Choices determine destiny!

Family,
 Thanks for all of the updates on the baseball tournament. Mom i want to write to all of the cousins who are graduating ( Katie, Tyler and Jared) so could you get me their addresses please. I liked Darren's graduation pictures, except for the fact that i wasn't sure if the one picture was Usher or Justin Beiber, and i thought the other one may have been Calvin Klein or something, haha. Did Scott do those? Little Garrett is way cute, thanks for the pictures!! Its been a great week. We finished up our zone-conferences, we had 4 different ones, and this last one was definitely the best. That is a lot of work to put those things on and it sure takes more organization skills than i have. It was a great learning experience, and i learned a lot about who i am... because that is what Elder Fisher and I talked about. Its cool, when you really know who you are, outside influences don't affect you in any negative way. "If all the elements combine to hedge up thy way..." we know that we are a completely loved son of God. When we understand that the plan of salvation requires that we have trials, tests, failures and weaknesses we are built up by those tests, we overcome our weaknesses instead of them overcoming us and the tests causing us to fall. When we understand who we are, we will do the right things for the right reasons, because we love God. But how do we come to understand who we are? I probably don't understand how to answer this question completely, but I know that it does come as we experience the atonement, and as we live the Doctrine of Christ. When we truly feel the Love of God, we cant help but feel special, that we have a purpose on this earth.  Also we will never find out who we are until we lose ourselves in the service of God, when we serve our fellow men, "whosoever will save his life shall lose it, whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it".  I really know that that is true doctrine, i have seen it on my mission over and over. When we forget ourselves and give our heart to Gods work, his children, then we gain confidence in who we are and what we should be doing with our time here on earth.
 I had an interesting experience this week, where i learned a great lesson about choices. President Monson has said "choices determine destiny". I was on an exchange in Eastpoint (where i served last summer) in Atlanta, it is mostly ghetto's. We went to a less-actives sisters home, we talked with her for about 15 min outside her house. She has 4 little kids and lives with a pretty low-life husband who doesn't work, so she has to work. They live in a very bad neighborhood, and she knows all of these things are true. She recognizes that she is living in sin and isn't at all happy and knows it's not a good environment for her kids. The really sad part is that.she grew up in the suburbs of LA, in a good home. She was well educated, her father works for NASA and she has 3 siblings. She has been a member her whole life, born under the covenant and knows a lot about the gospel, she was active all her growing up years. But now she is in a very bad situation and completely unhappy, treated like she is an object instead of a daughter of God, and her children are growing up in that environment as well. I thought about how she has come to where she is, from where she has come. I bet you the difference can be found in as little as 5-10 choices she made as a young teanager, maybe less. Those seemingly small choices have now lead to a course of events that have not only put her and her family in satan's territory, but have caused her to forget who she is and who her children are. She can recognize that she is unhappy but she doesn't know how to get out of her situation. It has been one of the saddest experiences of my mission, and some of the saddest words i have ever heard come out of the mouth of a child of God. "I know where im going when i die... to spirit prison...God knows my heart and knows that i'm a good person, i know i won't make it to the celestial kingdom, but maybe i can get the second one". We definately bore our testimonies that she was most definately as capable of recieving joy in this life and eternal life in the celestial kingdom as any person on earth, and tried to re-asure her of the hope of Jesus Christ, because she was so wrong. But I felt so inadequate to help her and that was hard. The good thing is that she still understands the differnce between how the gospel makes her feel, she is begining to recognize the need for her God in life and I believe she will find it in due time. She really was a great girl. But truly decisions can have far reaching effects, and its so hard to see as a teenager. This experience has instilled within me a strong desire to reach out the best i possibly can to all young kids in hopes of saving at least one, because that will be so worth it. They are the most vulnerable and the most important. I thank those great leaders that i had, like Brad Whitehead, who loved me even though i wasn't very loveable, his friendship always had an impact on me, and others as well. It is a bad world out there and satan is so real, and he just wants u to be miserable. But on a happy not the Gospel of Jesus Christ can overcome all things!! It is true, this church is sharing its fullness with power. We have missionaries all over the world changing lives. I love you all, keep being so awesome!

Elder Hendrix

Challenge from the President

Dear Elders and Sisters,

The Book of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is the single most effective tool you have for doing missionary work.   Before being released, I was hoping for us to read the Book of Mormon one more time as a mission, but with all of the study assignments I have given you, I felt it may be too much.  However, in looking back at the mission, I realize that the most productive times we had, both personally and in helping others “Come To Christ,” were when we were reading the Book of Mormon together.  Therefore, with the 7 weeks that Sister Satterfield and I have left before we leave, we would like to invite every missionary to read in the Book of Mormon EACH and EVERY day.  You are probably already reading daily, but in an effort to unify us in the Lord’s work, will you please start today to read some select chapters (about 4 to 5 pages a day) and look for messages that will most help you serve as a missionary?  It was very difficult to choose which chapters to read for ALL are wonderful, but I have selected a few choice sections for us to read together before Sister Satterfield and I have to leave.   Nothing would please us more than to leave you more strengthened than you are even now.  Please let me know in your weekly letters some of the things you feel you are learning or “remembering” as you read the following chapters:

