Excited

Shoutout to Mitch for making the 1 year. a;sldfkjasl;dvzxl;vjaeog... That is pretty much how I feel right now. This last week I saw more miracles than I have seen at any time on my mission, however, I also feel as though I have been hit in the brain by a rocket. Our investigator Tony is doing really well. He is still working towards baptism on the 9th but boy has it been a wild ride. He has called us every night this week because he feels tempted to smoke. He is holding strong though. He has faced probably more opposition than any other investigator that I've seen but he seems to be hanging on real well.

    Coolest thing though, yesterday at Stake Conference this guy walked up to me while Elder King was talking to some of his spanish homies and said that he had just moved from Oregon. He has a fiance that is flying in on this Thursday and has already taken all the missionary discussions and wants to be baptized but she wanted to come up here and be baptized by her fiance. So now we have this super cool young couple now in our ward. Looking forward to teaching them this week for sure. We don't know if her baptism will be this Saturday or the next but I'll let you know Sunday.

     We are going back to teach the army guy tonight with the other ex-marine in our ward. Super pumped. 

      We got a call this week from a man by the name of Jeremiah and said that he wanted to meet up. So we met him at the church and he told us his life story of how he joined the church and how his dad passed away. Since then he left the church but had an experience a few months ago of how his dad passed away and since then he has remembered how great his life was when he was living the gospel. He is super fun to teach because he is way intelligent but even better than that he owns a super fancy dessert shop and said that he will hook us up. YUM.

       Have some big stuff coming up for the mission as well. We have a leadership conference tomorrow and President asked Elder King and I to train on whatever we wanted and said he would just back us up after. Excited for this opportunity to throwdown.

       And I can't believe it but transfers are coming next week. Last transfer I got in 3 days before the transfer so I felt about 25% of the workload, plus I had no idea what I was doing. Should be fun though. 

      Congrats to Tan for graduating. I'm proud of you bro. 

                                                                                    -Kev hlub mus ib txhis,

                                                                                                  Muaj Zoo

"Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire"

Yeah that was a top gun reference and also a reference to a little mishap last night when we were at a birthday party and the happy birthday song ended with a small fire.

     Things this week have been really great and we have been blessed with so many miracles. We have a member returning from activity in our ward who is an ex-marine and the other night we payed him a visit. Well I love guns and America so we got along great. He ended up showing me all of his guns that he has and while we were there I was thinkin, "Man, it would really sweet to teach an investigator like this guy." So that night I prayed super hard that we would be able to teach a guy like Ryan. The next day, we get a call from a man who says he has friends who are Mormon in a different city and he wanted to learn about our religion.We visited him yesterday afternoon for the first time and one of the first things he says is, "I'm an ex-marine and I have seen a lot of things that the two of you haven't, so don't try and beat around the bush with this stuff and just tell me what's up." My companions jaw dropped and I almost started laughing. He is so much like Ryan and we are hoping Ryan can come out joint-teaching with us this Thursday. So yes, God does answer prayers.

     Also we have a man with a date set for May 9th and is working on quitting cigars. He calls us almost every night around 3 or 4 in the morning because he feels the need to smoke and so we talk with him for about 20 minutes and by the end he is just saying, "I got this, I got this." It is cool to see his desire and God is blessing him for it but man I hope God changes time somehow and I get to sleep more because I fell asleep in a lesson the other day and I felt so bad. It's all good though the member was cool about it.

      Last miracle is that we found this ward member who has a super nice gym and loves to work out and we started going with him in the mornings. He is semi-active but we gave him a blessing before he took his finals in college and he did super well on all of them. He has come back to church and is getting really strong which is neat to see.

                       -Sib Ntsib Dua,

                                 Muaj Zoo

"You Wanna Pepsi?"

 This week was exciting and had a lot of ups and downs for sure. President surprised the mission with a transfer in the middle of the transfer. He made changes to about thirty missionaries so the majority of Tuesday and Wednesday was spent figuring that out. We ended up taking a 7 hour road trip to Wisconsin and then to the southern part of Minnesota. We stopped in Wisconsin for some cheese curd burgers which blew my mind and also probably a few arteries in my heart but it was worth it.

