July 25, 2011

Family,                                                                                                         

   I’m definitely so jealous that i missed out on the family reunion!! I want one of those shirts, if you don’t have an extra I’ll take Scotts!  I got so much joy from looking at those pictures, fun times, I’m disappointed in Brad for getting the truck stuck. Wow sounds like a wonderful experience.  Well we had probably one of the best weeks of mine, or my companions mission (he’s been out two years now), it was just filled with so many awesome experiences.  Monday with Elder Gay, Tuesday  G (with the ladies from Brooklyn) Wednesday with the temple i already told you about.  There is another family that we are working with, that we have been teaching we are excited about that.  Then we met with G again, which was probably one of the coolest experiences of my mission. When we met up with her we went on a walk with her, she was really upset. She started to tell us this story about how she had walked around Atlanta all day (she lives in the down town area), looking for churches to ask if she could volunteer there. It is kind of a long story but because of the way she Looks (she has dreads and full sleeve tattoos, and dresses very casual) they wouldn’t even come outside to speak to her, she says that she was standing in front of a glass door crying right in front of these Christian people and they would help her, she was very upset and even a little angry with us. My companion said it best "she just witnessed firsthand the great apostasy".  We just listened to her for a long time, then finally she said "ok well what do you want to tell me" in an annoyed tone. Now we had prepared a really good lesson, with really good scriptures, but we simply told her that we just wanted to help her, and that it wasn’t about what we had to say but what she needed to hear. Everything from then on was completely directed by the spirit, we really just testified to her that she was lead to the Chruch by the Lord. (both E. Wunderli and I have agreed that we have not taught anyone who has been more prepared by the Lord than her) We taught her the importance of her reading the Book of Mormon, and gave her a Restoration pamphlet (its lesson one in a pamphlet), it was so sweet as she opened up that pamphlet and looked at the pictures and words with a priceless smile on her face, like she had found her most prized possession, the spirit was so strong! We invited her to church and she said she would be there, and that she wanted to know how to find peace more than anything, she said she would give everything.  Also on Saturday we met a lady who is Jewish, but doesn’t really believe it, or she is looking for the truth. She is married to a good man, and has 6 kids; she also said that she would come to church. Later that day an 18 year old kid stopped us and asked us if we would teach him, he lives in the ghetto and has really bad friends and smokes weed, but he has a desire to quit, he really does. He’s such a solid kid and we felt the spirit with him, and he too committed to come to church, wow what a blessed week.  That is how our week went, until Sunday. Remember when Elder Wood and I had such great weeks, only to be followed by extreme disappointment on Sunday. Yesterday was a rough day, we didn’t have one investigator come to church, we had 6 really solid commitments and nobody pulled through. I know that moping about it doesn’t do any good, but this one hurt....a lot, i don’t get it we did all that we could do the Lord had obviously prepared these people to receive the Gospel, it was very discouraging. I hope that they all come to church next week. And i have faith that they will progress, pretty over it now, just concerned and at a loss of explanation but it’s the Lords work, he is doing it not me, he knows what’s best. I love you all!

