{The MemBerS aRE SuppORTING Us a ToN!}

Me and Elder Laidler after a good run this morning. That´s the bridge...it was about a 5K

In the office...the first presidency has sent DVD players for each companionship for training purposes. Hmm could be a dangerous idea. Maybe the missionaries will get to see Transformers after all haha

Familia Pérez

Familia Pérez in the temple...President took us with them last Monday night it was awesome!

Dad!

I´m glad you´re paying for your vacation time haha it always makes it worth it. But i´d rather work hard first...and then take time off. I should have given you that tip three weeks ago :) Crazy that J Dub and Jess, and the whole world, is still waiting for the baby to be born! Tell James to hurry up. We´re all anxious.

So changes are coming up soon I think. August 10, the day that the Salinas family is getting sealed! President Ward went to Chitré to do interviews and told me that they were going to have their interview. I can´t believe how fast this change is going. Last night my comp put a more solid baptismal date with Wilfredo jr. Him and his bro, Jotam (2 Nephi 17:1, his name´s in the book of mormon), will be getting baptized on saturday. The parents aren´t married...Wilfredo told us he was married but his "wife" clarified that little detail. I´m pretty sad about him and his situation. I hope the baptism of his children will awaken a desire to set things right. I love this ward that I´m in. The members are supporting us A TON! And yesterday they told us that they were happy with what we are doing in the ward. It´s always good to know that you are appreciated because sometimes it feels like things aren´t progressing like you´d like to see.

Well I love you all! Can´t believe Marsh is hitting sixteen soon! Tell him to avoid curbs and oncoming traffic. And think about buying him a radar detector. That would have saved you some bucks when I was driving :)

Con amor,

Elder Henrie

Mom!

The baby´s STILL not here! I´m STILL not an uncle?! Dang i´ve been waiting all week because that´s some pretty exciting news! Ahh...oh well. Next week for sure! Ok on to the questions before I forget...

1. the acoustic amp (Ibanez, brown) has a broken speaker I believe. I´ll just say that it´s better to ask forgiveness than permission :) just don´t tell me when you "unload" it.

2. Sizes...shoes: 43-44 if you´re in England still...in the states i believe i´m 11-11.5. Jeans i´d say a 32-34, shirts large because i have huge guns, and garments i just wear small bottoms because they run big, and a medium tall top...the round neck. Ties: Long. Belt: black. Nametag: yes. Oh and i´m pretty sure we threw out most of my clothes before the mission no worries :) i was planning on wearing my mission clothes anyway

3. Note to Libby: Querida hermanita Libby, this week I have an assignment for you. I want you to do everything you can this week to help mom and dad get ready for school. Do one act of service each day. I´ll be waiting for a report next monday on what you´ve done :) it´ll be fun. I´ll do the same with my companions and we´ll see who did the coolest act of service. Love you sis! Take care of Jamescito for me :)

I love you mom. Thank you. I wish you could meet the Pérez family. They are struggling a lot right now but the two sons are going to get baptized on Saturday. I´m really sad that it´s not going to be the whole family but it should be good for the parents to see their sons take this decision.

Mucho love,

Elder Henrie

{So, ReLeASE DatE}

Henries!

So, release date. I´m almost positive that my plane going home will be early morning the first thursday of november. November third i believe :) Can´t believe that the baby still has been born! What´s going on?? Yesterday we saw a lady going into the hospital to have her baby haha pretty intense experience. I´m excited for you J Dub and Jessi. We went to the hospital yesterday because Elder Morris, my last companion, got HIT BY A CAR! It was insane. He was just really sore but didn´t break anything. His companion, Elder Cobba, broke his wrist and had a gnarley goose egg on his forehead. It was pretty fun though because he´s such a happy laid back missionary that we were just messing around with him in the hospital. Just glad nothing too serious happened. I guess they were at an intersection and a car t boned a big truck and the truck hit them and sent Elder Morris flying and threw Elder Cobba into a wall. We gave Elder Cobba a blessing and when president got there we left. Kind of a crazy story that i´m sure they will be happy to tell to there families!

