Baptism!

Dear family and friends,

We had a great week. Hands down the highlight was the baptism of Hermano Teodoro. It was kind of a crazy service. Because of a youth activity Saturday afternoon, we planned the service for 10 in the morning so we wouldn`t conflict. The member that had committed to bring Teodoro to the baptism fell through at the last minute and we had to go get him ourselves in a taxi (he has knee problems, which is why he couldn`t just walk). I almost wound up giving the discurso (talk) as well because it didn`t look like the member we had asked to talk was going to be able to come. But, as is true with all pruebas in life, we just looked for solutions to every problem and kept going. We started the service at 11, and it was beautiful. Hno Teodoro took another step closer to his Heavenly Father.

I love being a missionary. I love you all and hope you`re doing GRRREAT! Remember the Lord has a plan, and nothing will frustrate it. Just look for solutions to your problems and be patient in finding the answers. They will come in His time, in His way.

Con mucho amor,

Hna Henrie

Conferencia de hermanas!

Dear family and friends,

This week we had a conferencia de hermanas! That means all the sister missionaries in our mission, from Apopa to San Miguel, traveled to our mission president´s house for a special meeting. Both pairs of hermanas lideres shared messages, then the assistants to the president, then Hermana Vasquez, and finally Presidente Vasquez. There are 29 sister missionaries in total. It was a beautiful meeting.

The other great news we received this week was that Hno Teodoro had a great baptismal interview with our district leader (he also talked with the mission president, but that´s another story) and is getting baptized this weekend! He´s very excited and plans to invite all his family and friends. We´re excited because he knows quite a few people in his colonia. He´s great.

Also, when I was at the conferencia de hermanas, I had a chance to talk to Hna Infanzon a bit about how our investigators there are doing. Remember Orlando? She told me he was all set to get baptized on Saturday! He is now one of the newest members of the Church, and all excited to go to the temple and start the process that will make his family an eternal one. She told me Orlando has been golden all the way. He was just waiting for LDS missionaries to knock on his door again and give him an invitation to be baptized.

I know this church is true. It is the only church on earth that is guided directly by Jesus Christ himself. It has the power and authority of God. Everything good in my life, I have thanks to Him. I will never tire of sharing this message. I encourage all of you who are reading this to take a moment and check out mormon.org. It explains everything. It will be worth your time.

Take care, all! I love you LOTS!!!

Hna Henrie

The ´daughters´ of Hermana Gonzalez. :) taken at the conferencia de hermanas. me, Hna Winters, Hna Dumay, Hna Foster.

enjoying Cojute

Hola, buenos días, dear family and friends,

First of all, error correction: Cojutepeque is actually in the departamento called Cuscatlan. (Any of you who tried finding it on a map perhaps already figured that out. haha) It´s Ilobasco, from where I wrote last week, that is in Las Cabañas. Fun fact: our mission zone also includes areas from the departamento Sensuntepeque. Which means our two zone leaders get to travel up to two hours every time they have an intercambio with the elders.

Hna A and I had another great week here in Cojute. We worked really extra hard yesterday to get Teodoro (remember I told you about him?) to church. And he came! He came, and he enjoyed it a lot. He´s committed to attending the district conference this coming weekend as well. (which, other fun fact, will be held in the departamento of San Vicente. I feel like I´m getting to know a lot more of El Salvador. haha) If he keeps this up, he will be super prepared for his baptism this month!

Also, we saw a miracle yesterday! There is an investigador named Gilberto Jr. that is the older brother of our branch mission leader. Hna Abadillo has been visiting him and teaching him for quite some time now, and he´s made progress in steps and bounds; going to church, reading the Book of Mormon, and praying. The challenge has been that he lives at military school during the week and is only home on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. He doesn´t have much free time at school which is why his progression has been one step here, a huge bound there. (¿Me entiende?) About the same time I arrived in Cojute, he started to be more constant. We invited him to baptism on two separate occasions but both times he said no, saying he wasn´t sure yet if it was what God wanted him to do. We turned our focus to recognizing answers to prayers. And yesterday, after two weeks of focusing on this, and having him be more constant in reading and praying, he told us: ´I know this is true.´ And he accepted a date for baptism, in August.

