Week 03

Whelp. Another week gone by.

I wish I could say that it had flown by but...well....it hasn't. I think this actually may have been the slowest week of my whole mission thus far. It was a rough one....all of our appointments kept falling through, and all of our backups, and nobody was home, nobody wanted to listen, etc. We only taught 4 lessons this week to people who aren't recent converts and we currently only have 1 progressing investigator, and 1 other potential investigator. So the week has been hard. BUT on the positive side we have been working really hard - trying to get the ward members involved more in missionary work, and trying to come up with new and creative finding opportunities. We've decided to try and start up a stake family history class and maybe come up with and propose a big ward activity for after the holidays that includes a church tour - so lots of ideas in the works. Our ward missionaries and ward mission leaders are newly called so we're helping them to truly understand how best they can help us - and they all (well, most of them) seem excited and willing to help with the work, they're just not sure where to start - and that's where we come in! So, for the most part just trying to stay positive and keep on working to find new people to teach.

On top of us struggling to find people to teach, our apartment has decided that it hates us. Our water heater has been leaking since Tuesday (a lot), we have a slight ant problem, Sister Johansen broke her bike Wednesday while I was in San Pedro on splits, also on Wednesday while I was gone apparently our door jammed itself shut and they had to hoist Hna Deskins in through the bathroom window and then she had to hit the door with a bike lock from the INSIDE in order to get it open, our toilet had some issues (that has been fixed as well) AND I set off the smoke alarm the other day when I was frying an egg. Yup - Satan sure is working hard on us! BUT Our District Leader is going to come over Tuesday to look at our water heater, we bought some ant spray, the bike is fixed, the door hasn't had problems since, the toilet is in good working order AND we turned on the fan so the smoke alarm stopped beeping. All seems to be well and holding and today's p-day has been a blessing of a breather. We have new goals and plans and are hoping that this week will just be a million times better :) All is well...

OTHER fun things:

I spoke in the singles ward yesterday about "What is Zion?" for about 15-20 minutes and didn't bomb it! I was so nervous but I found some good Ensign articles (which let me tell ya - was a miracle. We can only use the computer for an hour on our p-day so I had to go through by hand the ginormous stack of ensign's that we have in our apartment. The Lord really helped me out on that one) So that went well.

Adventures in food - Familia you will be so proud of me: I ate seafood!! Well, I guess I should say that I was tricked into eating seafood. There's a woman who is from Taiwan and she makes authentic Chinese food. We had dinner over there on Friday and she mad a hot pot for us (I don't know if you all know what a hot pot is, but basically you boil broth and then add the ingredients you want and then eat them over rice and then add more stuff to the pot....look it up is that was confusing haha) and well....there were somethings in there I didn't recognize. But I figured it was better to eat and not ask and then ask Sister Johansen later. Turns out that there were like 4 different kinds of tofu (not bad...I like tofu!) little meat balls made of fish and shrimp (they weren't fishy so that was good) however one meatball had caviar in it and was like...i don't even know. Fishy. And I had to chase it down with some sprite. But I ate it! What else was in there....hmm....I"m pretty sure I ate some pork bone marrow. Sister Johansen didn't know what it was either and was afraid to ask so...yup...I skillfully avoided the little knot of what I'm assuming was intestine (score!) AND mom, you'll never believe it, I ate 2 different kinds of mushroom! Yup! One was like the kind they put on pizza (blackish brown but whole of course) and the others...will they were tall and skinny and connected and didn't taste like much but made this awful crunchy, fibrous noise when I chewed them. I think that's it on the interesting front...and honestly it wasn't all that bad. But I wasn't scarfing it down either ;) There was plenty of other delicious things int here too like pork and rice noodles and tofu and cabbage....but man. It was an adventure. Other than that day I've been eating well - the Bishop here really pushes for the members to make dinner appointments with us and so we get fed. I eat a lot of like, chicken breast, which we all know has never been easy for me but it's usually with rice or something so it cuts the texture. I really hope this doesn't make me sound ungrateful,  because I'm not. It's pretty much all delicious and I leave stuffed 90% of the time so the members are good to us there. Now we just need them to give us referrals!!

