November 17, 2014

What an insane week! On Tuesday, it was SO windy. People here don't know how to handle the wind, and neither do the trees. I can't tell you how many trees didn't make it through the wind. We had zone meeting on Tuesday and we did exchanges that day as well. I stayed in the YSA and we froze our little buns off. Not only was it super windy, but it was freezing cold too. On Wednesday, sister Thomas came back and the weather was the same. Insanely cold and windy. Thankfully we had a lot of lessons that day, so we didn't have to suffer too bad. We took a less active member to the family history center and one of the old people there was warning us that the next day was going to snow 4-6 inches and that we would lose power. He was really concerned with making sure we had toilet water, and we reassured him that we would figure it out. At least the old people here are taking care of us haha. On Thursday it did snow, but definitely not 4-6 inches. We were worried that our cars would be on lockdown with the snow (The mission president likes to do that) and our area is waaaayyyy too big to walk everywhere, and we had a really important lesson with our investigator, Minji, so we drove over there before the would lockdown the cars. Thankfully we got the lesson over with, and they didn't end up taking away the cars. I can't imagine not having a car in the YSA since everyone lives so far away from each other. I guess it is really early for it to be snowing here, so everyone was really shocked. On Friday Elder Snow came to our mission for a mission tour. It was a long day, but such a great one. I learned so much from him. On our lunch break, him and his wife came and sat by us because I guess we were laughing too much and they wanted to sit where the fun was happening. I found out that his grandpa (or great grandpa?) co-founded Snowflake (makes a lot of sense) so that was pretty cool! On Saturday Minji had her baptismal interview and is all set for her baptism this Saturday! We are getting really excited! Everything with her has been so amazingly easy and I have been waiting for something to happen to keep her from being baptized. So far, nothing. Keep her in your prayers! We had stake conference this weekend, and at the adult session, we had a "missionary and friends" choir, so we all invited our investigators to sing with us. Our investigator, Vivian, did it with us and it was such a cool experience. The spirit was really strong and it was just so good! On Sunday, president Taylor spoke at stake conference and it was just really good. Well, that's about it for this week. We will hopefully have a baptism this weekend, so make sure to pray for us. The work here is booming! We get transfer calls this week, so hopefully sister Thomas and I don't get transferred. She has been here for 9 months, so it is very likely that she won't be staying. I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love, 

Sister Henderson

Let it Snow!

November 10, 2014

It has been quite the week here in Washington! The weather is cooling
down a lot and people are already putting up their Christmas stuff. I
made sister Thomas start to go running with me, so she isn't happy
with me about that. I just need to work off all the crap they feed us
in the YSA. So good news, our investigator Minji, the one who randomly
came to church, is on date for November 22! We are really excited! She
is awesome and so adorable. She was making sure that she was still ok
to be be baptized and was telling us how excited her family is for the
baptism! President Taylor came to our ward on Sunday, so we introduced
him to Minji and she was telling him how excited she is to be
baptized. She is pretty solid :) we only get to meet with her twice a
week for half an hour, so we are trying to cram in as much as we can
before her baptism. We found 3 new investigators this week, two of
them used to be investigators, so we just started meeting with them
again. The other one we found while tracting, which is nearly
impossible to find 18-30 year old women who are not married and don't
have any kids. We were pretty excited about that one! Our other
investigator, Hannah, is doing awesome! We took her to a baptism on
Saturday and she loved it. She is still try into decide if she wants
to join the church, but she is excited to come to church this weekend!
Vivian is doing ok. She isn't progressing very well and has a lot of
concerns. Hopefully we can clear things up for her. She has been
investigating the church for a year now, so we hope that she will
figure things out! We got to go up to Longview this week, which is an
hour drive. I know know what everyone talks about. It smells weird up
there. We met one of sister Thomas' childhood friends there who ended
up moving her a few months ago! She isn't a member, so it was cool to
teach her! Not much else is happening. We are just trying to work as
hard as we can! And don't worry about the subject of this email.
Everyone thinks we get to do what we want because our boundaries are
insane, so it is really funny that they think that. Well, I hope you
all have a good week! I love you all! Thanks for the support and
prayers. They really do carry me :)
Sister Henderson

November 3, 2014

I think that the rain is bringing success with it here in Vancouver. We have finally been seeing the fruits of our labors! We have taught so many lessons this week, and our investigators are progressing unbelievably well! We put another one of our investigators on date this week and we finally got to start teaching her the lessons! She has been asking us since the day we met her when she could be baptized, and now that we started the lessons, she is basically good to go! It has really been one of the best weeks since I have been here! Sister Thomas turned 21 on Thursday, so we ate A LOT of cake that day. Everybody we saw gave us cake. Talk about a sugar overload. We got to go to the temple with one of our investigators and her aunt that day and take them to the visitors center. It was so good and they loved it! I really hope this helps her in her decision to be baptized! On Halloween we had to be in after dark and there was a YSA thing in Oregon, so none of the YSA's were available to teach or anything. We ended up going to an old couple's house and cleaning it, even though it wasn't even dirty. They gave us cupcakes, so I wasn't about to complain! On Saturday, one of our recent converts took us out to a German restaurant and it was the best thing I have eaten on my mission. It is unique to Oregon and Washington, so that is kind of a bummer. 

It has been super rainy here, like nonstop rain for the past 2 weeks. I love it! Everyone thinks that I can't handle the rain since I am from Arizona, but in fact, it is the opposite. It just makes me love it even more. It is cooling off a lot and I am loving the cooler fall weather. I had my first experience with daylight savings on Sunday. It was good because we got an extra hour of sleep. I am not, however, looking forwarding to losing an hour. I love Arizona because you don't gain anything, so then you don't have to lose anything.

I can't believe that Bryce got called to Washington! I totally called it! Congrats Bryce! You are going to love it! Vancouver actually used to be in that mission, so a lot of missionaries in my mission were originally called to Kennewick. It isn't as cool as the Vancouver mission, but it is alright I guess :) I can't believe this transfer is already halfway over. I really hope I get to stay here forever. I think that 18 months in the Clark ward would be a dream come true. It is a great place to be for a long time!  I will have to talk to President and see what her thinks :) I hope you all had a great Halloween! Have a great week and keep doing missionary work!

Love,

Sister Henderson

Temple trip with our investigator