{LovE You ALL!}

Queridísima familia mía,

This week has been great! The change has been going by too fast...and i feel like there`s not enough time to do everything. But that is a good feeling. The familia Remice Ibarra is officially progressing! They gave us the information we need to start taking out there papers for marriage. And Valentina has medical examens with her future husband this wednesday. Sunday was great...Valentina, José, and Oderais came to church. It makes me so happy when people take that step every week. Getting people to church can be one of the toughest commitments sometimes.

I`ve been thinking a lot this week. I feel like we`re giving it everything in this area and honestly i know i´ll end here without regrets. It`s been good to get to know the other missionaries here in Chorrera. So many have so many different things going on in their families. And it`s sad to see that some can`t support it and end up missing out on big blessings here in the mission.

I hope all is well there. I`ve thought about James this past week. We were at a members house a few days ago and they had just barely had a baby boy named Thiago. He has super dark hair and when I saw the way his mom was holding him it make me wonder what it was like for mom holding James. I feel really grateful for the knowledge of eternal families. It is the greatest blessing that there is and i love teaching people about it.

Today we`re going to go to a sweet place called the Chorro...supposedly there`s a cool waterfall so we`ll take some pictures.

Ohhh...this week we had a funny experience. We were teaching the Remice Ibarra fam and they offered us natural tea after the lesson...ok sounds good. I saw the box and it said ´te negro´...black tea. I was pretty sure that wasn`t ok. But the box said natural...so i drank it. I figured it would be good to ask president ward just to know what i should be teaching people. The first thing he said about it was that we shouldn`t drink black tea, green tea, iced tea, etc. Haha so i told him he`d have to forgive me for breaking the word of wisdom. He simply replied, ´well Elder, it`s better to ask for forgiveness than permission` and started laughing. haha but now i`ll be sure to pay closer attention.

Well love you all! Send my love to James and a happy birthday to lib! I need to write her now...permiso.

Love,

Elder Henrie

Mom!

Thanks for the letter! This week was awesome! We`re having lots of success and i feel happy in my area. I hope to stay here next change with Elder Valenzuela...he`s a great comp.

Could you do me a favor and pass this message to Lib? (I guess she can read it now)

Dear Libster,

I can`t BELIEVE it`s your birthday again! You`re six years old already!! I hope you`re not growing to fast while i`m gone haha i want to wish you a very happy birthday and tell you that I love you a lot. Make sure you take advantage of your birthday to get lots of cool toys! I am super happy to have you as a little sister. I have so many good memories with my little sister, mei :) Have lots of fun on your b day and eat lots of junk food!!

I love you!

Elder Henrie

{We FouND An INCrediBlE FaMilY}

What`s up fam?!

Man lots of news this week eh?! I can`t believe Matt`s home already...i found out last night (Elder Johnson told me). Honestly I wasn`t too worried because I know God protects His missionaries haha. That`s super hard with everything going on in Japan. I`m sure it would be difficult to see so much damage in a country you have served in for so long. This week has been awesome! We are working on getting Valentina and Rodrigo Castro married so Valentina can be baptized! She`s super awesome and she`s starting to gain a testimony.

We found an INCREDIBLE family last week! They were a reference from some elders in our zone. They are called the Remice Ibarra family...not married but we`re going to talk about that tonight. Oderais, the wife, was invited to church by her brother in law in San Miguelito and she and her husband, José, really liked the meeting. We`ve been visiting them and they both have prayed already about Joseph Smith...Jose said that he felt relieved when he prayed. And Oderais said she had a really peaceful feeling come over her. We`ll be working on them and Valentina for the 16 of April! They are such incredible people!

I`m really excited about the work here in our area. Unfortunately our zone is suffering a bit but things will pick up in April. I`m super excited for conference too! My second conference that i will see in the zone of La Chorrera.

We went to the temple today (that`s why i didn`t write yesterday, we changed p day) and it was a much needed experience. I had a few things on my mind and i feel good about everything now. One of my goals for this year of the mission is forget completely about myself. I feel the need to focus more on the people then myself. I learned something in church this Sunday. I was frustrated with the way some of the missionaries were acting in the zone...and the teacher in priesthood class said something that caught me. He said that every single missionary, no matter who they are, is a special person. I know that as missionaries we have so much potencial and it`s said to see it wasted by some who just don`t want to leave behind the old life.

We`re working hard! I`m tired and I feel good about the work that we are getting done here. I feel like at last we are starting to see the fruits of hard work and obedience.

I love you guys! I talk about you with all the investigators. Last night I talked about the great example I have for a Dad to a new family that we found. I know you have all taught me what i need to do on the mission and i`m trying to put it into practice. I`m happy...really. I am starting to understand so many things in a way that I never thought of before coming to Panama.

Mucho amor,

Elder Henrie

Hey mom!