1 Nephi 1-20, 22

2 Nephi 1-4, 9-11, 27-33

Jacob 1-4, 6

Enos

Mosiah 1-6, 12-13, 15-18

Alma 4-8, 9-13, 24-26, 32-34, 36-42, 57

Helaman 5 and 12

3 Nephi 27

Ether 2-5, 12

Moroni 6-10

            I want you to know that Sister Satterfield and I have confidence in you.  You are all learning and growing and repenting and changing for the better.  Studying the Book of Mormon, after first praying and asking Heavenly Father to send the Holy Ghost to help you, is the single most valuable thing you can do now and the rest of your life to strengthen yourself.  As you read, look for and mark passages that will allow you to use the Book of Mormon in helping people find answers to their problems in that wonderful book.  The answers are all there—whether it is family problems, being mocked, the death of a loved one, financial problems, depression, whether or not to be obedient, who to turn to for help, etc.  Then get into the habit of taking them there, as you listen to their concerns.  Don’t be surprised if you use that very day, the things you studied earlier.  It’s REALLY true that when you do God’s work, you get His help.  HE is in charge of this work.

Go forward with FAITH! 

Sister Satterfield and I love you.

President Steven H. Satterfield

to Darren on the first day of District Playoffs

Mom,

  This message is for Darren. As I read about his baseball tournament I felt a deep desire for him to do well and I started thinking about what I could say to him today that might be able to help him through the tournament. I will be praying for him for sure. So pass him on this message, I have 5 things for him to do. Maybe you could write them up and give them to him before he heads over to Melalucca today.

  1. Find a quiet place where you can be alone to say a simple prayer giving thanks, and asking for Gods help in the next game, before each game.

  2. Read a little bit from the Book of Mormon each night for the rest of the season.

  3. "Look to the end of the game". What I mean by this is that winning the game is the real goal, and if you make a mistake it doesn’t matter anymore, or if you make a great play or get an RBI move on.  What matters is the score board ONLY at the END OF THE GAME. Satan uses the past to distract us, he doesn’t want you to play well.

  4. Have fun! I wish so bad I could go back and be in your shoes. This is the last real baseball you may ever play, make it a happy memory.

  5. Know where your real strength comes from....God. He loves you and cares even about baseball!

If you do these things I promise you will be blessed!

I love you man. Let me know how things go. Tell Coach Barr hello for me.

Not much Sleep this week

Family,                                                                                                           

    First of all next week I’ll probably call you around 5 or so your time. I’ll let you know the specifics in a few days. Um, I forgot to ask president about skyping and such. If we can, and i think we can I’ll probably do that. Can the whole family be in on that or just one other computer? Sounds like you are all having a wonderful life in the good ol' west.

  This week was crazy. I don’t think that I got more than about 5 hours of sleep any night this week. We are just crazy busy, running around to different meetings and preparing for meetings. But this week we had a couple exchanges, Both times I was able to go with some young missionaries and do some real missionary work. It was so much fun, honestly I had fun tracting and walking around in the hot humid weather. We did some awesome teaching. One of the guys we talked with, his name was Victor, he told us he wasn't interested but we kept talking to him. And we were just talking with him as any person would talk with someone, which is important as a missionary because it shows that we really care about people, and we cared about this young man. Anyway as we were talking he told us that he just had a new baby boy. So we started asking him questions about being a father and how God has given him this child. He understood that he had a responsibility to God for that child, but we felt impressed to ask him if he knew how he was supposed to do that. He said no, and we testified that we had all the answers that he would need. We set up a return appointment and I haven’t followed up on that yet, but it was just so fun to "invite others to come unto Christ".

    This Sunday Melanie bore her testimony. She mentioned that a big part of her conversion had to do with the way that she was treated by the members of our singles ward. She said that she had never seen people so kind and caring and loving in her whole life. She had been looking for a church that could help her become a "true follower of Jesus Christ" (Moroni 7:48), and it was through the example of our members that she was able to see, find and accept that. President Hinckley (I think it was him) was once asked why we don't display crosses in our church. His response was to the effect that the symbol of our Christianity is found in the lives of our members, and I thought of that as she bore her testimony on Sunday.  She is set to go into the army in October, she has already singed her contract and been sworn in, But last night she said that she wants to try and get out of her contract and go to BYU-I. Which we were excited about and had been secretly wishing for the last couple weeks, but I’m not sure how easily one can get out of one of those contracts, but I think the Lord will provide a way, I hope so. I love you all so much, the Gospel is the only true way, and it just makes you so dang happy!!

Elder Hendrix