Kicked a Plant

Hey everyone! 

This week is going to be a little shorter haha sorry sometimes I type novels. But it has been a good week! I couldn't believe how fast it flew by. My companion and I made personal and companionship goals to just try to be really focused and exactly obedient with the use of our time and everything. I feel like we were really blessed and saw the Lord's hand in the work in response to our efforts. We were able to hit almost all of our goals and even exceed a couple! 

We continued working with Mike and he is progressing so well! He loved coming to church last week and the next time we went to visit him he had cut his hair and shaved! Not only is his physical appearance changing but I can really see the light of Christ coming out in him too. It's so awesome! Like I've always hear stories about missionaries teaching people like this but it really does happen! Ha and the neatest part is now we're also teaching his 14 year old brother and he has committed to be baptized with Mike on May 10th! We are taught as missionaries to be early, often and bold with our invitations to people to be baptized. I always thought it sounded like the craziest thing to ask someone in the first lesson to be baptized but I've really been trying to trust the Lord and be more early often and bold and I'm seeing the miracles it brings! Last night we were finally able to visit with the family I had emailed about a couple weeks ago who are living in a tiny trailer with their friend Daryl. And we had a great lesson with them and I invited them to be baptized and they accepted! So including Mike and his brother we now have 4 people on date to be baptized!! Miracles are real and prayers are answered! Thank you for your support and prayers, I promise that they are being felt and answered by the Lord and that through our faith He is leading us to those who are prepared to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Another super awesome thing that happened was we had 6 investigators come to church yesterday!!  Seriously I think that's a new record or something! We invite and pretty much beg people to come to church every Sunday and it is really hard to get them there. Last week, Mike was the first person we have had come and then this week we had all 6 of our main investigators there! It was like the happiest day haha. The number one indicator leading to baptism is sacrament attendance. So you can imagine how exciting it is that we had awesome investigators come! I'm really excited to follow up with them this week and see how they liked it. 

Okay and now I'll tell a funny thing that happened this week. I haven't changed and I still do really dumb stuff all the time like this... It's like 8:30 at night and we go knock on the door of a lady who said we could come back another time. So she opens the door and already doesn't come off as receptive as she was the first time and just after I shake her hand I feel something on the back of my leg. Natrually I thought it was a bug and freaked out and kicked my leg backwards like a horse haha and turns out it wasn't a bug.. it was a leaf from the plant that was in a nice pot that now due to my awesome coordinated backwards kick, is now upside down off the porch!! IT WAS SO EMBARRASSING! I totally kicked her big pot right off the porch and it landed up side down completely! I froze! Ha and luckily Sister Smith is awesome and jumped down and started picking it up because all I could do was look at the lady's annoyed face and overly apologize. Needless to say she was at least still nice to us after that but not interested in hearing anything else haha. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I love you so much and am praying for each of you! Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers and emails. I hope it works okay for me to write in response. I made a cute binder so I can print all the emails out and keep them with me during the week and then I'll reply this afternoon when we have writing time. Also, mail is awesome and if you do send any letters or packages just put my full name. People have had their mail tampered with so they said maybe we shouldn't put Sister or Elder on the mail anymore. 

My address is 

110 Oak Park Dr. Ste. B

Irmo, South Carolina

29063

I love y'all so much!!!!

Sister Hendrix 

1 Month Down

Hi everyone!

I hope y'all had a good Easter!! Thank you so much for you emails and prayers! I LOVED every one of your emails so so much. I love them every week but today they were extra special to me :) I'm glad everyone had fun at the fair and sounds like everyone had a great Easter.

This passed week I feel like was a pivotal point thus far in my mission. Saturday was my official 1 month mark since I entered the MTC. It's crazy because it seems like I have been away for so much longer than that and that I have known some of the people here all my life. Every day brings something new and I learn and understand things greater. My testimony is growing and evolving all the time and I am so grateful for Heavenly Father who truly has shown me my weaknesses and is helping me to turn them into strengths.

So many things have happened in the passed week but I mostly just want to tell you about the last couple days!