     We have been teaching a part member couple for the last two weeks and the husband has set a date for May 9th. They have both been off smoking for the last couple days and they quit at the same time so there has been a lot of stress for the both of them. It is crazy the stuff people do when they are breaking a bad habit. They are doing really well though and they are super fun to teach. They are Georgia and they love fried chicken, basketball, and singing like baptists so there is never a dull moment with them.

     Had a cool experience last night. We were on our way to a dinner appointment and felt like we needed to stop by a less active real quick who is Spanish. When we got there the less active wasn't there but her grandparents who are super active were both there. Luckily Elder King speaks Spanish so they talked and found out that the wife had cancer. She still hadn't received a blessing and so we offered one. When her husband gave the first part of the blessing in Spanish it was so spiritual and he started balling and then after Elder King finished the blessing they were both crying. It was a really neat moment and then after they got a hold of themselves the wife looked up at me with this big smile and said in broken english, "You wanna Pepsi?" I laughed so hard. 

     So yeah things are going well and the people here are super cool so I love it. Have a good week.

look out boys... I'm gettin good

                                                       

It Was Pretty Boss

Mom: Well to be honest, being an AP is the best and hardest thing I have ever done. It streches my faith,patience,charity,and basically everything. I am exhausted ALL the time. Before my mission I felt like I was never tired but I can fall asleep standing up without even trying. My calling is really just to serve the missionaries. The hard thing is though is that right when I came in President changed his mind and also wants us to have a really good area as well which in the past the AP's never really did so it is a lot to juggle. I guess to share about my calling. It is a lot of office work which is pretty hard as a 19 year old to stay in an office but I'm getting used to it. We go on exchanges with zone leaders who are spread across Minnesota and we help out struggling missionaries. We meet with the mission president and talk about transfers a lot and what we need to do to help the mission. Lots of fun. Bye love ya. Thanks for setting up housing. Please let me know about classes and the exact deadline for when I need to be signed up.

Family:

Crazy stuff goin down in Bloomington that's for sure. I love this place. It turns out that our area is a really big hub for a bunch of immagrants from Africa so we teach Egyptians, Liberians, and a lot of Somalians. It is just like being back with the Hmong people because most of them don't have a Christian background. It has been fun to get to know there cultures but not quite as fun to get to know their foods. 

     Had a really neat miracle this Saturday night. We had found an eternigator(Long Timer) in our area book that was married to a less active but hadn't been seen for super long. So on Saturday night Elder King and another missionary (We were on exchanges) went to visit him. Right as they got there he pulled up and he was super excited to see them. He came to church yesterday with his wife and quit smoking today. He says he wants to get baptized within the next month or so. He is one of the most prepared people I have seen on my mission. I am really excited to teach him too because he is a 6' 4" guy and he loves basketball. 

     Things for Elder King and I were good this week and we spent a lot of time driving all over the mission. Last night we drove north about an hour and stayed the night with some Elders to help them out. We wanted to help them have joy so we're taking them golfing today, should be pretty fun.

     The last person to talk about is this super sweet guy named Ryan. He is a former marine and left the church for about 10 years while he was on tour. He has traveled all over the world and has the coolest stories. One of the first things that he said to me was, "Do you wanna see all my guns?" Dream come true. He has come from such a dark place and is now putting every ounce of energy into the church. It is neat to see those people who come from a rough background and then find the light of the Gospel. They really do have such a strong conviction. 

     On Tuesday we had MLC (Mission Leadership Council) and our former 1st counselor in the mission presidency who was just called to be an Area Seventy Elder Stacey, came to speak to us. He had just gotten off a flight from Salt Lake the night before and so we were the first group of people other than his wife that he had talk to about the call. He told us the whole process of what it was like to get the call and he told us of some of the meetings that he had with the 12 Apostles. He said that it was amazing to see the process in real life of how they direct the church. Then he looked at all of us and said, "If you don't know that this is true from the top of your head to the bottom of your feat, than fix it, and fix it fast." and sat down. It was pretty boss. It for sure gave me a renewed desire to strengthen my testimony and it has been a blessing. Thanks so much and have a good week.

