Humbling and Amazing Week!

Transcription from a voice recording

Hello, well right now it is about 6:49 a.m. on Monday.  We're just chilling getting ready to go out and email. Well it has been a crazy crazy week. So, last Sunday morning I got a text from president saying I would be moving up to Jiayi to be a new Zone leader. It has been a crazy week. Definitely a little humbling and has helped me to grow a Lot. And so, last Monday I got here and we went to Costco and got some pizza and some food. Then, we came back to the apartment then I met the ward meber we had met her at night and we went out and visited a couple other members. Tuesday, we met with one of the investigators who has a baptismal date for March 3rd. He is actually in a city close to Taipei so we Skyped with him. We had a good lesson over Skype, then that night we went over and met with the Bishop. We played a little Scripture Mastery Jeopardy game with his three children who are 11, 7 and 3. Was super super fun. The little buddy reminded me of Isaiah. He's 3 years old. He is super awesome! We also met with a guy named Ivan and shared the restoration of the Gospel with him. Companionship Unity was definitely there and it was super fun to go back and forth sharing and asking questions. We invited him to be baptised but he said that at this time he has his Buddhist religion that he wants to stick with. But that's okay, we'll keep working with him. Then we had District training meeting. That was the first time a long time that I haven't been in charge and taught one of those. Because I've been a district leader for so long. But it was Elder Farnsworth who came to Taiwan with me. He gave the district training meeting and did a very very good job. It's super cool to be serving around him in a district with him because I haven't seen him since the MTC. On Friday, we went up to Mission Leadership Council which is all of the Zone leaders and sister training leaders and the assistants to the president and president all get together and discuss the work. It was super super cool. It was super awesome to see all the points of view of all the leaders of our mission. Able to discuss and to help each other out. It was a very inspiring and super uplifting experience. We did that then Saturday We went to Doolio where I was just with Elder Strong, I was just in that area with the Elder Strong. We went there to do a baptismal interview now, as long as we do a lot of baptismal interviews and I was able to help with that.And it was a very cool experience. I love giving baptismal interviews because it really gives me a chance to get to know these people and to know their testimony. Spiritually bond with people. I'm grateful for the chance I had to do it. That night we came back and contacted a little bit, trying to set up appointments with some people. We set up with some people on the street. This area is super cool. It's a big city, and I haven't been in a big city in a long time. It's great to see lots of people on the big streets at all times. Sunday we went to church. I got to meet the ward. It's definitely the smallest ward I've served in so; about 40 people.  It was crazy to see how small it was. I bore my testimony and shared her and I chapter 10 verse to about coming out of Christ and for my testimony about coming unto Christ. I talked about the power coming unto him. I got to meet a lot of members. The stake president and first counselor are in our Ward. The second counselor is in Doolio and now I met these two,now that I'm serving here. It's fun to know the full stake presidency. The Zone leaders in each Zone get to meet with the stake presidency monthly and I'm excited to do that. It's been a crazy and humbling week. See the Lord qualify his servants because I definitely have not felt  qualified to be serving here, but I'm grateful for the chance to do it. I'm grateful for the opportunity to do it. Last night we both had a feeling we needed to go visit one of their older investigators. They met them a couple weeks ago but it is been a couple weeks since we made contact with them so we went to their house. When we got there the wife and 2 kids were leaving. We met them on the street and they were very excited to see us they said to come back on Tuesday and they would meet with us. But, then the grandma said come on inside and talk with us. So we went inside and talked with the grandma and grandpa and shared a little message with them. It was super cool to be able to talk to them, so now we can teach the grandma and grandpa in and the mom and the children. I hope that we can continue to help this family. We also met the super cool guy on the road last night we were talking with him and sharing with him about prayer. Then all the sudden our Ward Mission leader pulled up on the side of the road next to us. He started to accompany the lesson and for his testimony on the power of prayer prayer. It was a huge miracle. So now we're meeting with that guy this next week. It is freezing cold here. Members have been bringing blankets to us to keep us warm at night because there are no heaters in Taiwan. Apartments don't have heaters. You have to buy a personal portable heater and we don't have one. So the members have brought us blankets. It's a lot colder than my last City. That's basically it, we had a great week, and I'm excited to continue. We have zone conference tomorrow and me and Elder Densley will be doing a training to about 20 other missionaries, so I'm excited to do it. We also start exchanges this week I'll be going on exchanges with two different companionship in the zone. The most exchanges i've gone on in a transfer is two or three and now this transfer I'm going on 9. That's a good opportunity to learn from a lot of missionaries and to meet a lot of missionaries. We have to change with assistants next week and Zone conference this week. So, time is going to go very fast. Elder Densley is super super awesome and it has been great to get to know him and to serve with him. That's about it have a good day bye bye 

