HUMP DAY!!! August 26, 2011

As you come to the one-year mark of your mission, I am sending you this camel to remind you how far you have come, and where you are going. There are many similar characteristics of a great missionary and a camel.

The first is the "hump". Yes, you have crossed the mark and now are over the hump of the first year. But remember the hump of a camel is used to store food for the long journey. Camels can go for long periods of time without food, but he must store his food in his hump. A Missionary has learned from many experiences, but a wise Missionary will store the knowledge he has gained, and put it to greater use the second half of his mission.

Another important symbol is what the camel does to be prepared to carry the load for his Master. A camel will sometimes protest his heavy load, but will drops to his knees for the Master. This is why the camel's knees are heavily padded. Once the camel gets started, however, he patiently carries the load wherever he is lead. As a missionary, your knees are calloused from the many hours of kneeling in prayer. Sometimes the load seems heavy and difficult to carry, but when you drop to your knees and succumb to the Master's will, he will carefully lead you. Then you can bear the load patiently and do your Father in Heaven's work as he would have you do.

The camel has high-set eyes that enable him to see long distances. A missionary has his eyes set on higher things. He follows the Spirit which enables him to find the children of God who are seeking answers and teaches them the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The camel has broad, two-toed feet that keep it from sinking in desert sand. A missionary has a broad knowledge and a firm testimony of the Gospel. This enables him to teach with boldness and stand firm in his testimony. The people you teach do not yet have the blessing of such sure-footing, but as you teach with love and the Spirit, you will help them gain their own testimony. This will help them walk on firmer ground and find the path that will lead them back to their Father in Heaven.

So you see…a missionary has a lot in common with a camel. Put this camel where you can see it often. Dedicate yourself to do as the camel does. Serve your Master well and patiently over the long journey. You have come a long way but there is still much ground to cover. Continue to move forward, serving with love, until your mission is complete and your Father in Heaven will say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

2nd Area - Tacuarembo' with Elder Ashby

Jumping back to the after Empey/before being called into the mission home change. (2nd Area) Kyler was asked to serve in Tacuarembo' with Elder Ashby. This was the companionship where Kyler could clearly see the blessings of serving a mission as he worked with a missionary that was in his final months of service. Elder Ashby was a great teacher and so motivated to work hard. Kyler really enjoyed learning from him and being his companion. They were changed just one month before Elder Ashby was to return home. Kyler wished that he could have stayed with him his last month, but was so grateful to have had such a great opportunity to be Elder Ashby's companion before he left. He also loved Tacuarembo'--out in the country, lots of hills and wonderful people.

Really?? Has it been 7 months since my last post??!

I kept looking at previous posts hoping that it really hadn't been as long as it had since I added to Kyler's Blog. I didn't do much better in keeping their baby books. Sure glad they keep perfect records in heaven...sigh!

Just a short run down of what has happened since the last post--7 MONTHS AGO!!

-Kyler got a new companion (staying in his first area) named Elder Empey. He is from Alpine, Utah which is only 10 miles from where we live. I actually met Elder Ashby's father by sheer "coincidence" when he came to the Lindon Cannery where I work. The Hendrickson/Empey companionship was already finished when we met and Kyler had moved on to a new area, but a twist of circumstances had crossed their mision paths for a 2nd time just about the same time I met Brother Empey.

Elder Empey had hurt himself on a p-day activity and was having a lot of back pain from it. He couldn't walk without being in a lot of pain. This was just a few days after changes had happened, so his companion was new to the area. Kyler, on that same change, had been moved into the office to be over the statistics of the mission and help President Heaps. But, since he knew the area where Elder Empey and Elder Smith were, and Elder Empey was having a hard time with the work because of his injury, they transferred Kyler back to Montevideo and brought Elder Empey into the office where he could rest his back and still be actively working in the mission.

When Kyler got back to Montevideo, he found one of his investigators, Mauricio (in picture), had overcome his set backs and had been baptized. He was very happy to be able to see him again. They also put him right back into playing the piano in the ward. So it was like "coming home" in a sense.

Kyler was supposed to be moved back into the office on the next change, but President Heaton decided instead to move him to his current area (as of this posting), Frey Bentos, and make him a district leader. Kyler was a bit shocked since he hadn't been out the "normal" amount of time before being put into that kind of position, but he faced it with a "I will go...I will do" positive attitude that has infused his mission. (see upcoming post on Frey Bentos)

Geneology in the Mission Field...

Kyler sent a "family picture" of his companions. I guess your trainer (Elder Hamilton) is known as your "Dad" and the "Dad's" trainer (Elder Mace) is known as your "Mom". So...once again...I am left with no grandchildren...sigh!

