October 5, 2010

I loved the pictures and your letter! I loved all of conference and I felt like it was just for me. I'm going to forward you my letter to president so I don't have to rewrite it all and i'll try and send a few photos. oh and as far as the storm went we just had to stay inside for 1 day but it was truly a miracle that it passed by. on the little map where it says homestead is where I live. Way south and right on the ocean. Also transfer calls came and i'm staying here :)

President Hale,

What a miracle to be protected from that storm. The Lord truly is watching out for us. I LOVED conference and felt like every talk was just for me. I went to conference with several questions and received answers to each one of them. It was a great weekend. We had several miracles in our area this week. The first one was with the V Family. They are a part member family that has been inactive for 11 years. We met them going through the ward list and began teaching the children who are 9 and 10 years old. We taught the children about prayer and they prayed for the first time. Their parents were so excited about it. They also watched conference as a family. They all sat for all four hours and the kids did all the worksheets we gave them. They loved the talk about how to strengthen their family and decided on their own to begin family scripture study. They started that very day. They have made incredible progress. We are trying to help the dad prepare himself to baptize the children. Another miracle was with our investigator JL. After the training we had we felt like we needed to rely on mighty prayer more as well as help from the other side of the veil. We felt like a dream would help him to understand the importance of our message. We have been mightily praying for him to receive one since that time. Yesterday he called us and told us he had a dream in which we were angels. It was a great answer to our prayer. He still isn't fully converted but he is moving in the right direction. I love being in this area and being with Hermana Briggs and living by Hermana G. She is the funniest woman I have ever met. I think she is really enjoying having us here. We had a little "hot chocolate party" with her and talked about conference and how we can apply it to ourselves. She was just beaming with joy. Although the work has been really hard and I often feel like success will never come I find little blessings every day that remind me the Lord is aware of where I am.

Hermana Hendrix

**She did send pictures and I will try to put them up soon. Thanks for your patience Elaine!**

September 27, 2010

Thank you so much for your letter this week. It was everything I needed to hear. Yes our mission has been changed to quarterly conferences as well. We had a specialized training last week as well and it was incredible. We talked about mighty prayer and help from the other side of the veil. We are not alone in this work. Where was that elder from? coral ridge? coral reef? coral springs? All of those are in my mission. I can't believe that next week I will be half way. It feels like just yesterday I entered the MTC. I have seen so many miracles and changes in others as well as in myself. This week we had a really incredible spiritual experience with one of our investigators. She went to SLC for a conference and went to temple square. She LOVED it and came back home looking for the church and wanted a Book of Mormon. The first time we taught her she talked about how she felt something different there and the spirit was stronger than she had ever felt. She loved the restoration DVD and wanted to come to church. We were so excited. The next time was completely different. She wanted to argue about every doctrine she had learned. She wouldn't listen to anything. She had found anti literature on the internet and had been reading it. Finally I just asked her if we could kneel and pray and she could ask her Heavenly Father. She did and when she asked if the Book of Mormon was true the spirit entered the room so strongly. It was so tangible. She stopped for a minute and just sat there. When she started again she was crying and could hardly finish. At the end she said that the spirit was there. I know without doubt she received an answer to her prayer. The next time she was even worse. Her heart was so hard. She completely gave it over to Satan. She denied everything she had said and felt. I just left her some scriptures to read and asked her to pray. This time her prayer was horrible. She prayed that someday we would find the real truth. She prayed out of gratefulness to know the Book of Mormon was false. And that she was right in her beliefs in the trinity. It is incredible that someone can deny a manifestation of the Holy Ghost. I know some day the Lord will humble her and she will come back to what she knows. I am so grateful for the truth of the gospel. After meeting with her I have had the opportunity to study the scriptures and words of the prophets to strengthen my testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It was restored by a 14 year old boy who wanted to know the truth. And because of his strength and sacrifice it will forever more be on the earth. I LOVE studying the gospel. Especially the Book of Mormon. It was meant for our day and EVERY scripture applies to us. I also read the continuous atonement again this week by Brad Wilcox. I'm on my 3rd time of reading it. I learn so much from it every time. This is the one and only true church on the earth.

September 20, 2010

Good morning! This week has been extremely busy but good. We found 6 new investigators and things are starting to look up. We are constantly having new successes with our less actives. This week Hna M and Hna I (two of my FAVORITE ladies in the ward) went to visit Hna Y (a less active). They have visit taught her for years and have worked with her since she quit going to church 30 years ago. In all that time they have never been able to convince her to pray. We have been visiting her and she LOVES the visits. When they went to visit her last week she volunteered to pray! they were so excited! they are the cutest old ladies. They came back and told us how excited they were. Hna M came home and said their visit was "divine". She is the lady that we live with. Last week she had a day off and we got to sit and visit with her. She's an incredible woman. She is in her 70's and hna I is in her 80's but you would never know. They both work, drive, and do everything else they desire. I is from brazil and m is from cuba. So fun! Also we have been out on bike a lot more because the miles were cut way back right before we got here by about 400 per month. It's actually been really fun other than that my skirts all fly up! i'm going to buy bike shorts today. That seems much easier than getting new skirts. This week we got to ride in the rain and it felt SO good! other than that we got to our appointment drenched. oh well. I love my companion. We laugh together so much. She is from syracuse Utah and we pretty much have the same views on everything. it's great. Also our main investigator right now is kinda crazy and that's been fun. Not sure if his intentions right now are the best but we're working on that. He's trying to find a young new wife. We gave him a book of mormon instead :) Anyway- I got your package and I LOVE LOVE LOVED it. It included everything I've been wanting to buy for weeks but have been to cheap to buy! Did I tell you I needed the mascara and head bands?? because if not you're just incredible. Umm I LOVE YOU TONS AND TONS AND TONS! Also- Did Tanner come home early??? tell him I said HI! and everyone else too! also the wallet was adorable.It will work perfect. I'm probably going to be sending more stuff home before next transfer. They've had a few warnings of hurricanes... none they've told us about we've just heard from members and i just want some of my stuff to be at home instead of here. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures haha. fun times.

