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