Yeah crazy that it`s my birthday already! I remember last year just sitting in the house in El Empalme feeling weird on the morning of my birthday. Elder Poli made french toast that day haha. Things are really good in our area! I love it! I would like to be here with Elder Valenzuela for another change to see a few baptisms...

Thanks for everything mom. Tell Matt Palmer I love him if you get the chance. I`d love to know how he`s doing! Still can`t BELIEVE that he`s home already!

Well mom i love ya!

Elder Henrie

{It'S TouGH buT I LoVE iT!}

Hey fam!

Crazy week. I heard about the earthquake in Japan and was just worried about Matt over there. But i wasn`t too worried because i know God protects His missionaries. It`s good to know that they are all alright, but i`m sure the Palmer`s were going crazy! Matt finishes up his mish this month! It`s crazy how fast it has gone.

This was a really good week! We had about 16 people that told us they were going to go to church on Sunday. Well...none of them came haha. It was kind of just funny in the morning as we were walking around to pick people up. I told my comp that it was like the apostles at the start of the apostasy...one by one they were killed. But we got to church with a few less actives (cool story about that, hopefully i`ll remember to tell it while i`m writing) and i was just praying that someone would show up to church. This lady named Valentina showed up with her husband (member) and her kids! It was really cool! We`re excited for her and hoping she will progress. She`s a really humble woman and said she wants to get baptized. We just have to make sure she`s married.

So, the last active story. We were going to an appointment saturday night and we were pretty excited for the appointment (with Elizabeth and Abraham) but we saw an old couple sitting on their porch. I felt the small prompting to talk to them and so we headed over to contact them. Turns out the sister (Hermana Ortiz) is an inactive member and her husband is not a member. We went into their house and found out that she didn`t go to church because of a conflict with another member (classic story eh?) so we talked about forgiveness and invited her to church. Before agreeing to go to church...she asked us why we had stopped. She said that if we told her why we had stopped that she would go to church. We told her simply that we felt the need to talk to her because that`s what the Spirit said. She said the closing prayer and thanked God for sending us to her house. The next day, Sunday, there she was at church! It was a really great experience. We`ll see if we can start teaching her husband, Elias.

We also had a crazy experience at our house. One morning i was by the back door and i thought i heard something fall on the back patio. I went outside and there was a HUGE iguana in our backyard! It was gnarley! We think it fell in and it didn`t really have a way to get out. But one of our neighbors caught her and we`re pretty sure that they had a nice little barbecue hahaha. Oh and we saw a sloth yesterday on the telephone line...they call them ´lazy bears` in spanish. They move soooooo slow it was almost boring to watch it! But i`ll try and send some pictures of the iguana :)

Well fam i love you! Thanks for all your support. We had some tough situations with missionaries this week but everythings picking up. life is good in the mission. my companion is great and the work is moving. It`s tough but i love it!

Mucho love,

Elder Henrie

{I ReaLLY Do LovE TeaCHiNg PeOplE}

Family!

Yes, Elder Valenzuela is from Peru...but everyone thinks he`s from Venezuela because of his name. He`s a super awesome missionary! And we`re both zone leaders here in Chorrera. We came into the mission on the same day, so we`ll be leaving together (obviously). He`s got a good spirit and we`ve been working really hard. It makes me feel kinda bad that Matt`s had some tough, lazy missionaries. We`ve got a couple of those in our zone. We went to Panama City twice this week for meetings but this coming week should be more or less normal. Panama is currently celebrating `Carnavales`...the most wicked party that there is on the western hemisphere. What a disater. Elder Valenzuela and I were walking on the street the other day and this drunk guy came walking up to us, stopped for a moment, and then just started puking in the street! What a sight! He was heaving super hard...i guess that`s what we call `true happiness`. Yeah it`s pretty nasty here...but we`ve kept out of any dangerous spots and we`ve avoided the water (the tradition during this time is soak people on the street with buckets of water).

This week we`ve had some really great experiences this week. We`re working a lot with the familia Serrano (a member family that I worked a lot with in Santiago!) They are an incredible family and they are giving us lots of references! We talk Hermana Serrano`s neice, Elizabeth, and her son, Abraham. We`re probably going to invite them to be baptized when we go visit them on Wednesday. Elizabeth read the introduction of the Book of Mormon and said afterwards that she really had a strong desire to keep reading. She said she felt really peaceful when she reads it. The problem is her mom...she`s super catholic and critisizes her for investigating the church. She`s a really great investigator though.

Yesterday we had a really good experience as well. We were working in the afternoon and it was SUPER hot! Nobody really seemed that interested but we met this guy who was reading the paper outside of his house, Hermano Abrego. He let us in even though he said he was Catholic and had his own views (we had to insist a little bit ;))...and we invited his family, his wife and two daughters, to listen. The paid a lot of attention during the lesson and when we described the First Vision the spirit was really strong. the mom said she would have questions for us on Friday when we return! Awesome family!