Thursday we had what's called a Zone Specialized Training and the whole zone meets together and we have a meeting pretty much all day with the President and do different trainings and lessons. I love the tranings so much but they can sort of overwhelm you too! Ha but I learned a lot of good lessons. The most important being that I have to give my best every single day and it's often more than I think I have in myself. But if we are always striving to do just a little more then our best will always be enough.

That night after we left the training Sister Smith and I had a miracle! We decided to go check on a guy who we had spoken with once but didn't end up coming to church like he had promised the week before. He's a young guy in his 20s and just really quiet but listens and I can tell does have a sincere desire to learn more. Since he lives with his 5 other brothers and his mom isn't ever home we can't go inside his house to teach him. We wanted to try and apply all the different things we had learned at the meeting so instead of just coming back when his mom was home we acted on faith and called the ward mission leader to see if he would come and pick Mike up and take him to the church with us for a lesson. And he did! So the ward mission leader came and picked him up, then we went to the church (this was my first time taking an investigator to the church). We gave him a tour of the chapel and building and then had an awesome lesson! We really tried to focus on teaching with the spirit and just trying to teach in simple terms. And as the lesson was starting to come to a close I took a big leap and just tried to be bold and act on the spirit like I'm supposed to (sometimes easier said than done!) and I invited him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper authority of God! and he said yes!! You can imagine the big that I had and almost started to sort of laugh because I was so excited haha but it was so awesome! And then when people agree to be baptized we are supposed to schedule with them to be baptized 3 weeks from that date and before we even asked him about the date he said, "well my birthday is on May 11th" and that was exactly 3 weeks away! So he is now on date to be baptized on May 10th and confirmed a member of the church and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost on his birthday May 11th! I probably don't even do the experience justice trying to type it but it was so awesome and then he came to church on Sunday and even stayed with us for all 3 hours and said he really enjoyed it!

I know that Heavenly Father is preparing the hearts of those who are ready and that He is guiding us to find them. Another really awesome thing that happened that I will never forget was yesterday. Easter was so amazing! I feel as if I have never appreciated it enough and now it's like my favorite holiday. Well besides Christmas, but they're both celebrated Jesus Christ so it's fine. hahah but really it was a beautiful day. It was raining and stormy all day Friday and Saturday and then yesterday was absolutely beautiful and sunny! After church we may been oblivious and pulled into a gas station that was just robbed and there were cops surrounding the place and some how we seriously didn't even notice.. haha and we got out of our car and started walking and luckily one of the cops was a member and informed us... (thank goodness for the protection the Lords gives his missionaries!) After that little experience we went to dinner at a family's home and they were so sweet! They recently moved here from Springville and were so nice. It sort of felt like having a piece of home ha because the people here are really amazing but they just aren't the same as people from the West so it was nice to spend time with people who know where we come from haha.

Okay but the best part of the day was after dinner. We had an address of someone in the book that we were looking for so in attempt to try to save some miles on the car we parked at the beginning of the street and just started walking A little ways down the street we realized that the street was actually just a giant circle and the address we were looking for was really back closer to the car. I sort of jokingly said to Sister Smith though, "well who know's we were probably supposed to walk this way so we would end up some where at the right time as someone else". So we keep walking and get just about passed the half way point of the circle and see someone out in their yard for the first time. There was a middle aged man loading up his car and so we start to head up his drive way to speak with him and he pleasantly came up and introduced himself. After talking with him for just a moment I felt such a strong impression that we weren't meant to run into him at this time. His name was Chad and we came to find out this was his parents home that he was born and raised in and his dad had just recently passed away. He was in town just for the weekend with his only brother to visit his mother. He said that before we came walking up the street he had been packing up his car to leave and head back to Georgia and was tearing up because he was worried about leaving his mom. He said since his dad died he has been praying a lot but he doesn't feel like he's gotten any answers or peace about it anything. Sister Smith and I were able to teach him briefly about the Plan of Salvation and I promised him that his father was in Heaven right now learning the exact same things he is as we teach him and that he will see his dad again one day. I bore my testimony to him of the power or prayer and that is does work. It was the neatest experience. His eyes teared up and he said that he knew we were angels sent to him from God to bring him those answers and peace he is looking for.