Jiayi City is great, a lot bigger than Chaozhou! Comp is awesome, very great chinese! Zone, super awesome, lot's of very good missionaries! We had a great week, my comp loves to take pics so you will be getting A LOT of pics this transfer! We had a couple earthquakes last night, super crazy! That's super awesome, the year i got here was the 60th year anniversary and they had a huge celebration the couple weeks before i got to Taiwan :(( i barely missed it! We have been starting to run every other morning and I am getting in better shape. (well last week we only ran once) lol but have made a goal to be better!  Elder Brenchly is super super awesome and in a week time has already become a good pal of mine!

 New Companion in Jiayi, Elder Densley. (Looks like they are at Costco)

 The District

 The Ward mission leaders home for scripture mastery games.

 The Ward Mission Leaders Family and The Sisters

 Doing Service at the Park, preparing for The Chinese New Year Celebration

 Zone Leader Training

 Headed to the Zone Leader Training

It is a LOT Colder in Jiayi than it was in the south and there are no heaters in Taiwan. He said the members brought them blankets for their beds!!

 The New Apartment, he said its definitely the nicest apartment he has had on his mission

Transferred to Jiayi!!

Transcription from a voice recording

Hello Hello, right now it's about 7:20 in the morning and I'm moving....I'm moving over to Jiayi which is right next to Doolio, my last area. I will be a zone leader. I'm super excited for the new adventure. I was only in Chaozhou for like 3 months, but that's okay. I'm super excited for this next adventure.  Last week we went on exchanges with the elders in the other part of our area, in Dongong. The area with the beach. I went over there with an Elder who is from Taiwan, up north by Taichung. My first time ever going 24 hours straight with a Taiwanese Elder who doesn't speak any English. Had a good time and I feel like my Chinese improved. That was Tuesday and Wednesday, had a good time with that. Wednesday we had a district training meeting that I held and we talked a lot about bearing frequent testimony, and helping others feel our testimony, and try to gain more conviction of our testimonies. On Thursday, we had interviews with president and it was super super awesome. Is always a super uplifting experience when we can have interviews with President. We talked for a while about the area and working with members and how we're trying to serve others. Then in his closing prayer he talked about me starting to serve more missionaries. After that I had the thought that I may become a zone leader later, and that's what happened. I'm excited. I'm going to Jiayi which is in the middle of the mission. Close to the area I was within Elder strong. I went on exchanges in this area about three and a half months ago. My new companion is named Elder Densely and I'm pretty sure he went to Corner Canyon High School. He's a super cool Elder. He's trained by one of my very good friends. On Friday, it was kind of a normal day. Saturday, we met with some more investigators. We met with Tina that awesome lady I told you about and she is so ready. I hope she gets baptized this next transfer. On Friday night, we had a member who said he found a friend at his college and he wants to to talk to him about the church. So she talked to this man from the Solomon Islands which is off the coast of Australia, and so she went there...





Hello!  I moved! i just arrived in my new area jiayi where i will be a zone leader! i am very excited, but a little nervous. my new companion is Elder Densley. he went to Alta and then Corner canyon.  i haven't really met him yet, but he is super super awesome.  He goes home in about 4 and a half months! I am going to miss my friends in Chaozhou!