I`m reading right now in Alma, and this morning I read about when Ammon was teaching Lamoni. Noticed that he really teaches him according to his needs and he serves him to gain his confidence. Hopefully i`ll be able to improve teaching to get to be more like him. I really do love teaching people. It`s super fun! I wish I had more time to be here in the mission with these great people but God only gives us two years here...but he knows what`s best! We`ve been working hard these past few days...i`ve been getting home completely dead and it`s a great feeling! Saturday we fasted but we realized that we didn`t have lunch on Sunday, oops. So we ended up eating corn flakes and gatorade in the house to break the fast. But all in all it`s been a great week.

I love you all! Send Matt Jackson my love and tell him to keep pushing. The standard of the mission panama is `Forever Strong`! The church is true!

Elder Henrie

Mom!

I hope trek planning is going well. Honestly I don`t have any good ideas for it. If you want it to be really tough...you can have them all be missionaries for three days! Haha...wow you`re right i do put `haha` like every line on the emails eh? Oh well...mom my companion is a stud! He`s super obedient and hard working. This morning was super funny. We woke up super tired (as usual) at 6 30...and he`s like `6 30 already?! I`ve been waiting forever!! Let`s do our exercises!!` He`s great.

Tell Bry hello for me...and if he misses his mission, let him know that Panama is the world`s best mission so he doesn`t really know what he missed out on haha!

Love you mom!!

Elder Henrie

{i'Ve GoT a Lot TO dO}

Henrie`s!!

Well it was a really great week! I got transferred from Alcalde Diaz...and they sent me right back to La Chorrera!!! Sawweet! I`m not in the same area as i was before, if that answers your question mom, but i`m really close. And i already got to go to my old area to do a baptismal interview on Friday! I saw a lot of the people there that i had taught and some of the old ward members. It was cool to see Ricaute, a young guy that we had taught that got baptized when i left. But it was kinda tough to see his brother Luis, he was also going to get baptized but when i had emergency changes from Barrio Centro he got drunk and he`s still having problems with the word of wisdom. He looks a lot more sad than he was when i left.

But i love the new area, it`s called Barrio 1. My comp is Elder Valenzuela de Perú. He`s a really good missionary and we`re excited to work here in a stake! In fact, the stake president, Presidente Ruiz, lives basically right next to us. And the members are great. They`ve already asked us when they can leave with us to visit references that they have and everything. It`s really different being in a stake than a district.

That`s weird to hear that Marsh is already well into school...today the kids enter school in Panama. It`s kind of a crazy day. my comp only has three weeks in the area so he really doesn`t know where anything is and me...much less. But we`ll have a good time figuring stuff out. Mom, with respect to your questions, I think we have 190 missionaries (meaning 95 areas), 13 zones, 21 missionaries in our zone, and a partridge in a pear tree. I don`t think it`s common for a missionary to go back to the same area but i know it happens every now and then in special cases.

We haven`t had too many crazy things happen yet in Barrio 1. Our zone is pretty good. The majority of the missionaries understand their purpose in the mission. I feel like i get to understand that purpose more and more as the time goes by. I heard from a lot of return missionaries that once you finally figure out what the mission really is and you have the experience you need to be a good teacher and do what you need to do...you have to leave. I`ve only got eight more months here in Panama and i`ve got a lot to do. I love the Panamanians. They are like my family! I told this family yesterday that their daughter Rose reminds me of Lib. She`s five, going on six, and loaded with energy! haha

Dad i really liked the letter you wrote me, especially this quote:

´´Too often we go through life with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the horn, anxious to let others know when they have erred in some way.``

Very true. I`ve noticed that I do that as a missionary. I think i focus sometimes on other missionary`s weaknesses without really looking at the small things that i need to work on to be 100 percent obedient and hard working. I think i really am starting to understand obedience better in the mission. You can just keep the rules because they`re rules. You have to do it because you love God and the people and because you really want them to feel the spirit that we have so that they can make covenants with God.

I love you all! Any news on my nephew wolfgang?? I hope you`re all well! The mission for the week has set this goal...olvídese! (Forget yourself) and i really want to work on that. That`s what the mission is about!

I love you...the church is true. Keep the commandments and God will bless you, and me. thank you for everything you do!

Mucho love,
Elder Henrie

Hey mom!

Wow that`s great that Steve`s out on the mission again! He`s going to have so many great experiences! Marsh drove yesterday?? In panama that would have been a SUPER steep ticket. I talked to a kid who drove when he was fifteen and he had to pay several hundred dollars haha ooops. But the driving age here is 18...that would be lame. But I think it`s also legal to drink when you`re 18. Sweet...here`s a car, and a beer...good luck.

Ok sidetracked. Well mom I pray that you`re doing well. I`m not sure if you all hide any tough things that happen in the family because it seems like your always doing well.. But i know you will all be passing through trials while i`m here in panama and i hope you have the strength to get through them. The trials i`ve had in the mission have been intense at times and really i`ve had moments when prayer is the only option left. But it works :)

I love you mom!

Elder Henrie