I know that there are no coincidences. Heavenly Father does hear and answer each and everyone of our prayers. Sometimes they take time and sometimes we don't get the answers when or how we want to, but they do come! As long as we live by faith and have intentions to act on what he tells us he will answer us :)

I am SO grateful for that experience and so excited for him to meet with the missionaries in Georgia when he gets back home. We are going over to visit with his mom later this week too.

Sorry this is so long and I hope it all makes sense! Since I typed so long on this one I wont have time to reply individually to everyone this week but I have been printing out everyone's emails every week and I made a cute binder to keep them in :) I will write back this afternoon!

Thank you so much for all of your love and support. Hearing from you and your testimonies and whats going on at home means more than you know and helps me so much! I think about each of you every day and am so thankful for such amazing family and friends. I hope y'all have a good week!!

Love,

Sister Hendrix

#Becauseofhim

In Sarah's last letter she asked everyone to keep up with the church's social media links for the week leading up to Easter. It is so neat that the church is reaching out through social media and sharing what Easter is truly about. If you have not watched the video of Christ that the church put out, you can watch it here. 

4-14-2014

Hey everyone!!

I hope y'all had a good week and enjoyed the fair!! (I hate to admit it but I'm starting to say y'all more and more) No one here says "you guys" it's just y'all. ha so you start to feel like you have to say it in order to speak their language! 

It's been a good week. Just sort of slow and steady. A lot of missionary work that you don't expect is having to be patient! Knowing the gospel is true, it's hard to see how some people don't immediately want to get baptized! haha but unfortunately it doesn't work like that. I don't expect or want anyone to take my word for it so we invite everyone to study and pray about the Book of Mormon and get their answer from Heavenly Father. If you have a sincere desire to learn and real intent to act on the answer He gives you then he will answer you. But it does often take time. 

Last week we had a Sister's Conference with all the sister missionaries here in South Carolina. It was so nice and gave me the boost I needed! Many of the talks were centered on having trust in Heavenly Father and his timing so that's what I am working on. In Ether 12:6 it says that it's AFTER the trial of our faith that God will show Himself to us. (side note: I saw Jef Holm! He was was here visiting and stopped by the church during the conference. It was the strangest thing actually seeing him haha) But anyways, the day after the conference was the best day! I wish every day could be like that and I'm working hard to try and make it be. Every morning we have what we call "standing quotes" and there are a few different things that we stand and quote. One of them is, "I love tough things, I'm the first to do tough things, I do tough things first, I love being a missionary!" So through out the day I often have to repeat this to myself and it really does help. Friday morning while saying our quotes I just told myself I was really going to put myself out there today and love tough things! I know that the only way to learn and grow is to put yourself in those hard, uncomfortable and 'tough' situations. After making this personal goal and committing to the Lord that I was going to put all my trust in Him, I saw little miracles happen all day! We more than doubled our goal of contacts to make and scheduled more return appointments than any other day before! It was so neat to just see all the little tender mercies of Heavenly Father. During the sister's conference President Holm was making a reference to football and trials. He said that sometimes we fall, and it's okay to fall. As long as you are falling forward because eventually you will make it to the end zone and score a touch down. Kinda cheesy ha but I really liked this and it is so true. We need to have patience with ourselves and know that sometimes it's okay to fall as long as you get back up and keep working towards that end goal. I know that with the guidance of the Holy Ghost and through the Atonement we can and will make it to our end goals. We just have to fall forward. 

I love and miss you all more than you can imagine and I am so grateful for your support. I wouldn't be on a mission with out your love and support so I hope you know what a big part each of you are in all the lives of the people I am able to teach and share the gospel with you. 