哩賀！

 哩賀！

We have a had a great week!! I have made a goal and plan to read the Book of Mormon more sincerely. It has made an amazing difference! I thought I was reading and studying the Book of Mormon before, but something is different now.  I have really prayed to have help with more love for others, to overcome temptation, a stronger testimony of the gospel, and a greater knowledge of the the restored truth as President Monson and President Nelson have recently talked about in Conference. And I have been amazed to see how a more deep study of scripture brings help and light to every aspect of my life.  

We have seen so many miracles this passed week as we have made a bigger effort to visit members and planning intelligently as we seek inspiration. We have tried to target different people at different times of the day, and this week we were blessed to run into Sister Lai! She has 3 little kids, and is one of the most friendly people I have ever met.  We knocked on her door and was more than willing to talk, so we set up a time for her to come to the church! We prayed about a member who can help them as they come into this new culture and we really felt the Bishop's family will be much help! Saturday night we met with her and the Bishop and it went awesome! We are very excited to continue meeting with her and hopefully her husband will come!

We also met a couple other very very prepared people this week including a referral from the Hawaii Temple visitors center! The work is progressing very well and I have just been so happy.  The gospel through the spirit brings a happiness to life that can be found nowhere else.

I love everything about being a missionary and don't want it to end! hahhah Thanks for all the love and support!! Love you all!

Elder Henderson 

何睿霆長老

Voice recording:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V6E0VJT6kR5yFiAKna-yj5vWB9oes1vJ/view?usp=sharing

Voice Recording

This a dictation of a voice recording that Elder Henderson sent this last week. It sounds like he is really struggling with his toe, please keep him in your prayers. Thank you so much!! Hopefully this procedure will fix the problem once and for all.

This is Elder Henderson. Elder Sano and I are just sitting here on the train going to Ping dong which is a city in our Zone. I thought I would do the voice recording right now. We're headed to Ping Dong because I need to get to the doctor, dang it. My ingrown toenail has been acting up a lot lately and it's just wrecking me. It woke me up a couple times in the night last night, it's killing me! I've procrastinated too long so I have to go to the doctor to get it fixed today. This last week, Tuesday we had a good day of contacting and trying to visit people. We met with our investigator brother Wang and he is doing super well. He is continuing to improve. We shared the rest of the Plan of Salvation with him and invited him to pray about it and it seems like he is doing really good. On Wednesday, we had a zone conference and we went to Gaoziong which was my first city, and we were there with two other zones and had a super good Zone conference. President Teh is awesome. He talked about working with the members better and being more Christ-like missionaries and having more Christ-like attributes. It was super good. So now we have a plan to work more with members and to try to be better Christ-like missionaries. Thursday and Friday we went on exchanges. I went on exchanges with elder Hales in our district. He is a super awesome missionary. This is his fourth transfer, he came to Taiwan the same as Elder Strong. He is working very hard, we were in our area, and we met with Brother Wang again, and taught him the restoration. It was awesome. And we invited him to read the book of Mormon. We try to help him realize how important it is. The Book of Mormon is super sacred and, help him to feel the truth and power behind reading it. So we were like, okay we're going to, how do you say that in English, we were going to loan him a book, so he said okay I'll make sure to read it and he said okay the next time I see you I'll give it back to you. He is very serious about reading it, which was awesome. We also ran into this guy and we sat down it with him and had a great lesson about God and prayer. And just our relationship with Heavenly Father. It was super cool. It turns out he lives in the other area Elders area, so we handed him over to them and he's going to meet with them next week. Then, Me and Elder Hales met a woman in the street. She has a 7 and 8 year old kids. On Friday night, when me and other Sano were back together we met with her and gave her a chapel tour and she really liked it. We are excited to keep meeting with her.   Then that night we went visited our Ward Mission leader, he has four little kids. They're such a great and strong family in the gospel. We watch the restoration with them and then asked them how the restoration has blessed their family, and they all shared their thoughts. It was super awesome. We asked them if they there was anyone they felt needed the gospel in their lives. One of them said I have a friend who’s 19 year old son just died in a car accident. We scheduled a time to go back to their house and practice how to share the gospel with their friend, then hopefully we can schedule a time to meet this friend. We were super excited about that. I don't know if I told you but last week, I did a baptismal interview for the Sisters investigator. In a month, there twenty-one-year-old investigator who goes to the local College, she read the whole book of Mormon in a month. It was super awesome. Out of the blue I got asked to baptize her, and so it was super cool, I got to baptize her on Saturday night. It was a super spiritual baptismal experience. She is super awesome and super strong and it was super cool I was able to help out with it. Then Sunday, she was confirmed, and we had one of our investigators named Jean came to church. He's a super super cool 17 year old who has a very hard life. He works and provides for himself, and works everyday after school and on the weekends. Luckily, yesterday he had time off and was able to come to church and he had a really good experience. We were sitting in gospel principles class and all of a sudden a guy in our Ward walked into our room and knew our investigator. They were friends from middle school and reconnected, and now we have a very good Fellowshiper to help our investigator, and he's going to be the member at the lessons. And then last night we met this super cool guy at the train station. We are contacting over there. He's a 25 year old dude who runs Ultra marathons and he stopped at the train station to rest. He is training to go to the Sahara Desert in Africa to run an ultramarathon, which is 250 km. I'm not sure how many miles that is. He was super pumped to meet us. His name is Jeter, like Derek Jeter. He was super pumped and we set up to meet with him tomorrow. So, we're going to meet with him tomorrow. Saturday night we also watch the face-to-face event with our Ward; the one with Dallin H Oaks and M Russell Ballard. It was in Chinese and was really neat. It was super cool to hear their responses to those questions. Today, we are going to go to an all-you-can-eat buffet after we go to the doctor. Then, we're going to chill and get ready for the week. I love you all. Thanks for all the love and support. I hope everyone is doing well. It's super cool to see the pictures of Sadie's blessing. I hope Grandma and Grandpa Henderson or doing well and Grandma Madsen. I'll be praying for them. I hope you all have a good week!!