Just one last note:

President Vasquez had a meeting with all the leaders of the mission this past week. (It includes assistants to the presidents, zone leaders, district leaders, and hermanas líderes) Then we had a zone conference in Ilobasco on Friday where the zone leaders reported to us about their meeting. He is changing the vision of our mission from each mission companionship having at least one baptism a month (Pdte Glazier´s vision) to each mission companionship having at least one baptism every WEEK. As our mission president, he has authority to speak for the Lord, so really this vision isn´t his at all, but the Lord´s. And as the prophet Nephi says, when the Lord commands something, He always provides the way for us to accomplish it. (1 Nephi 3:7, Book of Mormon)

The Lord is hastening His work here! I feel incredibly blessed not just to be a full time missionary, but to be on the mission during this exciting time. This work is bigger than me. It´s bigger than all of us!

I love you! Hope you all have a great week!

Hna Henrie

Me by a fountain in Ilobasco 

(if you zoom in you should be able to see a plaque in the background that says ´Ilobasco´)

Countryside in Ilobasco. 

(The peaked mountain you see in the background is actually the volcano of San Vicente. Cool, right?)

feliz cumpleaños a mi paìs (Happy Birthday to my Country)

Dear family and friends,

Funny story from this week: I opened my agenda this morning to read my notes from last night about who I needed to study for and realized today is July 7! I completely forgot about the Fourth of July. The thought never crossed my mind. I hope you all had a fabulous Independence Day!!! And a big thank you to those whose sacrifices keep our country free. We will never be able to thank you enough.

It`s been a great week. I feel reasonably comfortable in my new area. I`m learning it a lot faster than I learned Montecristo and Apopa, I just have to work on remembering the names and faces of all the members and investigators. (That is, those we don`t see on a regular basis.)

Q and A with Mom:
Q: How about your new area?
A: GREAT! There are a lot of trees which means it`s not quite as hot as Apopa, and it`s beautiful. Like I said, it`s a lot more citylike that Apopa, and the people seem to be a little better off. There are a LOT of churches, maybe one or two on every corner, which makes it interesting whenever we contact people in the street.

Q: How do you get around? Is it very big?
A. We walk everywhere. I think this is one of the things that is really helping me learn quickly. The area is bigger than Montecristo but smaller than Apopa, and we almost always make our way from end to end every single day. There are only a couple places Hna Abadillo has yet to show me that aren`t part of our daily beaten path.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks around? Do you ever sight see on p-day?
A: There are lots of landmarks but I don`t think any of them are famous. haha The only sightseeing we`ve done so far is coming here to Ilobasco (oh yeah, today we`re meeting together as a zone in Ilobasco, a big center of art in El Salvador). I promise to take pictures.

Q: Have you met the new mission president yet?
A: Yes! We had a get to know you conference with him last Thursday. He and his wife shared a little about themselves and their family (their youngest daughter actually came here with them) but focused most of the time on strengthening our testimonies of the Gospel. They also came to our branch conference on Sunday. Presidente gave a talk on tithing and then gave an AWESOME Sunday School lesson to all the recent converts and investigators. They`re going to be GREAT!

Q: Tell me about your new companion.
A: Hna Abadillo is 20 years old. Her family are all members. Her parents were married in the temple. She has one older sister studying at BYU and most of her mother`s family actually live in Orem! (They attend a Spanish ward, so I don`t know if Grandma would know them. Familia Pirir, but she doesn`t know where in Orem they live.) She has another older sister who recently returned home from a mission in Costa Rica and a younger sister who`s just studying right now. :) She`s super pilas (missionary jargon for hardworking) and we are very happy to be companions. :)  She`s kind of a studious type, like me, but at one point in her life she also studied piano and enjoys music and drawing as ways to pass time. Before the mission she was studying to become a doctor, and plans to continue with that when she returns home the end of October. We`re both very practical, and really just all about la obra misional (mission work). She`s about my height.

Q: How are the members in your new area?
A: The members are very willing and excited to get involved in la obra, which I love! They have all been very welcoming and kind. There is a lady who cooks for us and washes our clothes. She`s a less active member that we`re working really hard to reactivate.

Q: How are your clothes and shoes holding up?
A: The clothes are holding up great! The shoes, truthfully, are getting destroyed more quickly than before because the rainy season has started and rain really takes a toll on shoes. But don`t worry about sending me more. I`m planning to buy some rain shoes here, it will be better and a lot cheaper. (They only cost about 2 bucks and last a reasonable amount of time.)

