Que pasa calabaza?

Hey! It is good to be able to sit down with you all and write a little bit.  I was able to manage printing off your letters that you had set to me yesterday and I read them last night.  Thanks for taking the time to write me each week.  I’m especially impressed that Nate and Garrett have written me so well.  I appreciate it a ton guys and every Monday I’m looking forward to reading what you have written me.  It sounds like Nate’s ball games were pretty exciting.  It is hard to think that I wasn’t able to really see Nate at all in any of his high school years except for his freshmen year there at North when I was a Senior.  I wish I could have seen you play and everything.  I’m looking forward to being able to play ball with you a lot when I get back.  Garrett and Nate, You’re going to have to be my workout buddies so I can get back in to shape.  I can’t believe how bad my legs are these days.  I’ve successfully managed to stay at the same weight as when I had entered the mission but I’m afraid that I’ve lost a ton of muscle, especially my legs.  I’ve got very little in the way of endurance with my legs even though I’ve managed to run most every day on my mission.  Anyways I’m looking forward to being able to train with you guys when I get back.  I like hearing about what your trainer is teaching you guys there.  Does that cost a pretty penny to do that?  Have you been losing weight dad?  We had a solid lesson this past Sunday on the Word of Wisdom.  I need to do better at eating healthy.  I want you all to know that I’ve developed a huge sweet tooth on my mission.  Man, I love anything sweet, it’s my weakness.

You all keep talking about Madelyn and I can’t even begin to imagine how she is.  I’m glad that you’ve been able to live close to her mom, just like you’ve always wanted.  I’m looking forward to meeting both of them when I get home. That stinks that Saryn got her teeth pulled bro.  I remember that experience…that was miserable.  I hope that she is feeling a little bit better now.

Well this past week has been a busy one.  We had a two-day leadership meeting this past week that went pretty well.  About once every 6 weeks we have these meetings to discuss what the District Leaderss will be teaching at district meetings.  So throughout those 2 days we taught them what they would be teaching to all of the missionaries.  It was based a lot on Faith and “getting out of the boat,” as we used the lessons we learned from when Peter walked on water.  I felt like it went pretty good.  I think the missionaries are beginning to see the importance of faith and I am as well.  We had kind of a cool experience with faith this past week.  We were going to pass by some old investigators but when we had passed by, there was no one living at the house.  We knew that we were there for a reason and that we needed to find out why so we decided to knock a few house, believing that we would find someone ready.  The very first house we knocked was someone named Alma.  We began to do a normal contact and then tell her that we were in the area and that we felt like we needed to knock her door.  With very little explanation of who we are and what we do she let us in, something that doesn’t happen too often.  We talked a little bit with her and then set a return appointment.  We came back a few days later and had a bomb lesson with her.  She really cares about her family and said that she wanted to learn more.  It is interesting how God prepares people for missionaries.  During that lesson when we began to talk about the Book of Mormon, I asked her if she had ever heard of the book.  She said no, but just a few days ago she saw it on one of the apps to her phone and for some reason felt like she needed to download it.  Isn’t that crazy? Having no Idea even what that book meant or was about she just “felt” like she needed to download it when she came across it.  The Lord works in mysterious ways.  Anyways, we’ll see how she continues to progress.

I’m enjoying being back in my old area once again.  I love being back in Spanish.  I just can’t get enough of it.  I really want to try and get better at my Spanish.  After the mission I’m definitely going to take more of those classes.

I love you all very much.  I hope that everything continues to go well for ya.  I love this work and the joy it brings into life.  I hope you all have a good week!

Love ya, Elder Hendrickson