Well, that's all from the CLAM for now ;) Until next week!

amor,

Hna Hensley

Note from Dad.
Shannon has always been a somewhat picky eater.  She is very sensitive to food textures.  So chicken breast and turkey have been on her "can't eat" list from a very early age.  If we changed the texture of the chicken breast she "could" eat it.  She liked the tast but the way the mean shreads in strings was more than she could take. So I am rolling on the floor laughing when I read she bit into a meat ball filled with Caviar.  I can imagine her surprise of the texture of the Caviar when she was expecting a meat ball.  I am sure her first hurdle was to keep that down, then the follow up taste must have almost pushed her over the top.  Not wanting to offend she found the Sprite to wash her mouth out before she puked.  So bravo to her.

Zone Conference photos

Jump over to the CLAM (California Los Angeles Mission) blog for the full story.  But here are a couple of  new photos.

 


Servants of the Lord ready to work.

 

Shannon is in the South Bay Zone and these are the missionaries there.




P-Day "Are you ready for some FOOTBAL!!

 




I am not sure where she is going.  The play is behind her.

 


Zone Boundries





Semana 11

Pictures from the halloween activity!



Elder Boyd & Moore from the MTC! (we're in the same district at the moment)



Well well! The work here in Torrance, CA has been moving along this week. However, I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been hard. It has been. Being out in the mission field is so very different from anything you expect, and in some ways I feel like I didn't learn anything in the MTC! haha

In all seriousness though, the work is good. We're currently in the "finding" stage of the mission cycle so we really don't have any new people to teach right now. We also don't really have anyone who is progressing towards anything either - which is frustrating. But that's what the work is all about. Going out and contacting and bringing people into the gospel. However, I don't much like knocking on doors so we're just hoping that the members will kick into gear here soon and refer some people for us to go out and find. That's something that's been a big focus of ours lately - the role of the ward and ward leadership in missionary work. Read the last chapter in Preach My Gospel if you're wondering about anything and than follow those guidelines. Trust me - it will save the bishop and the missionaries many, many headaches. We've been working hard, as I said, to try and get the ward involved and we're tryign to find, teach, and/or reactive people who can help. It's been quite a task.

HOWEVER we did have 2 baptisms this Saturday! While it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong that morning - it happened. The important part (the actual ordinances) went just fine. They were confirmed on Sunday and it just made all the hardships that we'd had at the end of the week worth it. They were so happy and even though I've only known the two of them for 2 weeks, I was happy for them too - and filled love for them. We are actually starting with their recent convert lessons tonight - so that's exciting.

Today was the Turkey Bowl!!! I know - it's just barely November - BUT they hold 3 turkey bowls here in the mission in order to accomadate all of the zones and we just happened to be in the grouping whose turkey bowl day was today (first). AND WE WERE UNDEFEATED! 2 - 0. It was pretty exciting. AND I actually played, not just sat on the sidelines. Yup. Little ol' me played football today and won. Miracles really do happen on the mission!! (see photos - me and sister jo and the rest of the south bay zone)


Hermans Johanson & Hensley

This week is going to be another super busy one! We have zone-conference all day tomorrow and then I go on my first SPLITS EVER on Wednesday (and it's in a Spanish zone! So I'll be speaking Spanish all day on Wednesday, which I'm really nervous about since I haven't really spoken it in 2 weeks and I already feel "rusty") and then of course, the teaching and the finding and the studying and the work of being a missionary.

