February 23, 2015

First Week in El Salvador

Wow! that was a lot of reading. It's all good. It was a lot because I had no time last week to read we had like 5 minutes to write a letter but it's all good. I miss the CCM it was so nice and air conditioned.  It's way hot here!  There are not many mosquitoes but we will see. I haven't been sun burned until today. 

Today we hiked up the mountain by the city. It was super beautiful but really dry. It hasn't rained here in like 6 months. People here are always burning their trash in the street or the sides of mountains or something who knows? It was super awesome but took a lot of the P day. Hopefully you got my pics and hopefully I can write a little more next week but we shall see. you guys were pretty accurate on guesstimating what I was feeling but if you have been their before it's easy to empathize. Man missionaries in the states have it way easy! It's hardly a mission. This is way harder than I thought it could be. As I said with empathize. Each experience is different but the same so we shall see. So the end of the CCM was good. Monday night our district went to President's apartment in the CCM and watched "Meet the Mormons" with president with popcorn and soda. It was way sweet! Sunday night president came to us after a devotional and said a man who works at the temple had a stroke and they need guys to give platelets. (Landon will understand) anyways we went at like 10:30 and didn't get back until 2:30. It's the latest I'll ever stay up in my mission.  Anyway we went and I almost passed out during the sample so i couldn't do it haha. 4 guys from our district came with us and 2 had too small of veins so they just had other people give platelets and we gave blood. I didn't give cause I didn't want to pass out. Another guy passed out haha it was all super good though. I found out I have B positive blood. Hopefully the man that had the stroke ended up okay. The whole time I was thinking about how I want to help this man I don't know and do all I can so I was bummed, I could give blood but I was thinking of Mosiah 2:17... only in the service of your God. We said in our district we came to spiritually save lives but hopefully tonight we can physically save a life. Anyway the bus ride went super well and was only like 3.5 hours. We got Santa Ana and street contacted a little then met the office Elders, had some lunch, and then we ate dinner at president's a papusa (of course) haha and some other stuff. My trainer is super good! He's only been a member like 3 years. But he works super hard. He's been an assistant for like 8 months--zone leader you name it haha. everyone at changes said they were super jealous cause he's like the best in the mission. I'm pretty lucky and want to learn all I can. The Spanish is coming along pretty well. I'm kinda useless right now though and feel pretty bad cause I can't do much and never know what's going on. It will get better though. Our ward is super good and they want to work which makes it way easy. I've had papusas twice and they are super good. ones with garlic and cheese are way good also! anyways hopefully i can say more next we. but we shall see. 

Adios 

Elder Hendricks

Dear Hendricks Family,

            We are happy to announce that your son, Elder Hendricks, has safely arrived in our mission. The night of his arrival, we enjoyed getting to know him during dinner at the mission home, and we can tell that he is going to be a great missionary. We are grateful for the sacrifices you and your missionary have made that allow him to be here. We pray that our Lord Jesus Christ will pour out his blessings upon your family. We are very happy to have your son with us and we know he will bless the lives of many people here in the great country of El Salvador.

He has been assigned to the area of Independencia in the Modelo Stake. His companion is Elder Lopez from Guatemala.  He is a determined, hardworking missionary who is diligent in the Lord´s work. We expect to see great success from this companionship.

President and Sister Spjut

February 17, 2015 at 1:40:40 PM CST
I don't have much time to write this week. I will write monday with all the details or from what I can remember from the rest of the CCM and my first week. We arrived in Santa Ana this morning and will have changes tomorrow. 

Peace and Love,

Elder Hendricks

February 11, 2015

Okay I have 23 minutes and about an hours’ worth of stuff to say so hopefully I will be blessed. J

This week was great. I leave Tuesday for Santa Ana. I will miss the hospitality and the people here but I’m am excited to finally get to share this great message. Monday I got your package. Thanks! It’s been really nice to have!  And I got a letter from Granddad and Brynlee a couple days ago. I think mail from Utah takes longer but Idk. Tuesday we got to leave the CCM and see the City. It is a beautiful city. The architecture is amazing. We went to the central commercial which is a market and I was feeling great when a guy ran up to the new nurse lady who had only been here a week and snatched her necklace. It was really freaky. He ran off after that. I immediately put my watch in my pocket. We walked around the market and saw some stuff. I didn’t have much Guatemalan money so I didn’t get anything. We went to Wendy’s afterwards and it was great to finally have some “American” food. After we went to this plaza and began talking to people. It was harder than I thought. Especially to get started. I felt like I was in the movie “The Best Two Years”. But as we began to talk to more and more people it became easier and at the end a guy came up to us and started talking to us while I was talking to someone else so my comp started talking to him and I continued talking. I only gave out 2 pass along cards cause time was a little short. But a friend in my district gave out 4 LDM. It was a sweet experience even if I could understand much of what they were saying. We heard a great talk about the atonement on Sunday by Elder Holland from June 2006 and a great Devotional with our president that got us fired up. We now say “fuego arriba” to our mission president all the time haha. He says much of how we need to smile because people don’t want to listen to sad people.  That kind of reminds me of your experience dad haha. Yesterday elder Jose Alonzo from the area 70 of Central America came to the CCM and talked to us. Our district had a great a capella special musical number of mas cerca Dios de te. It was a great experience and brought the spirit in really well. He talked to us about Enos and prayer. He also talked about D&C 11:21 and if we desire something we can have it through Christ. We had an amazing district meeting after but the spirit constrains me to talk about it.  It’s just a lot and it was a pretty emotional meeting because our DL told how he had a friend die of cancer who was one of the happiest people and best friends he had and how his grandma died just a week before he left. Later he said it’s just as hard to lose a family member as it is to have one fall away from the church. Which is pretty true. Although with your family member you know you can see them again if you and they are faithful. But things are going great here. BYU needs to pick up some slack. oh yeah we got like 20 new American’s it’s crazy and one came all the way from New Zealand. I told him my dad went there on his mission. I can’t remember what part. He didn’t say much about Wellington but he seems like a great guy. He is going to Coban Guatemala. Which is the jungle and they speak q’eqchi. It’s the native language of Guatemala. A guy in our district taught us a little he is one of my best friends in the zone. And our ZL. He is going to Qtalcenango and his dad went to the same mission which is crazy! Anyways I’m excited to leave Tuesday. I’m pretty sure I take a bus. I’m going to miss some people here. Hope things are going good at home. I can’t believe you are disgracing my room like that. I’m pretty sure that I write Monday but not 100 percent. Anyways peace and love, Elder Hendricks. Keep up the letters and tell my home boys from the Lou to write me.

