about German. I love German so much.

So my first days we walked to this area really far away called the selva. We had basically nothing there, there's only 1 member that lives there, and 0 Less actives to work with. So I was like, uhhh, no, let's not work here. But my companion wanted to visit someone who wasn't there that day, German.

So we went back another day, and he still wasn't there.

3rd time, I told my comp that we would pray and tell God that if he didn't indicate us otherwise, we were going to stop working there.

Well, He indicated us to keep working there!

We found German, and I understood why my companion didn't want to drop him.

In a short time period, German's mom died, he got separated from his wife who took his adopted child away, he lost his job, and people got into his house and robbed him. It was so sad to hear all that, but it was obvious how it had humbled him to really make the gospel something important in his life, We could feel the Spirit so much and feel so much love for him, and we decided to keep going to the selva.

But, German had never gone to church! Since the only clothes he had were shorts, t-shirts, and flip flops, he didn't want to go to church like that. So, after many lessons and many great experiences with him, yesterday he finally had bought clothes and went to church. And you can just see how his life's getting better. He feels better, he's happier, everything getting back to normal for him. I love seeing the gospel work in people's lives.

Real growth isn't about numbers or statistics. It's about the conversion of people, one by one, to Christ. I just love the people here in Guacimo. 

I hope everyone can feel that their relationship with the Lord grows in this coming week.

I love you all! Have a great week :)

-Elder Henry

EH: Mom I talked with the bishop in Paso Ancho today and Paso Ancho is doing SOO GOOD! I'm so happy :-) last week they had an attendance of 144! Remember that when I got there, it was like 95!
I am just so so happy haha I love Paso Ancho so much.

And Guacimo too! The attendance has been really good here. Did I tell you that they're about to toss the chapel and make a new one? Honestly I'm having difficulty taking pictures here. I don't know what to take pictures of.

LH: People, the buildings, stores, normal stuff. So you can remember it when you get home, especially when you get old and everything blurs together.

EH: Ok, the same as neily, listo :)
LH: Are there mountains about in Guacimo too? Do you get to go do exchanges around your district, and where are the borders of it? Who are your zone leaders, is one Elder Moss? If so, he will be at BYU with you guys too. =)

EH: Yeah Elder Moss is one

 Mountains not really. And my district is just sisters haha so no divisions.

LH:  Ohhhhh gotcha. There are only sisters in Guapiles, no Elders? I didn't know this...You named the poor bear Korihor??

EH:Yeah cuz they ran over it hahaha

My district isn't all of Guapiles, its us 4 in Guacimo and the 4 missionaries in the Pococi ward (part of Guapiles). But the ZL don't count.

LH: Ah I understand. Well, as much as I can, not being there and seeing the areas hehe

EH: The sisters in the district are way good. I'm so happy I live in the era of 19 year old sisters.

Elder Henry's nephew Jordan

EH: Cutest baby ever award :)

LH: I know right? He's just adorable!!!!

It's so weird that the Hermanas are home and back in school and stuff already! Poor things =(

Dude you look super skinny! How are you eating?

EH: I'm eating good! And I feel really good. I haven't weighed myself but I don't think I'm losing weight here. But I did lose like 15 or 20 pounds in Zona Sur, so it oughta be that still.

LH: Ahhh that must be it. I didn't get many full body pictures of you there, mostly selfies, so I didn't know you were so skinny. All the heat really took it off huh? 

EH: Yeah lots of heat and mostly just a lack of food down there since everyone's poor haha I mean I ate a lot more there and everything but you're not in the house with food to eat all day. I'm trying to eat a lot here, and I really like being with Elder Vazquez because we eat lots of fruits, too. :)

LH: Yummy fresh Costa Rica fruit =D
Do you eat with members often? Do you guys have a cook there? 

EH: Yeah we have a cook and on Sundays we eat on a member. and twice a week a member gives us gallo pinto for breakfast :) yummmmm (today we ate gallo pinto)

LH: Gallo Pinto--I AM SO JEALOUS!