Know that I love you all - and that I love hearing from you. I love knowing that I'm in your prayers and I want y'all to know that y'all are in mine. I may be focused on the work during the day, but at night while I'm praying for the poeple I teach, I pray for those at home as well. Especially those who don't have the blessings of the restored gospel in their lives. WORK WITH YOUR LOCAL MISSIONARIES! Pray over a group of names and then let the Holy Ghost inspire you as to whom to GIVE TO THEM AS REFERRALS and then GO TO LESSONS WITH THEM. The work of the Lord for all of his children is missionary work. And I'm blessed to be one full-time for the next 15 months.

con amor,
Hna Hensley

LA Semana 01

HOLA FAMILIA!!!



THE NAMETAG!!!



Yes, I have indeed made it to sunny California in one piece. I had to wake up at 4 am on Wednesday but the flight was just fine and now I'm here! AND I've made it to p-day. What a blessing indeed. My trainer picked me up, I had some training that day, didn't end up getting to our area until it was too late to proselyte, and then got up studied and did more training Thursday. Our apartment is....nice. We have 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, washer/dryer kitchen and living room. I mean, it's a little run down but for the amount of time I'm there it's beautiful. And about a million times more spacious than my room at the MTC. My trainer's name is Sister Johansen and she's amazing. She's been in the field about 6 months - all in our area. She knows and loves the people and has been a great help to me during my transition.

I'm in an area south of Los Angeles called Torrence and.....IT'S AN ENGLISH AREA!. Yup. I was the lucky person in our group that was assigned to be trained in an english-area. That means that for my first 12 weeks, I will be teaching and attending wards that are English-speaking. It's ironic because both my trainer Sister Johansen and are are Hermanas, but since we are serving in an English are if we do come across anyone who speaks spanish and wants to be taught in Spanish and go to a Spanish ward, then we have to refer them to the Spanish elders. IN fact, my whole Zone is english-speaking. Of the 9 zones of my mission, only 2 of them have spanish-speaking sisters in them. Hermana Deskins went to one, and I am here in Torrence speaking English. It's weird speaking in English - especially the teaching because I didn't learn how to teach anything in English! In fact - sometimes I'll be teaching/practicing teaching and only the spnish word pops into my head and I have to stop and think about the English. It's odd. But I still have one hour of language study every day and my companion speaks it (not a native speaker, so our levels are about the same) so that's how we get our practice in. Crazy, huh?

Hermanas Deskins and Hensley

ALSO we have a car. Yup. AND I'm the driver. Normally it's the senior companion's responsibilty to be the driver and the trainee is the backer/passenger, but Sister Johansen was in a pretty traumatic car accident a while back in CA so she doesn't drive. Hence I'm the driver here! It's kind of strange to be behind the wheel again but I like it. It's not that much different from driving in Houston and we don't have to get on the freeway very much because our area is TINY so it's all good. However - I am in need of a bike. We bike to the park and drive to places and bike sometimes so I do need to get one. I'll elaborate more on that in a second - i've got it all figured out so y'all don't have to worry.**

Sister Johansen and I cover 2 wards (well, a ward and a singles branch) and so Sundays we go to 5 hours of church! (one of the hours overlaps) and our area has been pretty sucessful so we have a lot of recent converts and less active members that we are teaching. That's something that they don't prepare you for in the MTC so that's been a defininte learning experiance. Speaking of baptisms, I inhereted 3 baptisms in the area! Yup! This Saturday a woman and her son are being baptized, and on Sunday (hopefully if we can work it out with the building coordinator) another girl is being baptized as well. All three of them are amazing and I have the opportunity to speak at their services and then continue teaching them the post-baptizm lesson (which I also have never taught before) like I said, all kinds of adventures. The ward mission leaders here are great too and while we do have some memeber participation it's not as much as we'd like. FAMILIA (or anyone out threre reading for that matter) if you have been called as a ward missionary or ward mission leader - GET OUT THERE AND HELP THOSE MISSIONARIES! TEACH LESSONS WITH THEM! FELLOWSHIP THEIR INVESTIGATORS AND RECENT CONVERTS. The Lord will pour out blessing upon y'all if it happens. And I can testify that the missionaries need you. Truly the members are the KEY to missionary work.