Take care, all! I love you!!!!

Hna Henrie

Copied from the press release on lds.org

Bruno Emilio Vásquez Robles, 50, and Brenda Elizabeth López de Vásquez, four children, Sonora Ward, Amatitlán Guatemala Stake: El Salvador San Salvador East Mission, succeeding President David L. Glazier and Sister Beverly B. Glazier. Brother Vásquez serves as a branch president and is a former stake president, counselor in a stake presidency, bishop and branch president. Employment resource center manager, Corporation of the Presiding Bishop. Born in Guatemala to Bruno Vásquez de Leon and Maria del Rosario Robles de Vásquez.

Sister Vásquez is a former ward Young Women president, ward Primary president, seminary and institute teacher and temple ordinance worker. Born in Guatemala to Francisco Roberto López Rubio and Rosalia Manzanero Castillo de López.

About Me (copied from his Mormon.org page)
I was born in a beautiful country called Guatemala, in the center of the Americas. I have only reached my first 48 years of age, and I have a lovely family. In the last 28 years of marriage, my wife Brenda and I have raised our four children (two sons and two daughters); we have two grandchildren and one that will be born in April 2012. Most of my life, I have worked , 30 years as a publisher, of which 8 years were in important companies in my country, and 22 in my own business. The last four years I have become a Life Coach, helping people –especially young people– to find a purpose in life and to develop their potential. This has led to my participation in important nationwide television and radio programs and to making presentations at companies and schools. I love to read and learn all the time. Also, as a good Latino, I love to dance, listen to music, and play soccer, which I do three times a week.

Why I am a Mormon
When I was 10 years old, while reading the Bible I came to understand that through Abraham, God established 12 tribes of Israel, of which 10 are lost, and one is the tribe of Judah, but my concern was which was the tribe that completed the 12. I asked many people this question, and no one ever could answer it. Years later, I met my wife, who was already a member of the Church, and I would never let her talk about that topic, even when she would go to attend Church; I would just go and drop her there, I would never let her get us talking about religious topics. Since I had always liked soccer, the young single adults invited me to be part of their soccer team, and I started having Mormon friends, which led to some sister missionaries giving me the invitation to listen to their message, and I accepted; when they spoke to me about the Book of Mormon and its origin, I asked if it was that tribe which seven years earlier I had been seeking. I immediately had a feeling of warmth in my heart, and with great desire I began to read the book. It took me 22 days to read it, and a feeling of gratitude came into my life, at knowing that Jesus Christ had made a sacrifice for me, and that His gospel had been restored upon the earth. I received the desire to join His Church through baptism. My life changed. I was the first one in my family; today all of my family are members, and we are now seeing a third generation. I know that God is my Father, and I testify that I found the true Church of Jesus Christ, and today I am sharing this with thousands of people, with the certainty that this is true....... and I share this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Personal Stories
Please share your feelings/testimony of the Restoration of the Gospel.
The heavens have been opened again. The authority of the Lord has been given to man again. The authority as well as His Church are found upon the earth again, preparing for the Second Coming of the Savior. Joseph Smith was a prophet of GOD. The ordinances are the manifestation of His power of divinity, and today His Church is led by prophets, seers, and revelators. I have the certainty and the hope of living with GOD and being a partaker of His beauteous blessings. I am His son, and He invites me to be perfected through His Son, my Redeemer Jesus Christ.

How I live my faith
I have served in the Church for more than 30 years, and one of the most beautiful experiences I have had was when my wife and I served in the program for youth called “Especially for Youth,” or EFY, 2010. There were several months of preparation to serve as session directors, and during an entire week we shared in the lives of 740 young people. It was beautiful to see them arrive and participate in every activity and get involved in the devotionals. The classes were as if they were all our children, participating with their talents, as well as the dances. On Thursday we held a devotional which reached into the hearts of all of us who participated. Each one of them went up to bear their testimonies. I think that we cried for more than an hour, and the day that we bid each other farewell at week’s end, no one wanted to go back home –it was a beautiful experience. It was lovely to teach them. It was lovely to live among them. After nearly a year, we keep in touch with most of them. Many of their parents saw a change in each one of their children, many for the first time.

To watch his "I'm a Mormon" video click HERE