1st Baptism of Kyler's mission - Jan 16, 2011

Kyler is so excited to see the fruits of his and Elder Hamilton's labors in the mission field. Thanks to a member referral from Maria Jose--her friend, Lilian will be his first baptism since arriving in Uruguay. This baptism ends an 18-month-convert-baptism drought in this branch and they are very excited to receive a gospel infusion to their numbers. When she was deciding who would baptize her, she asked Elder Hamilton if he had already baptized someone. He said yes. So she asked Kyler if he had been able to baptize anyone...and, of course, he said no. So Lilian asked Kyler to do the honors. Kyler was indeed honored and excited to comply. He said all went well at the baptism and Lilian has turned out to be a wonderful addition to the branch. It was strange, but it took 3 weeks to finally confirm her because they do that in the Sunday meetings and not immediately after the baptismal services. Each week there was something that prevented it from happening...strange. We encouraged Kyler to be especially aware of her until this happened since the Holy Ghost is so important to remaining strong and making righteous choices. They confirmed her on the same day as two new babies were blessed. Kyler jokes that the branch doubled that day!

First Companion - First Apartment

Elder Hamilton has been a great trainer for Kyler. That was one of my sincerest prayers--that he would get a great trainer--and he is from Utah, so the connection will most likely continue when their missions are over. The city of Montevideo hasn't seen a baptism in over 1-1/2 years and Kyler is determined to be involved in breaking that curse. The picture of Elder Hamilton and Elder Hendrickson are just after they got the first official missionary haircut--shaving their heads. They think there will be a transfer this next week. Thanks for the great beginning to Kyler's "Best Two Years."


I see the pictures of their first apartment, and I am thankful that he is not suffering--at all! I'm sure it won't be quite this good for all of his mission. There are probably some missionary-life-lessons still to come. I mean, a bidee' in a missionary apartment? (That's something he will have to learn on his own--I potty trained him, but have no idea how to use one of those things!) His apartment is the first balcony on the right--just behind the tree!

Missionaries are soooooooo cool!!!

The art of living in the world and not of the world can sometimes be a little challenging when you are a missionary and just sooo cool at the same time. It just takes practice to keep it all in perspective! Here is the GQ missionary pose. (And by the way...GQ stands for "great qualities"...just in case you didn't know!)

That arms length rule....

We are very glad that Elder Hendrickson is learning and abiding by the arms length rule while on his mission. Here he demonstrates his complete adherence to the rules!

The CCM...Now just a memory...

Kyler left for the mission field on Oct 22nd, about 4 days earlier than he should have, but he sure loved his CCM (MTC) experience. They left early from the CCM because all the mission presidents from the area were having their annual meeting the same day Kyler would have arrived in Montevideo; so, they transferred the missionaries a little early. We were so glad to finally get some pictures that showed us where he was and the people he was with. In one of the pictures, you can see the Buenos Aires Argentina temple in the background (bottom picture). He was definitely disappointed that is was under reconstruction so he wasn't able to go through while he was there. Looks like there was a lot of great friendships formed during his time there.

It's A Small World Afterall...

New missionaries arrived at the CCM(which, by the way stands for:Centro de Capatacion Missional) last week just like they do every couple of weeks. However, in this week's arrivals was someone from Peru who knew Kyler--or at least knew about him!

Of course, this really threw Kyler for a loop since he has never been to Peru. This new missionary, Elder Monzon, handed Kyler a card that had two names on it. One was Kyler's and the other one didn't click in his head because he was trying so hard to understand what Elder Monzon was saying to him. He finally called another Elder over to translate (yes, translate--a sign of fun times ahead) what he was saying. It turns out that Kyler's cousin, McKay Westbrook, had taught and baptized Elder Monzon a year earlier. When Kyler looked down at the card again, he couldn't believe that he hadn't recognized the name--McKay Westbrook.

McKay told Elder Monzon that when he reported to the CCM in Buenos Aires, he had to find a Kyler Hendrickson. I was so touched that McKay had been so thoughtful. And...what a wonderful testimony of the fruits of his labor! What a wonderful note for Kyler to end his CCM experience on!! McKay returns home next month (November 2010) and Kyler set off for Uruguay on Friday, October 22nd to follow in his footsteps. Such a special send-off! Both are in our prayers!

The pictures with this post (both a little fuzzy) is of Elder Monzon and Kyler. And a picture of the picture that Kyler is holding is of McKay shaking hands with a dog in Peru and teaching it from the Book of Mormon. Go Get 'em, Elder Westbrook!

The Numbers Game...Good or Bad?