**So, with the bikes, our ward mission leader has a daughter who buys really nice bikes at auctions further south for like, 30 bucks and then they fix them and sell them to the missionaries for like 40 or 50 dollars. YEAH! But, he doesn't have any at the moment and won't until his daughter comes to town for Thanksgiving, so, until then Hermana Deskins is letting me use her bike :) I just....have to assemble it. I'll be sure to take pictures. SO I've got the bike situation taken care of. No need to worry.

Other than teaching lots of recent converts and less active members, we haven't been doing much :) The work is definitely keeping us busy and we're trying to find new people to teach. Our goal is to have one baptism this transfer. We've street contacted a few people this week that we're following up on so we'll see how that goes. We also had a miracle happen on Sunday with a man who was "lead by the holy spirit" to come into our church and listen and take a look. He's looking for a new church to join and stopped in to see what we were all about. He's never heard of the Mormons before and is just an amazing man. he's read the bible numerous times and is just looking to learn and grow more through other and through the gospel. Sister Jo and I taught him about the restoration with 2 recent converts, gave him a book of mormon, and are teaching him again this Friday. Sadly, however, he lives outside of our area so we'll have to refer him to the Zone Leaders. Either way, he'll be taught and hopefully receive some of the answers that he's been searching for.

The Lord truly is involved in missionary work. I'm so greatful for all of your prayers, and for the prayers of all of the members world-wide. I can see and feel the Holy Ghost work in my life DAILY here and my testimony is only growing stronger. The Gospel TRULY has been restored to the earth through a living prophet, and Christ leads and guides the work today. I love being a missionary, I love California, I love my companion, I love the Lord, and I love you.

Off to buy some groceries and go to a zone pumpkin carving contest! I will definitely take pictures! (and I"m also attaching some to this email from my last days at the MTC.

amor,

Hna Hensley



MTC Companions
Holliday, Deskins, Hensley



Re-supply from home.



Looks like she made it!

Out standing in the field!! :)  Click here to learn more.

Semana.....Neuve? Oh sheesh.

FAMILIA!

 

This is officially my last email from the good ol' CCM! I KNOW! I just can't believe how the time has flown, and that I only have 16 more months to preach the gospel as a missionary! And to think, exactly 2 months from yesterday I came into this crazy place, not speaking a lick of spanish, never having read preach my gospel, and not knowing how to teach a lesson. Now look at me! I can teach entire lessons in Spanish, hold my own in a conversation, have notes and scribbles all over my PME and am about to head out to Los Angeles and start teaching REAL people. Oh gash. It's all really happening. I am a missionary.

 

This week has been SUPER busy! Between trying to think of what all I need to pack and get ready to leave plus the regular workload of all my classes - it's been a whirlwind of stuff. Yesterday we left the TRC (where we teach lessons to member volunteers) and then went back to the classroom and taught one of our progressing investigators, and that evening during class we were trying to plan our next lesson with that same investigator and I couldn't remember what we had taught! My brain has just about had it! But I love it, and I'd rather have it this way instead of me being sick, lying in bed for two days.

 

Speaking of which, I'm almost 100% better. Hooray for modern medicine and the power of prayer and priesthood blessings.

 

This week for our Tuesday devotional, we got to hear from ANOTHER APOSTLE! Elder Richard G. Scott came and spoke to us abut recognizeing and learning to listen to the Holy Ghost in our studies, lives and teaching. It was amazing. he is just filled with so much Christlike love for all the people of the world. He's so softspoken and gentil, but at the same time filled with power. Interestingly, the thing that I remember most (I don't have my journal) and that impressed me the most was his testimony of the Savior. When he spoke of Him (Jesus) and His love for all of us and how He truly leads, guides, and directs this people and this work, there was no doubt in my mind that he was speaking the truth. When Elder Scott spoke, I felt the love of my Savior through him. I want to be like that. I want to be the type of missionary, and person, that when I speak to others they feel of not only my love for them, but the love that I know my Savior, Jesucristo, has for them. It's something that I'm working toward everyday. Another unique thing about Elder Scott was that after he finished speaking, we sang the closing hymn, and then he went back up to the pulpit! He said that normally he stays after meetings and will shake the hand of anyone and everyone who wants to, but tonight he couldn't. And because he couldn't stay he just wanted to reiterate again how much he and our Savior loved us. It was the most precious thing I've ever seen. I loved it.