take a look at the mission blog and you'll see what a rain storm looks like here. president took some really good pictures this week (link can be found on the sidebar to the right)

September 13, 2010

Good morning!! Where are you!? I got on this morning and there wasn't a single e-mail. lame. It's a good thing I still love you! This week has been hard but good. It's just really hard to start from nothing. It gets discouraging. Early in the week though President Hale called me and yelled "You're Amazing!!" So that made me feel good. He said he's really suprised how much we've accomplished and where we're at. He told me to just be patient and said "Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will the coral ridge area return to its great success and glory in that time" but he said he is really proud of what we've done. We really needed to hear that because so many days we just feel like we're not getting anywhere. We got to see him and Sister Hale yesterday and visit with them as well so that was nice. We had stake conference. Afterwards I talked to him about the paint job in our apartment. The elders painted it the night before we moved in. Lime green and bright blue. It looks TERRIBLE. They didn't tape anything. There is paint on the floor, in the shower, kitchen sink, door jams. They also painted the light switches, outlets- including inside the outlets. It's probably the worst paint job i've ever seen. Anyway the lady we live with just felt terrible about it because she bought them the paint but didn't know how bad of a job they would do. so to make up for it she's been redecorating the place for us.We felt really bad. So president was NOT pleased. He's making the elders come back and paint it whatever color we want and they have to pay for the paint. He said they'll be learning a lesson from this one. I'd hate to be them. I'm kind of afraid to have them repaint it though but i think president will make sure they do a better job. Other than that not a whole lot is going on. We're still working with a bunch of less actives. We've just been SO exhausted this week basically to the point of not functioning. We couldn't even talk to each other we were so tired. We were just dragging but today i'll be taking a long nap so its all good. Last night we also went to a mission farewell. Very interesting. It was at 7 at night and 2 hours long. I think the whole ward spoke and all his family. they also did a slideshow a bunch of musical numbers and a HUGE meal afterward. It was crazy. Lots of crying. Not me- them haha. Anyway I don't know what else to say because nothing else has happened but one question- did you by chance find me a wallet or do i need to get one here? and also if you send a wallet could you send me some jolly time weight watchers kettle korn popcorn. Its one of the greatest things ever created but they don't make it here. Yep and I LOVE YOU LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS!

September 7, 2010

Yeah I got your letter! It was great! definitely a day I needed it. I've been pretty stressed with the whole language thing and just all the responsibility. We literally started out with NOTHING. We found out one of the missionaries here previously got frustrated and burned all the records for this area. SO STUPID. Anyway we've had some really cool experiences though. Lots of less actives are letting us in their homes and one of them is coming back to church next sunday. She had been offended and hadn't let anyone from the church in her home for over a year and she let us in and decided she needed to pray and fast to forgive the guy and now she's coming back. So exciting!
Yeah I got your e-mail. I'm doing good. I'm still really stressed but I got a blessing the other day and that really helped. The Lord knows what I'm facing so I just have to trust that he'll help me through it. I'm very happy though, just overwhelmed. My companion is such a hard worker I love her a ton. And I love living with a member. Well right behind her. we live in her efficiency. She's a little old cuban lady with TONS of spunk. She is probably 75 or older and she works every day from 1pm to 11 pm. She also takes care of her sister with bad health, maintians our place and sometimes even cooks for us! She used to cook for the elders every day but because we're sister she only cooks for us like once a week, but it is SO good! It's pretty awesome
For the first week we did all on foot because the elders before us were 300 miles over their limit before we even got here but now we have car. we do bike as well. The elders before us definitely struggled. they burned a lot of bridges with the members so we're really trying to build back the trust.
Oh and we found an AMAZING grocery store here and it makes me really happy! random I know but they have all fresh fruits and vegetables and they're way cheap. It's called presidente's. It's a latin market. Also I'm in a ward now and It's way big but we serve in half the ward and the zone leaders are in the south so we get to work together. They are awesome elders and were really excited to have us here. They prayed for two transfers for President to put in sisters. And I'm jealous you are canning. I miss that. Me and my companion talk about gardening all the time because we have a backyard now and Hna G has tons of trees with all kinds of random fruits- mostly mango and star fruit and then avocados which are SO good. They are the HUGE ones. They equal like 5 or 6 normal ones. anyway yeah- miss fresh food