Once you have been on a mission, you understand that you have to quantify your progress in one way or another. It helps you to set goals and to put your best foot forward. It is difficult to rate the level of the spirit at a lesson or how close a person is to taking the leap of baptism. It is, however, evident that you are trying harder when one day you talk to one person and the next you talk to 10! If it takes talking to 100 people to find one person to teach--why not strive to speed up the odds by making sure you are contacting as many people as possible?! THEN...learning to include spiritual guidance into the equation...AHHHH! That is when we learn to work into the numbers that are unfathomable to our human mind: ENDLESS, ETERNAL, WITHOUT END, THE SANDS OF THE SEA, BEYOND MEASURE...

Kyler's thoughts on the subject:

So, now we´re in a new area and the name is really weird so i cant remember it. But i have to tell you about our first day. We went to our new area for the first time, September 25th, and it was awesome!! Let me tell you why! The night before we go out we had a planning meeting as a companionship of what we want to do while we´re out prosolighting. (Mom comment: Is that different than the "proselyting" I did in my mission?) Usually we say something like from 2pm to 3pm we´re going to knock doors or do street contacts on this certain street. We thought that was pretty good but then one of the teachers here, Hermano (Brother) Sansi, came in and asked to look at our planners. He said that they were good but that we could do better. He told us if you have an ultimate goal of 30 contacts throughout the day plan how many you want to get each hour. He also told us to pray all the time and to do like a group prayer every hour so we´d know what to teach for the next hour and that we would find someone who would hear our message. So our original highest day for contacting and stuff was 15 contacts 1 lesson 1 return appointment and no references. When we did what Hermano Sansi told us to do, this last Saturday we broke our record and had almost the highest contacts for the day of any of the Elders!! We had 30 contacts 4 lessons 4 return appointments and 2 references. The highest after us was 31 contacts. So we were freakin' pumped!! We met some great people that we're going to teach this Saturday. It was awesome and a HUGE testimony builder of how much this is the Lord's work and that we have to keep the spirit while we´re out working.

The CCM has definitely become every day routine now for Kyler because he can't think of anything "new" to share about his week. But, when I ask him specific questions he has a lot more to say--hmmm--although he still didn't answer all of my questions--grrr!

I asked him to tell us about something new he has tasted (ok...that was just one of the new categories I asked him about, but about the only one he answered) and this was his response:

"We have cow tounge a lot! Its really not that bad. If you didn´t know what it was you´d think it was good :) It's a meat they prepare and eat cold so you put it on your salad and stuff. All their food tastes different!"

Some really important lessons...

Before Kyler left, we had a long talk about many things. The answer to most of his concerns was to learn to depend on his Heavenly Father--that way, he would more likely be in the right place at the right time, be doing the things that Heavenly Father wants him to do and be finding the people he is meant to find. Most of the time, this will depend on his humility and conversations with Heavenly Father. His last letter was very encouraging with grasping this concept...

Excerpt from his September 9th letter: Mom its way awesome here. I don't think I've ever felt the spirit before like I have here. It's weird cause when I pray for stuff I really feel like Heavenly Father is listening to me. When I ask for help with some part of the language that's really hard, I pray and its like--woah!-- that's a big difference than how I was feeling before. When I stop and pray for the spirit, every time I've asked, I've felt it instantaneously. Sometimes I have a hard time focusing because I'm thinking of family or friends at home. I pray and ask him to keep me strong and to help me stay focused and work hard and I really feel a difference. I pray for everything now and feel a great peace once I have. They teach you so much stuff here and its been just awesome. You can't help but to know the church is true; You feel it everyday and I really think my testimony has grown to much more than what it was before.

His mom is sure proud of his growth! He's going to have a great mission if he remembers this one lesson...PRAY!

The CCM - Week 1

I returned back to work the day after Kyler left. The manager, Joe Love, over the Welfare Canneries came into our office with another gentleman. When we told Joe that I had just put my son on a plane for the Argentina MTC the day before; the man with him poked his head into my office and said "I am from Argentina! I know the MTC president (I forget his name) and he is a wonderful man. He will have a wonderful experience there." Then he asked me, "How much did your son weigh when he left?" I told him about 155 lbs. He then told me, "He will leave the MTC weighing about 190 because the MTC chef is a wonderful cook. He used to cook for the Vatican in Italy."

This is an excerpt from Kyler's 2nd letter home:

The MTC or the CCM as its called here is awesome! There are a bunch of people here from Utah and they get new ones every three weeks. We're the latest bunch. The last one had like ten people in it so we are a really small district. We're atually the smallest one here. The next smallest has like six i think. The elders are totally awesome though and they help us out so much with all our spanish and everything. You're right the food is awesome the cooks are really nice and we still cant understand them.

