It Has Happened! (01/20/2020)

So last week I didnt send an email because I was lazy and nothing really happened so sorry, if youre still mad, go study about forgiveness.

This past week was a little more exciting! First of the Zone Leaders from Kenema came to work with us on Wednesday. Elder Barrezueta worked with Elder Abad and I. He served in Kailahun about year ago so it was nice to have him show us some different people that had fallen through the cracks. He is Ecuadorean but from Miami and hilarious so it was a real fun day. 

And to top it off Elder Tenney from Arizona brought stuff to make pizza and we had a bunch of homemade pizza that night. A good ending to a good day. 

This week Elder Abad and I have been focusing a lot on teaching about the 200 year celebration. All about Joseph Smith's first vision. And really it has been awesome, we have gotten many peoples attention and the amount of people we are teaching has skyrocketed. Now to just get them to come to church. 

Today I am emailing from Kenema as we traveled here for our zone conference tomorrow, so Elder Abad and I had the opportunity to visit some people from our old area, and let me tell you days like these just make being a missionary so fun.  To be able to see people progress in the gospel is awesome and to see people that you have grown to love is awesome. And gues what? Someone even named a baby after me! How dope is that! Little baby Hendricks running around. 

Elder Hendricks 

Push To Start (01/06/2020)

So last year my mom got a new car. Ever since she has been informing me about all the new features and how nice it is. One of the features that she loves in that it is push to start. She says she loves not even having to take the keys out of her pocket. Now I make this pojnt because this week as we were walking bwck from an appointment we helped about 5 other Saloneans push and truck to allow the driver to start the truck, or in other words, its was a push to start truck. Now this was not the first time I had seen this happen but to be very honest this time left me laughing so hard. Push to start has a very different meaning half way across the world, and while a lot of Americans want push to start cars, Sierra Leoneans do not.

Also in other news, many of you know that I have had the wonderful opportunity to experience and wide variety of gourmet cuisine in Sierra Leone. Recently I have been silent on this subject for the mere fact that I think in my mind everything has become redundant and normal, but this week we have one for the books. Saturday evening we visited one of our investigators at their home for the first time. He is a police officer so usually we meet him at the government office he works at, but being the weekend we stopped by his house. Whereon his mother informed us that we would be eating before our lesson. My companion and I thought no problem and prepared for rice. We got rice with some sort of noodle soup which was very delicious and it even had some nice duck in it. It wasn't till about half way through that I noticed an interesting looking noodle, and at further examination I realized that it wasn't a noodle at all but the brain of the duck. And it tasted great :)

We had a great new years here and the great thing about having 2 Filipinos in your apartment is that there is always food. Whether is it adobo or machado or curry there is a lot of it. And pitching in to buy chicken and doing the dishes is well worth it. 

One experience that I want to share this week is about one man that we are teaching. His name is Brother Gbondo and he is probably in his 60's. He is a tailor and spent most of his life in Guinea. He dropped out of school when he was young to start his career and help make money for his family and has been doing this work ever since. He doesn't know how to read or write but that doesn't stop his drive to learn. This past week we were teaching him about the covenant that we make with Heavenly Father at baptism. We likened it to signing a contract with God agreeing that we will keep all of his commandments. Upon saying this Brother Gbondo with a big smile of his face explained very emphatically "I want to sign that contract with God and I want to keep that contract!" It was awesome to see for two reasons, 1. He got it, he understood the meaning and has a desire to eneter in, and 2.Brother Gbondo is a very reserved man that is very quiet and soft spoken, and when he informed us of his wish, he was practically shouting. 

All of this made me think about my own baptismal covenant and if I still have that burning pashion behind it as Brother Gbondo has. As we truly remember our covenants with Heavenly Father we will never go astray, and what better way then remembering our covenants by preparing each week to partake of the sacrament and visiting the temple. 

As a zone we have a goal to make our sacrament hour each week more meaningful. As a district we have made a plan of reading "The Living Christ" each Sunday morning in preparation, and we created a whiteboard where throughout the week we write scriptures that help us think of Christ. To share them with each other. I invite you as well as we start a new to think about how you can make Christ a bigger part of your life. As you do I promise you will see a difference:)

Elder Hendricks 

Picture from our area 

Christmas Cassava Leaf

Christmas was awesome for many reasons.

First lets talk about temporal things. 

I woke up and made pancakes, which was awesome. Not quite as good as Gary makes them but for being in Salone they were nice. And after adding strawberry jam the whole apartment enjoyed on Christmas morning. 

Also that afternoon we had the biggest meal of Cassava Leaf. I love cassava leaf so a few before I planned with a sister in the branch to make it for us for Christmas just the way I like it. And she came through big time. I left not knowing if I was going to be able to walk home home my stomach was full. 

Also another tender blessing of being in the bush I was able to talk with my family for quite a while as we use a tablet here. And even later I was able to call my extended family on the phone and let everyone know I am healthy. I kept getting asked in I have typhoid still so it was njce to inform people that no I am actually probably in the  est shape of my life. Thanks to all the walking.

Okay now to why it was awesome in a Spiritual sense. 

Recently I have been studying The Living Christ and what it truly explains to us. I am fascinated about how complex it is while at the same time puts forth very plain truths. 

Being away frim family requires you to adjust how you celebrate some holidays and this Christmas I really enjoyed my time studying the Savior and the importance of his birth.

Earlier today I finished The Book of Mormon and the final exhortation from Moroni continued to add to my appreciation for the birth of Jesus Christ.

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ" (Moroni 10:32)

His birth allows us to be perfect. But its up to us to come unto him, or be his follower. I invite all of you to see what you can do to go and follow.

Elder Hendricks 

1.Pancakes

2.Cassava Leaf

3.Our Area

4.Yours truly