Bloom Town

     Things this week have been crazy for sure. We had transfer week this Wednesday so we had to rush around. We drove to the airport in separate cars (which freaked me out when I had to drive back alone. Had a nice moment singing David Archuleta by myself though so it's cool,) to drop off the departing missionaries and pick up the new ones. It was really neat to take one of my old companions Elder Hardy to the airport and drop him off. We talked about all the good times we had together and all the things we learned. It made me really appreciate that I am not him though because all the going home missionaries looked way worse off than the ones coming in. It was great to see the new missionaries come in with their faith and to see their excitement to get underway.      

     Things with teaching the Mikas people are super weird. It is cool to get to teach in English again but sometimes I still do some asian stuff that Mikas people just don't quite understand. Like the other night we were at dinner with our elders quorum president and his wife put the scooper thing for the potatoes with the wrong side facing up. In Hmong culture if you put the food scooper the wrong way up then it invites spirits to come and eat with you. Which is bad. So I explained that to them and they looked at me like I was from another planet. I'm sure I'll adjust pretty quick though but until then I guess the rule of thumb is to not bring up bad spirits at the dinner table. 

      We had a pretty cool miracle yesterday as well. We were in the mission office doing work and I saw a not that was under some papers so I pulled it out and it was a note that we were suppose to call back a lady because she needed help moving but the note got lost under some papers. So we call her up and she says that she needs help big time and wants to learn more about our religion as well. Sounds pretty golden and were teaching her tonight at 8 so that should be fun.

      So conference blew my mind...again. Elder Holland's talk was one of my favorite talks of all time. Especially with James' birthday just passing I thought about him a lot during the talk and realized how strong the bond between brothers really is. I feel now that I have been out on my mission I have grown so much closer to James, Tan, & J dub which is really cool. It's almost as if the mission was the last hurdle I had to jump before we could really fully understand each other and it has been cool to remember experiences that they had as I have served the Lord. 

     Love you all and good luck this next week. Happy Easter. Try not to go into a food coma from all the potatoes and chocolate. Talk to you later. 

-Elder Henrie

The Last Moments of My Hmong Ministry

     Hey Fam. Sorry that I missed the e-mail this last Monday but things are getting real busy. From now on my P-Days will be a little sporadic but I still should be able to send an e-mail every week. Big News. I got transferred. Usually in the mission President sends out the transfers to our e-mail on Monday morning but this Sunday morning he called and let me know that I will be serving in Bloomington now. They told me that I had a couple hours to pack and that they were picking me up that night so I went to church came home and then left. Pretty nervous to be out of the Hmong work but I am super excited for the challenge and opportunity in front of me. 

     Couple updates on the last moments of my Hmong ministry and then I'll let you know what's going on here. Nalee got BAPTIZED! It was a super cool baptismal service and her testimony was super boss. Then after her baptism she asked me to confirm her and it was one of the most spiritual moments on Sunday when we gave her the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Especially because it was Libby and James' birthday. I was thinking about them a lot and just how awesome the both of them are. During Nalee's blessing. I promised her that she would have her character changed to become more like Christ as she followed the Holy Ghost and as I did that I thought about all the great qualities that James and Libby possess and how Christlike the both of them are. Nalee was one of my favorite investigators on my mission and I really hope that she continues to stay strong.

     Things out here in Bloomington are pretty cool. I have learned in these first few days, that I still have a lot to learn. I really look forward to the next few months though and the challenge that lies ahead. My companion Elder King is a really cool guy. He used to be a Spanish missionary so he knows what is like to have to leave the culture behind and start teaching mikas people which should be really helpful. He is from Vernal Utah. Loves Murica, shooting guns, and sports so we should do just fine.

     SHOUTOUT to my SISTER

   You are the coolest little sister in the world. Every time mom and dad talk about you they only say how great you are doing in school and how everybody loves you a ton. Happy tenth (haha didn't think you were getting baptized again this time) b-day. Even though you are still super young I am amazed at how much you help everyone and how much you love others. All of your letters and little crafts that you send me are super nice. I especially loved the picture of the bald eagle and the I love USA picture. You are the bomb. Happy Birthday Libs.

Elder Henrie & Elder King