If you haven't already heard about it the First Presidency has come up with what they're called the "Easter Initiative." It's a way for everyone to be involved in hastening the work through social media. This week they will be posting different memes and videos every day to be shared through your facebook and other social media sites and they made a video called Because of Him. If you haven't already seen it then please go watch it and share it with everyone you know! The video will be on the YouTube homepage on Easter Sunday and they're estimating it will be seen by 109 million people! The site is www.mormon.org/becauseofhim

I love you all and hope you have a great week and Happy Easter!!!

Love,

Sister Hendrix4-

4-07-2014

Hi everyone!!

I just love reading all your emails so much! They were just what I needed today. It lifts my spirits to hear about what you are all doing and makes me so happy to hear things are going well and you can see the Lord's hand in your life. I'm so sorry that I didn't end up getting to really respond to any one last week. I was planning to write on the flight but then just slept when I could and when I got here found out we are only aloud to write letters on P-days too soooo this is my first day to finally get caught up! :) I really love and appreciate your emails and letters so much though! Thank you! :) and thanks for the pictures! I'm going to print some today to put in my room.

Okay, so my first week in SC is going good! I can't believe I have officially been here a week. Last night we went to visit two different investigators who both said "well we need to break in the new girl so she can say the pray" I thought my days of getting called out to pray were over since John isn't here but I was wrong! haha :) So I was called to the Anderson area. Its a pretty big town towards the top of the state, I think, honestly it's hard to tell where you are haha but I really like it. Our area is really big and spread out but there aren't really any main roads or freeways that go through the town so its like taking back roads every where you drive and you're always surrounded by trees! We honestly wouldn't be able to get any where with out a gps haha but its a great town and has everything! including a chipotle.... haha. My trainer/companion is Sister Smith! She is so amazing! We have soo much in common and I know the Lord put us together for a reason. She also went to SUU, loves working out, and her middle name is Mae! Haha only one letter difference. But really Heavenly Father has answered so many prayers and I see and feel His tender mercies every day.

We stayed at he mission home until Wednesday and President and Sister Holm are so sweet! I'm glad they posted a picture for you. They are so understanding and even let us take a nap when we got in last Monday. Listening to their testimonies and experiences is so inspiring. Wednesday morning we got our companions and then headed to our areas. Anderson is about two hours away from where the mission home is. A member drove us and we literaly got the the apartment, dropped my bags, said a prayer and headed out! Our apartment isn't bad at except for they were serious when they said bring your own bedding! Luckily I did bring sheets and it hasn't been cold.. I've been sleeping with just them and my towels rolled up in my pillow case as a pillow! haha today we can go to the store though so I'm going to buy some bedding and a pillow. Either the Lord is blessing me or I'm just dead tired at the end of the day because I've slept good every night and never even have a sore neck when I wake up! haha I think it's a combination of both.

The people here are so neat and each day I'm growing to love them more and more. The first few days felt like the MTC again and by yesterday it was like I was starting to get the hang out it. Each day gets better and I know this week will really be good! There is only one ward for the intire city, which is crazy! But the ward is awesome and I have been able to meet a lot of them already. They are SO supportive of the missionaries and doing missionary work. Many of them are converts so they're great to bring to lessons. I never really understood what people meant when they said that I would be in the "bible belt" but I do now! And honestly its such a good thing! The people here LOVE church and they LOVE Jesus Christ! So unlike a lot of missions our purpose is to just help them come CLOSER to Christ. The only said part is that people say "Oh I'm already a Christian.." and then slam the door on your face haha but it doesn't happen too often. I'm still getting to know the investigators they were working with before I got here and we have found a couple more. They very first door we went to when we got here Wednesday was a nice lady named Jessica and she let us come in right then and teach the first lesson and even agreed to come watch conference with us but unfortunately her daughter got sick and she had to cancel last minute :( Conference was so amazing by the way and I hope you all enjoyed listen to our Prophet and Apostles! It's the neatest thing telling people we have a living prophet on the earth today! We had one of our investigators go with us to a members home on Saturday afternoon and Satruday morning we watched at the old bishop's house. Sunday we watched both sessions at the church.