CCM Guatemala February 2015

CCM District February 2015

Letter #5 February 2 2015 Hey Fam, Things are going good here in the CCM. It looks like everyone figured I would be writing tomorrow or Wednesday. Jaja (He has had a different p-day or time to write every week and this week it was Monday) Yesterday was a good fast Sunday. I think it was the first time in my life I went a whole 24 hours exactly jaja. The Latinos and 1 district of Americans leave tomorrow. In the morning we are going to the temple. And in the afternoon we have to be out of the building for cleaning so we are going to the central market. I’m pretty excited. So is the rest of our district. I’m picturing a really dirty and unsanitary Soulard (St Louis Farmers market) but who knows? We get new Latinos Wednesday and Tuesday. I think it’s all the Latinos that will be going to my missions because I haven’t met anyone else going to Santa Ana. We must come 4 weeks earlier than the Latinos. We are learning a lot here. I’m pretty sure my teaching skill has improved a ton. But compared to the teacher we are pretty bad. Our evening teacher is a Guatemalan native. He is super cool and speaks really good English. He served his mission in Salt Lake City. All the guys in our district think he is one of the three Nephites. One reason is because last week we all went to the temple and he was a worker there. He is only like 22. it’s crazy but he can teach with some serious power. Yesterday we watched 2 videos. Usually we watch a video of a devotional and then go to president’s apartment. Only the North American’s go which we pretty lucky to get close to our president while in the CCM but it’s the other North Americans last Sunday so they only went. So we watched the Joseph Smith story which is a great movie and a MTC devotional with Elder Holland from March 2008. Man, that guy will singe your eyebrows off! It was a great devotional. Tim Perkins said the opening prayer haha. Elder Holland said “Don’t you dare go home with regrets”. He also talked about how we are God’s investigators. If we want our investigators to pray he wants us to pray. It was really good. He also told us were apostles with a lower case “a” but don’t said to not misquote him on that. We had a health lesson yesterday. It was pretty gross but really good to hear because I don’t know how much they are going to tell us in the mission field. I hope I don’t get bit by any Chuchos. Basically they said some vegetables you want to buy pre washed in packages and fruits you want to clean and spray your house for bugs. The other two 70 (not the highway) that were at the devotional were elder Anderson and Elder Kevin Duncan and Elder Craig C. Christensen. It was a good devotional but I told you about it last week. umm... well I only got old emails so I didn’t have much to read and I have like 30 minutes left so I’m prob gonna start writing about random stuff. I know what happened in the super bowl. Pretty lame I missed it. Sounds super exciting. Patriots won 28-24 Seahawks threw an interception with 20 seconds left in the end zone. Poor Richard Sherman guess he is no longer the best in the league. But I hate the patriots less than the Seahawks so I’m glad the Seahawks lost. Especially after last year that they are in the rams division. Does the patriots winning show that they deserved it or what? I guess this will go down as a controversial year. We heard about it last night from President haha. Poor thunder losing to the Cavs. Dang LeBron thought he was gonna be out longer. and how does BYU lose to San Diego? They must be falling apart. Our president said that when he was a mission president in Mexico Leon his brother (I think its Tyler?) was his assistant for a time haha. Scripture for the week: Alma 22:18 O God, Aaron hath told me that there is a God; and if there is a God, and if thou are God, wilt thou make thou make thyself known unto me, and I will give away all my sins to know thee, and that I may be raised from the dead, and be saved at the last day. And now when the king had said these words, he was struck as if he were dead. I read this this week and wanted to share. It’s a powerful scripture from a man who wanted to hear about the Gospel and had never believed in God or even thought he existed but from a simple prayer with real intent and having faith was able to learn much. Anyways I think that’s about it for the week Love, Elder Hendricks