Elder Hendrix

July 20, 2011

Family,                                                                                                                      

   Well this week has been so great especially the Last two days, let me explain. So the reason I am E-mailing on Wed, not Monday is because on Monday we had a special meeting with Elder Gay of the Seventy (did he come to your stake conference?), so we switched our p-day and since my companion is going home in 21 days we went to the temple (like an hour ago, so I’m flying high).  On Monday we had a great meeting, Elder Gay is an extraordinary man! He taught about doing things the Lords way, not our way. To do this we must seek his Will through revelation, because he is preparing people everywhere, we just have to reach them in the way that the Lord is preparing them to.  I learned that the only way to be successful in any aspect (all aspects too), we have to find out how the Lord wants us to do it, and that applies to regular life too, as a parent as a student as someone serving in a church calling, the ways are different for everybody and its our blessing to be able to seek that through personal revelation. Receiving revelation helps us prepare for Exaltation. Great meeting! After the meeting my companion and I followed our plan (that we felt we had received only a couple days earlier by revelation), and we were able to find a mother and daughter to teach, that are very interested in the Gospel, then last night we used the same plan and we found another lady, her story is awesome.  Last night we knocked on a referrals' door that we had tried to see a few times before (last night we were definitely lead by the spirit to go there), well we finally got to meet her, she has full sleeve tattoos and dreads but she is very educated, so she took us out to dinner. We sat with her for two hours and she told us about her past. She was born in Brooklyn and after college she became a police officer for the NYPD, later she worked narcotics undercover and then became a detective for the NYPD, so she was very successful, and she thought she had everything: money, cars, friends, nice home ect. She got heavy in to drinking and partying and she says that she did a lot of bad stuff. Then she spoke about her Mom dying, and talked about coming to the realization that she lived an empty life, and was not happy and she felt completely alone. It brought me back to how i use to feel exactly! She cried as she told us that her mother was the only good she knew in the world, and that because of her righteous example she was lead back to a search for God.  It was just a reminder of how blessed i have been, that the Lord gave me my family that through their example i was inspired to find my faith which brought me back to the way of Peace, the only true way, Jesus Christ! She is so awesome, we are so excited to teach her and to see her progress in the Gospel!!  She is one of the coolest people i have ever met, she is extremely humble, and is so wise. She loves baseball [of course though she is a Yankee fan:( ] which is great for me and Elder Wunderli. That was just such a great experience!! Then today I was able to attend the Atlanta Temple, it is truly the House of God, the spirit that is there cannot be denied! I it is so peaceful and quiet, i loved it. I love you all.  The Book of Mormon is Great! Keep reading 

Elder Hendrix

July 11, 2011

Family,

   Well i Love you all and I’m still alive! :) (it’s really not that bad).  Well i just feel so blessed by the Lord for having such a great family and for being able to have the experience that i am having serving in Atlanta with Elder Wunderli.  Last week i forgot to mention that during our transfer meeting Sis Satterfield always speaks to us before we find out where we are going. And she shared the Letter that Mom wrote to her, about her and Julies' experience with the Book of Mormon, wow what a story it was definitely a tender mercies of the Lord to be able to hear that story it made me cry, I’m so grateful for such a good mother and little (crazy) sister, and entire family thanks for sharing that story, it was a blessing for me.  I too have fallen behind on my scripture reading, because we literally have had no time for it, and i have really noticed a difference in the spirit being with me, and it affects my teaching, my relationship with my companion, my mind in general, so moral of that story is that daily reading from the scriptures is essential to fulfill the covenant we made at baptism. I’m so glad that y'all are reading with us!!  Also serving in Atlanta is a huge blessing, we have so many people that are ready for the gospel, so many good people who are looking for a better life. We had dinner with an investigator and her 2 kids last night, she has come to church for 2 weeks in a row, and her countenance has clearly changed, she looks soooo happy, it’s so amazing and we haven’t even taught her a lesson, we are so excited for her!  This place is great, the city is so cool, there is so much culture, its definitely not the right kind of culture but its eye opening to experience it.  Also in our area we have lots of cool things to go see on P-day like Georgia tech campus, the CNN center, Coca-Cola headquarters, Martin Luther King museum, and cool places in the down town area. And being the huge sports fans my companion and I are, we have The Georgia Dome (Falcons), Philips Arena (Hawks), Turner Field (Braves), and Georgia Tech.  It’s just a really cool place to live, and the missionary work is exploding, so I feel very blessed!!  We get to meet some INTERESTING people too. One lady we met the other day told us that she has died 5 times, gone to hell 3 times and heaven 2 times. She raised Willie Nelson from the dead, and saw God and so much more odd stuff, but i actually learned a valuable lesson from her.  There is definitely a difference between the spirit that we felt while talking with her and the Spirit that we feel as we teach the true Gospel, many people are deceived by false spirits, in fact she told us that we were, but there was no good feeling from what she was telling us, and as she went on and on (she just blabbed at us for 30 min) her eyes got darker and even the tone of her voice changed and the way she spoke, you could just tell that she was influenced by the wrong type of spirit.  Do you guys want her hear something funny, there is an Elder in our Zone named Elder Horner form Heber City, and his family owns Horner’s Corner, and he is really good friends with the family that owns the One-stop. Small world! 