I haven't had too many crazy experiences except a boy walked out with a bebee gun one night because he didn't know who we were haha. But yesterday was by far my best and most humbling day! Conference was so neat but through out the day I was just struggling to feel like I have personally been able to make a connection with any one yet. I've been praying for experiences to change my heart and strenghthen my conversion to the Lord and his work. Last night I truly felt like my prayers were answered and I could feel the spirit working through me and because of experiences from my past I could better connect with the people met. I know that everything happens for a reason and I have been prepared. The Lord wants me to be myself and because of who I am I'll be able to be a better instrument in His hands. I know that is the same for each of you. Heavenly Father knows each of us more personally and individually than we can ever imagine and he loves us! And because he loves and knows all of us, we can help one another. There are no coincidences, through the guidance of the Holy Ghost he will direct us to be where we want to be and to answer each others prayers.

Last night we walked into the home of a sweet less active sister. I found myself sitting a dark room, with about 10 cats and a smell that seriously pierced my nose. I was silently praying for understanding and guidance from the spirit. As our conversation went on a moment presented itself where I was able to bear my testimony of the power of the atonement to this sweet lady. I felt like the spirit just like zoned in and I could share with her from personal experience that the atonement can and will heal and change your life. It was such a neat moment and the 3 of us were in tears. After leaving her house I knew that moment was an  answer to my prayer.

 After we went to check on a recently baptized member. He lives in a small trailer and currently has some friends living with him who recently lost their home. The converts name is Daryl and I instantly just loved him haha he was jewish and even though he got baptized still wears a yamaca, has a strong Bronx accident but he can pronounce his r's haha its great and hes so sweet. Meeting them was such a great and humbling experience though. This family who is living with him has two kids, a cousin that's with them, the mom and her boyfriend who must have bad diabetes I think because he was missing a leg and they're all sleeping in one room. But to be able to present them with the Plan of Happiness was such a privilege. Having a mother cry to you because she cannot provide for her family is not something you typically imagine doing when you prepare for your mission. Despite feeling so sad and heart broken for this family it was so neat to realize that I did have something to offer them to help. The Lord's plan of happiness. Coming unto Christ and accepting his gospel really is the only way for us to have joy and happiness in this life and that's why it was created. I feel so much love for this family and can really imagine their lives changing. I feel like missionaries are blessed to have a greater understanding of charity and it's so powerful. Sister Smith and I left the family with two Book of Mormons and taught them about the restoration. They were really receptive so please keep them in your prayers!

Thank you for your love and support. I think about each of you every day and love you all so much! I wish I could better describe my appreciation for you and for our knowledge of the gospel. I have come to learn so so much by following the doctrines of Christ and simply praying and studying each day. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints is Christ's true church restored on the earth again and through it is the only way to have eternal joy and happiness.

Love,

Sister Hendrix

3-28-2014

HI Everyone!!

THANK YOU so much for your emails! I just cry while I read them because it makes me so happy to hear about what you're up to and all of your sweet thoughts. I appreciate more than you know all of your prayers and words of courage and advice. First off, I apologize if I didn't get an individual response back to you this week. We get one hour for emailing in the MTC and it's like so stressful! haha you know me, I want to read everything and take my time to type a response butttt it's easier said than done around here ha! So I took notes and I'm planning to write letters on my flight to South Carolina! How sad, I'm so stoked for the flight because it will be the first hours of uninterrupted time that we've had since walking through the gates it feels like haha. So I wanted to try and share more about my experience here at the MTC and what I've been so busy doing! I feel like before the MTC no one tells you what you'll be doing and just to expect to be busy ha

Okay so, I get up at 6 every day which actually isn't as bad as I thought it would be and then we don't get back to our room until 9:30 at night, sometimes later. We usually have two 3 hour classes a day and then in between have personal study, companion study, daily planning, gym time and other work shops and what not. Oh ya and we eat ALOT. Contrary to what I was told.. the food is actually really good haha but I've been trying to be healthy and we get 5 hours of exercise a week so thats nice. 