Bye Bye

The doctor said "wow the tissue of you foreigners is a lot stronger than us Asians" haha my skin had grown to it and he had to rip it off. 

We Thank Thee Oh God For A Prophet

Fast week! Hope it was great for everybody!  We went on exchanges with the zone leaders and I went with Elder Kwok, Last time we went on exchanges was almost a year ago when I was still in training and he was in his 3rd transfer.  It was really cool to see how much we have changed! We taught one of our investigators Brother Huang who is really starting to progress well.  We were really trying to work on asking questions in the lesson, and as we did he started to open up and told us of a great experience he had with prayer.  It is so amazing to see people change from not really believing in God or thinking they had a relationship with him, to communicating with Him through prayer and seeing/feeling the answers everyday.  A relationship with our Heavenly Father truly is priceless.

We have also been focusing on how we can use our phones more effectively to help the work in Chaozhou progress. I truly believe that it is starting to help us connect with the Taiwanese people more than we could before. The sister's will be having a baptism this next Saturday! I did the baptismal interview and Sister Wang (Their investigator), I felt is one of the most prepared people I have ever seen.  The excitement she has when talking about the gospel and her testimony is truly inspiring! 

As we remember the life of our beloved Prophet Thomas S. Monson, I am grateful for the great example he was to all of us in always being aware of the one. Just like the Savior, he was always willing to stop whatever he was doing to help somebody in need.  He dedicated his life to helping people learn about our Savior and direct the affairs of His church.  He will always be remembered for the good that He did in the world! How blessed we truly are, in this restored church of Jesus Christ to have living Apostles and Prophets!

We thank thee O God for a prophet!

Love you all!

Elder Henderson

I invite you all to listen to these powerful words by our beloved Prophet! We all have struggles and hard times in life, but the Lord with never fail us or forsake us.  He will be at our side no matter what.

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-10-4060-president-thomas-s-monson?lang=eng

Here is a link to a voice recording from Elder Henderson:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KScz5Tppuqhb0OhBqM5-VVwnkdLnhj4N/view?usp=sharing