Haha no I'm just glad you are getting food. You gained in San Ramon from all the food an exercise, but now you look like a Greenie Elder Henry again!

EH: Haha yeah. I hope I gain a little bit by the time I end. Right now I'm trying to find who can help me download some P90X videos, to kick that morning exercise up a notch ;-) Oh so I've been reading John's revelation. I love it so much. I'm gonna have an artist in Paso Ancho (the member who did the emblem for the district) make a bookmark based off some  of its symbolism :)

 I don't know if a 12 eyed sheep will look cool, but we'll figure something out haha
 Oh and I got the package with nutella and garments and socks! The photos were great :) and the socks are way comfy

Everything is (still) awesome!

note: not actual sloth in story, photo for illustration purposes only

Ok. Big news. I SAW A SLOTH! :) Here's the story.

     Yesterday, it was like 8:45pm, and we were trying to talk to some new people. So we were walking and there was this guy just standing there in the gravel road with a broom in his hand. So, to start the conversation, I just said to him "Sweeping the road, eh?" (that's the best translation I can give, even though I don't really say eh...)

     So he said he was staring at something in the power lines. A bird? And so I'm sitting there staring and don't see any bird, just a plastic bag hanging there.

     But wait! It wasn't a bird! It was a sloth, no silly plastic bag!

     So it was cool because A. he said we can pass by and share with him and his wife and B. I got to stare at a sloth for like 10 minutes "running" down a power line. 

     Alright, onto the important stuff.

     A good team never stops improving. I love being with Elder Vazquez because we just get along fabulously. We're really good working together, and I feel like we're completing with everything just how we should be! But what I really love is that we're both willing and searching for what more we can do to be better. In little and big details, in personal habits and ideas for the work, we're just trying new things. And I feel like we're improving. And I feel like we just had a wonderful week this week because we really corrected what we may not have done so great on the last week!

     So yeah. Nothing really super huge or out of the ordinary happened, but the work is definitely going forward. We're meeting awesome people and having awesome experiences. On the 18th we'll have our first baptism together, and we're teaching a pair of (fraternal) twins who are great also. Yesterday we had a lesson where the sister, Edith, was able to testify about the blessings she's felt as she read the Book of Mormon. Woohoo!

     So yeah. As a Lego might say, everything is awesome!

     We're gonna make Mexican bread with the sisters here in Guacimo today! :) We always do a big FHE with investigators in a recent convert, Jesus' house, so we'll make it right now and eat it together in the FHE. It's gonna be great! Elder Vazquez's dad is a baker, and he worked in the bakery!

     So here in Guacimo there's a total of 2 internet places, with 2 computers each. so one week we go to the good, fast computers, and the other week the sisters do and we go to the dinosaurs. So I'll be uploading fotos every other week, because the dinosaur barely even handles email haha

-Elder Henry

Mom, if Doctor Who went to Utah he would leave saying "temples are cool." Oh mom, so you know how if you have 2 trainers then the 2nd one is your stepdad right? Don't tell anyone, but I'm convincing Elder Vazquez that I'm his real dad and that his first trainer was his stepdad :-) Woops! I'm a greedy parent! I'm so happy mom :) God's always blessed me with great missionaries under my leadership. Did you know I've never had even one really disobedient missionary to deal with? They've always been great!

 

Dad, You're gonna be proud of me. Yesterday we were in a FHE and telling jokes, and I remembered the legendary one. Told it to the Gringa sister here in Guacimo and she totally got stuck on it. Classic! haha.

     Thanks for always writing me :) It's so great to here that cousins (and aunt and uncle) are doing well. And thanks for the experience about prayer! Prayer just becomes so powerful when we're specific :) 

     I'm definitely going to have to visit Mexico one day. I love my companion so much and he lives right by another companion I had who I also got along with super well. I love the mission so much!

Have a great week, dad! :)

-Elder Henry