Mom i don’t have Serinas number with me but I’ll try to remember it and I’ll send some pictures. YOU’RE THE BEST FAMILY OF ALL TIME!!

Elder Hendrix

July 4, 2011

FAMILY

  Well sounds like things are running good. Mom and Dad, thanks so much for pleasing the Lord in your parenting, and teaching me correct principles!  I am so glad you talked to Serina, she is so awesome, she calls me her White son, funniest lady I’ve ever met. You should call her and tell her to be baptized, I’m serious she knows it’s true she is just scared to make a commitment, i was very sad to leave them! Well i bet you all want to know where i am serving.... I’m serving with Elder Wunderli, he just came from being AP so i got to know him cuz they lived by us.  He is from Sandy, he Loves sports which means that there are two kids serving together that know way to much pointless random sports info, last night we talked for like 30 min about Mo Vauhgn, ya only Brad knows who I’m talking about, it can be distracting but he is so focused, even though this is his last transfer. Everything we do is toward the work, and how we can baptize, he is focused on baptism, he is definitely one of the best missionaries in our mission. Yesterday we were late for a huge black families family reunion (it was a real southern experience at the reunion/cookout), and we took a wrong turn somewhere but it lead us past a members home and as we drove by he saw a lady that he taught a year ago (he served here a year ago for six months so we just hit the ground running, it’s nice) and he just pulled over and we got out and went up to the front porch and the first question he asked was, "so Kelonda, when are you going to be baptized", she expressed some concerns but we talked with her and she is going to let us teach her and pray about baptism. He really understands our purpose, but he doesn’t do it in a overbearing, rude, way at all it’s just that he understands the importance of what our purpose as missionaries is, and he is ridiculously personable, I’m going to learn so much and we are going to baptize for sure this transfer.  It is so cool too because this area had really bad missionaries in it last transfer, so they haven’t been doing anything, and the Lord has prepared the area for this time, 4 of Wunderli's converts have told us that they want to start coming back to church, and we have 4 really really solid investigators.  We are in Atlanta, and we honestly live in the Ghetto, we were driving around the other day and i said "is this the ghetto part", he says "ya we live just right over there", haha, we cover a huge part of the city of Atlanta, its pretty much everything south and West of downtown and the downtown area.  But ya, this is a real different experience, but there is so much good work to be done, i have already learned so much about how to be an effective missionary, Wunderli is awesome!!  We have been so busy you wouldn’t even believe, we are going non-stop all of the time, i haven’t been to bed by 10:30 in like 5 days, we just have so much to do, that’s what happens when you whitewash in (two new missionaries move into an area).  I am so excited, i can’t even express it. Yesterday, (we cover two wards, a singles and family) we were in the singles ward and a member brought his friend to meet us after sacrament who is looking for some direction in life, and we are going to teach him on Wednesday.  Wow I’m excited and today for P-day we are getting together with our district and the Assistants to grill-out, and just relax and celebrate the 4th.  Yesterday a kid bore his testimony in church, he told a story of a 24 year old soldier who just got sent to Afghanistan, he had just been married recently.  But they were dropped into the mountains and got into a bad spot and 28 of 45 men were wounded or killed. He was on the radio calling in support and was mortally wounded, he died with a radio in his hand trying to get support for his troops. I was very touched and i am so happy, that there are people willing to give there all, that kid gave up everything to protect us and not even us, the entire world as an American Soldier.  "Home of the Free, because of the Brave", and "One nation, under God". I love you all, can’t wait to E-mail you next week, hopefully i don’t get shot. Love ya!!

Elder Hendrix

PS: Mom i love what you said about member missionary work, call up the local missionaries and invite them to teach you.