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.