Half the missionaries here are latino´s from all over south america. Spanish is going well and we can already pray, bear our testimony and preach the first couple of principles from the first lesson in spanish and we can basically get by... kinda. They teach you so fast here. They basically pound it into your head whether you want it or not. We go to bed tired every night with our brains burned out but they say if they're not burned out then you are doing something wrong ;) I've been writing in my journal every night and i plan on keeping it up. I love it here and I've felt the spirit really strong in different situations.

The week after Kyler's farewell was another Elder's homecoming (Braden Awerkamp) in our ward. He sat in the same seat Kyler had sat in the week before. After he spoke, I thought, "If my son can come home with that kind of testimony, two years will only be a small investment." I sure look forward to that experience.

I didn't sleep well the first night Kyler was gone because I didn't know for sure that all the connections were made in Dallas. Kyler arrived in Argentina at 7:25 am, Thursday, August 26th. Thursday's turn out to be his P-day in the MTC, so he was able to write a quick note home:

"Hey mom and family! This is my message just to let you know that I've made it here safely. :) The plane ride wasn't to bad the first one kinda stunk cause it was cramped but the next one was better ha ha even though it was longer. The seats we're more comfy and I slept most of the time. I'm excited to be here and can't wait to learn what everyone is saying. Hey our P day is on thursday so if you write i need to have it on a wednesday so i can read it by thursday. Thanks so much i love you guys have fun!"

He was so positive and upbeat. It was nice to know he was enjoying his new adventure!

It turns out, besides Elder Shaw (pictured above), they met another missionary, Elder Atkinson, in Dallas. All three of them were called to the same mission and have turned out to be the only three currently in the CCM going to Uruguay. They are the only missionaries in their district and have a "tripanionship" --as Kyler calls it.

Kyler Hendrickson was set a part as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on August 24th, 2010 @ 7:20 p.m. by his stake president, President Philip Hadfield. He left for the Buenos Aires, Argentina MTC on August 25th. He will be at the MTC for 9 weeks before he sets off for the Uruguay, Montevideo West Mission.

The morning he left was a busy one--packing and unpacking to stay within the weight restrictions of 50 lbs per bag. A quick trip to UPS to get a final weight--the biggest suitcase weight 49 lbs--SUCCESS!!

Since it was the first day of school for his brother and sisters, we took first-day, last-day pictures with each of them except Kira. She had already left for Snow College but was able to call between classes to say her goodbyes.

Kyler was pretty quiet on the way to the airport. It is tough to balance the excitement and the anticipation of this new experience. Kyler's biggest worries were for all of his friends (and family) and what would happen with them while he was gone. We had a wonderful talk Sunday night after his farewell gathering about his concerns. He really loves his friends! That will be a great asset to him as he meets more friends in Uruguay.

When we got to the airport to check Kyler in, the desk told us that his flight was delayed for 45 minutes so he would only have 30 minutes to catch his connection in Dallas. (Have you ever been to the Dallas airport? IT IS HUGE!) I could see a little concern in his eyes...I hope he didn't see it in mine!

As we walked across the airport to find a place to sit and visit for the welcomed 45 extra minutes, Kyler spotted another young man in a suit and missionary badge. He asked him if he was leaving today--Yes. When is your flight?--It has been delayed so we leave at 3:15. Are you going to the MTC in Argentina?--Yes. What mission are you going to?--Uruguay, Montevideo West! A companion!!! Thank you, Heavenly Father! (Tender Mercy #1)

We spent the next few minutes meeting Elder Shaw and his family from Draper, UT. At least now, if they missed their flight in Dallas, he wouldn't be alone. I think that was a relief for Kyler. We took pictures--hopefully, if I can figure out this blog stuff, I can post them for all to see.

When it was time for the final good-byes at the security line, one of our neighbors, Rick Tuttle, walked up and asked if Kyler was leaving. When he said yes, Rick said, "I'm flying out right now as well, so we can go through security together." (Tender Mercy #2!)

At security, it was taking quite awhile (I'm not complaining) for Kyler to get checked through because his bag was so tightly packed that the technician couldn't see everything through the x-ray machine. Hey--it was necessary! When the trip is going to last 2 years and you have a weight restriction for the checked bags, but not the carry-on...you do what you have to do!

The trip home was silent all except for the moment when Kaden fulfilled his duty of delivering Gracias notes from Kyler to his father and I. A few more tears...a glance out the window...and a confirmation that Kyler is going to be a great missionary!

Mission Farewell

I leave on August 25, 2010 for the Missionary Training Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina and then it is off to Uruguay. I will be speaking on the 22nd at 9 AM. I hope everyone can come!