This week was great! Thursday night we went to the airport to pick up Hermana Ward with the entire zone of Tocumen. It was really great...we had a banner for her and a bunch of roses. She seemed a little sad to have left her family...again, but it is good to have her back in the mission. I think it would be hard for President to do things alone here. I really admire them as a couple...they are super happy and really keep the attitude of the mission super high.

Ooh...I have a great story about this kid named Dani. We took some senior missionaries, the Harrop´s. to visit the familia Perez with us, and there was this kid named Dani. He´s 18, really smart, skater, and has a tough family situation. I started to talk to him about my own family and showed him a picture of us. He told me that he admired how optimistic I was about life and that he wanted to feel that way. He said that he really wants to believe in God and have a happy family. So I asked him some questions to help him think about his relationship with God and shared some scriptures from the Book of Mormon. It was good to just see a sort of light click in his mind as we were talking. Honestly it was one of the best conversations I´ve had on the mission. I felt super grateful for the Spirit and for the chance to talk to this kid that really needed help in that moment. I love him a lot. The familia Perez came to church yesterday! Well, everyone but the mom. The husband is set on his decision to get baptized but the mom is taking more time. Usually it´s the other way around.

That reminds me of an experience we had yesterday. As we were waiting outside the hospital we saw an ambulance pull up and they took out an older lady who had had a stroke or something. We saw her daughter come out crying and looking really worried. I saw the grandson inside and he looked scared and sad and I wanted to talk to him. Right as we were leaving we saw the whole family sitting outside on the curb. So we went up and started talking to them. We just sat down with them and showed them love more than anything. I really feel like it´s not what we say that helps people, but what they can feel from us. They seemed a lot more calm after we had said a prayer and gotten up to leave. They are a good family and will be a good reference for the missionaries in Arraiján.

There are lots of other stories to tell...I have had lots of good experiences with Elder Laidler. He´s an awesome missionary. This morning we got up to go run across El Puente de las Américas, a bridge over the Panama Canal. Elder Dangerfield and his comp, elder Gomez came with us. Yes, I live with Elder Dangerfield, my MTC comp! I think I forgot to tell you that.

Well fam, I love you all. I am really happy in this area. The people are humble and happy. I feel like they are family. There´s this lady named Iris that calls me her son, and she cooks AWESOME food and gives us TONS of references. I love the members here. As we were driving back from the bridge this morning, I realized how grateful I am to be in Panama. It really has become a home to me. Matt Palmer wrote me and said he wants to go back to Japan haha. I´m worried that I will feel the same way about Panama. I know I´ll feel the same way.

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Henrie

ps the familia Salinas gets sealed soon!!! I can´t WAIT! And José Remice already has the Melchisedek priesthood (I have NO idea how to spell that anymore, is that right?) and he and his wife are enjoying their callings. I also heard that Ceferino, from Bocas del Toro, is getting ready to serve a mission! The work is worth it :)

{It iS ACtuALLy ReaLLy ExciTiNG}

Familia!

Soooo...false alarm with the baby, girls camp, bobsledding, and marsh is driving?? wow. I want to tell you all about some experiences that we´ve had in the past couple of days. I´m pretty sure I told you about Wilfredo, the guy that we contacted in a Subway. He came to church yesterday with his two kids...Wilfredo jr. and Jotam! I was way excited to have them come. And there was another couple that was there, Rosa and Edwin Acosta. Rosa and Edwin have to get married but they are doing really well and they were happy to be in church yesterday. Edwin and Rosa want to get baptized. They´ll just have to overcome some obstacles, but Rosa is really helping Edwin to stop drinking and focus on their family. They are pretty worried about their money situation, but I told them about the Salinas family in Santiago (who are getting sealed on the 10 of August!).

And then, last night Wilfredo came outside after we had left and told us to wait because he wanted to tell us something. He started into this long story about how he had been in love with a girl a very long time ago, and how she left to the States, but came back a year ago and they came into contact. He ended up meeting up with her in David and they had been talking and even going out to lunch, etc. All this while he´s married with two kids, as well as this girl he is seeing. The didn´t go any farther than that he said but I don´t think he really understands the seriousness of it all. He said that he loved her a lot. We asked him if he loved his wife and he didn´t seem to excited about it. He said he just loves her as a companion and as the mother of his kids, but he needs to develop that love for her. It was a very intense situation. We told him that he had to go inside and tell his wife that he loves her before going to sleep, but obviously we know what we need to focus on with him now...saving his relationship with his wife and helping him understand that he CAN´T cheat on her...