We have the most amazing lessons and all the teachers here are amazing! They're like missionary allstars. They should send them back on missions because I don't know how anyone could say no to them haha. The way they have us learn is but doing what they call "role plays" It sounds like it would just be fake and like acting which I guess it is a little bit, but seriously it's crazy how real it feels too! Our teachers pretend to be someone who they personally taught on their missions and then we teach them just like if it were a real investigator. My companions and I have had such amazing experiences doing this! In the beginning it felt hard because I was so concerned that I didn't know what to teach them or couldn't answer their questions but once you come to realize that YOU aren't teaching and the SPIRIT is.. its' so amazing. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is that if I prepare and my companions and I prepare for the lesson then the spirit will guide us. Its crazy how when we go into teach them it feels so real and I have really come to love the people the are pretending to be. I've had times where I really feel the spirit telling me exactly what to say and then after the lesson I don't even remember what I said but when I needed it the words were there. We have 3 different "investigators" we are teaching right now and two are almost ready to commit to baptism! woo hoo! haha it really is awesome though. 

In a devotional on Sunday I had a pretty neat experience that I want to share and the lesson I learned was to always follow my promptings. Sunday evenings they have devotionals for all the missionaries. This Sunday the speaker was Elder Ellis. He gave such a great talk! Earlier in the week though we watched a video of a talk Elder Bednar gave once and in it he said that when you're listening to talks not to take notes on what the speaker is saying but to write down the things that the spirit is telling you. So I decided to try and do that and really listen to the spirit during Elder Ellis's talk. ( side note, my computer just shut down while I was typing and I had FREAKED out! luckily all of this saved in drafts when I switched computers! ah!) okay so in the talk he was teaching us that God sometimes has multiple goals in His agendas. He related this to the story of Nephi going to get the plates and all the obstacles he faced in order to get them. He said that yes, the goal was for Nephi to obtain the plates but also he wanted a stronger Nephi. By over coming the doubt of his brothers and having to kill Laban.. the Lord not achieved getting the plates but he also got a stronger Nephi. This made so much sense to me and why we go through trials and sometimes it seems like everything bad is happening at once, especially when we're just trying to do a good thing. (like serve a mission! haha) but that God is trying to build us up in the process. 

So the talk went on and lots of other great things were said but about two thirds through the talk I began to be so distracted by the Sister sitting in front of me and what she was doing. I then realized I shouldn't be paying attention to her and needed to focus. So I started to say a silent prayer to myself that I could refocus but as I was talking in my head I realized I kept saying the word "strength" and I was like well what in the world would I be praying for strength for. I began to have a prompting that I needed to tell her something. You know when you have to bare your testimony and you stomach feels like its going to jump right out of your body? Thats what was happening! What I was being prompted to tell her felt so out of my comfort zone and like it was NOT my place to say anything but I just couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to say it. I started to tell my companion how I was feeling and just as I did Brother Ellis said "WE MUST ALWAYS FOLLOW OUR PROMPTINGS"  talk about about not gut wrench. At this point my legs litterally hurt I felt so badly that I just needed to step out side of my comfort zone and tell her this. Finally I decided I would just write it down and pass her a note at the end of the meeting. So I did and then I made my companions book it out of there with me as fast as we could haha. I felt almost immediate relief after wards and knew I would have been sorry if I hadn't have listened to the spirit. I don't know that what I told that Sister will make a difference to her but I know that the Lord works ways that we can't always understand. By following my prompting I know that I have been strenghthened and that as we listen to what the spirit tells us then it will make it easier and easier each time. After that devotional we went straight to a Zone Leadership Meeting. The entire meeting was on listening to promptings! They even shared a video about president Monson stopping in the street to talk to a family just because he felt he needed to but at the time didn't know why. It was so neat to have that lesson after the experience I had just had. 

I am so grateful for the spirit and the amazing ways I have been taught through it this week. I know that if I will endure well through the experiences the Lord presents me and listen to my promptings then I can become strong just like the Lord wanted a stronger Nephi.

okay ah! my time is up!! I hope this all made sense. I love you all so much and miss you and pray for you every day! Thank you for the emails! I love to hear from you and will respond as soon as I can!! 

Love,

Sister Hendrix