 

I have been truly blessed by the speakers that I've been able to hear while being at the MTC. Not only have I listened to members of the 70, Sister Beck, and members of the MTC general board, but I've been able to be personally blessed and edified by 4 of the 12 apostles. 4 of the 12 men on this earth who hold ALL of the keys of the priesthood here on the earth. It's unheard of. It's just such a testimony to me of our Heavenly Father's love, and how he knows me, Hermana Hensley, personally. To call me to the MTC at this time, for this amount of weeks, when these people were going to speak to us. AMAZING!!! I couldn't have asked for a better MTC experience.  

 

Well, I've got laundry to finish, lunch to eat, the temple to go to, lessons to teach and letters to write. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you both in my last days in the MTC and in the field!

 

con amor,

Hna Hensley

Ocho

Hola familia!

This week is counting down and We've been just teaching our little hearts out here at the mtc. We got a new investigator, Ramiro, and we've had two teaching appointments with him so far. He's very nice and seemingly receptive to want to learn more about the Gospel and how it can bless his family and home life. Along with a new investigator we got a new teacher! WHich, I may have mentioned last week - I don't remember. His name is Hermano McKinney and he's from Ohio and served in Long Beach, CA. And he speaks way awesome spanish, which gives me hope of being a fairly fluent speaker when I come hoem even though I won't be going to a place where I'll be totally immersed.

Hermano Avila said that we are getting to the point where we are starting to not need a teacher anymore. We teach solid doctrine, he says, and while we could still be simpler when we teach - we are getting there. There's a quote by Harold B Lee I think that goes along along the lines of "don't just teach so simply that they can understand, teach simply enough that they cannot misunderstand" that truly is the trick. But, with much practice and more lessons here at the MTC I feel like I"m getting better everyday.

As is the spanish. I now (for the most part) speak using passive voice, past participles, gerunds, and in the future. I still struggle with speaking in the past, but that's going to be the start of my focus for this week. And of course, in the moment my spanish seems to get worse than it actually is - but when I think that i've only been learning spanish for 7 actual weeks, it truly is a miracle.

Other than that nothing much is new on this front. OH at the devotional on Tuesday Sister Beck came and spoke to us! It was awesome. I really love her and the spirit that she brings to all meetings. I remember growing up with her in the general young women's presidency and now she's the president of the relief society. Growing up with her counsel in mind has been wonderful. She talked alot about the temple, and how the Lord truly had the temple in mind when he restored this Gospel, because at the very heart and center of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the family. All of the saving ordinances that we perform all point us to being worthy and ready to be sealed to our families for eternity. I love you all and I'm so glad that I get to spend the rest of forever with each and every one of you.

Sorry this email is going to be so short - another reason is that I'm super sick again. As evidenced by the 2 times I threw up this morning, my chills, and how much my throat/ear hurts I'm thinking I have a stomach flu. BUT I'm going to the doctor in about 15 minutes so hopefully they can figure out what's wrong with me. I don't want any of you to worry - I know that the Lord is with me and will help me overcome this trial. Just keep me in your prayers and stay happy :) I am!

I love you all and love hearing from you! I get my travel plans tonight or tomorrow so when I do I'll mail a letter and let you know that lowdown about the phone situation as welll. Only 13 more days here in Utah! Ah!

con amor

Hna Hensley

Message from Dad. 

We got a follow up letter saying that Shannon had both a stomach virus and an upper respiratory virus.  She was given antibiotics and should be on the mend.  Prayers for her are always welcomed as we know they help.