We really felt good about everything. That he feels a desire to be with his family and be a good father. It´s just sad to see people wasting their lives focused on the things that cannot bring happiness. I feel really good about the work we are doing. This past week we had a training meeting in the Chitré zone. We were working on what we were going to teach them until about 3 30 the night before the meeting (let´s just say that there´s usually not a ton of time to sit down and prepare these things). And then we got up at 5 30 am so we could drive out to Penenomé with President. It was about a 2 hour drive. So I was a little tired while we taught but I felt like it was a spiritual meeting. I taught about asking inspired questions to your investigators.

That´s what this change is going to be like...we´ll have two capacitation meetings each week with the zones in the mission to go over teaching principles and talk about the state of the mission. It is actually really exciting. The day to day work here is honestly always different. Sometimes we´re helping missionaries move out of their houses into other areas...because no one else has a truck to do it, or taking missionaries to the hospital at 11 pm. Jeez there´s this missionary named Elder Saavedra that had to get to the hospital as fast as possible a couple of days ago because he wasn´t really breathing and he had severe pain in his kidneys. I was honestly scared while we were driving there...but when we got there, turns out he was fine. But he had tons of tests and a 3,600 dollar stay. Haha it was fun...but i don´t think he´s happy about all the tests they had to do...kidney tests...I´ll let you use your imagination.

Anyway, back to Wilfredo. I felt as we were talking to him that Christ really did suffer for what he was going through and that he could make things right if he really wants to. He just has to repent.

I love the people in our area. Sure wish we had more time to teach them but I like the routine here.

Love you all!

Elder Henrie

{I SmiLeD ReaLLy BiG}

Hey fam!

Happy fourth of july! And dad...Happy birthday! Can´t believe you´re so old already haha. Just kidding. So this week has been super busy but we´ve been able to have some really good experiences. We had changes on Wednesday...meaning we´ve been going to bed around 12 and waking up at about 4 or 5 each day...there are people to pick up at the airport, people going home that we have to take to the airport, lost bags, buses to call and pay, meetings to prepare for, training the new trainers, haha the list goes on. A lot of really good missionaries went home this change. Elder Derek Johnson left, and also Elder Cook...one of my favorite missionaries. Elder Poli goes home after this change...really sad about that. So I think things will calm down a little more. This week we will be going to Chitré to have training meetings with that zone of missionaries. And we have a zone leaders council on Wednesday. I think we will try to do divisions about three times a week and try to work in our own area at night time.

Last Saturday we had a sweet experience in Subway. We took some missionaries out to their lunch appointment after helping some other elders move, and then went to buy Subway. This guy came up to us and started talking to us about how his mom is a member in David...so we asked him where he lived and if the missionaries could visit him. Turns out he lives in our area, right next to the church. We visited him that same night and was a really positive guy. He has read a ton of the book of mormon! And he really wants to know if it´s true. We´ll see how he progresses. He´s name is Wilfredo and his son is also named Wilfredo. They are really nice guys!

Today I went to get my license...and when I went to take the photo i made a goofy face to see if I could get away with it. About ten minutes later they called me up and told me I had to do it again. So I smiled really big so they would take it with the hole under my tooth haha and then they made me do it AGAIN! But the third try is the charm :) and i talked to a really cool guy named Abel in line...so it all worked out.

The office is sweet! I love the members and I love the city! I´ll try and get some cool photos for you all because there are really cool things to see here and lots of great people. It is cool because you go from super rich areas to super poor areas in about five minutes. One of the more dangerous parts of our area is called Viejo Veranillo...and the people there are super humble and really nice.

That´s pretty much my week so far. Dad I hope you have an awesome birthday. I´m thinking about you a lot. I feel like i´ve been trying to develop a lot of characteristics that i noticed in you before i came out here...like not criticizing anyone, working really hard, and being happy around everyone. The mission is great! It´s hard, but we have sacred experiences all the time. I think that God really is blessing us in the little time we have in our area. He knows that we don´t have a lot of time in our area so He guides us to really prepared people.

I love you all! Mom have fun with the girls! The church is true!

Elder Henrie