gratitude

Dear family,

How are you all? I didn´t even think to tell you "Happy Thanksgiving" last week, because I just forgot about it being last week. I hope you did have a great vacation and time to thank the Lord for all the things He does for us, big and small. We did get together and eat in a buffet on Thursday to celebrate. I really enjoyed that we could eat strawberries from that place because it is a nice, clean restaurant. One elder said we were wasting money eating so much fruit, but it was certainly not a waste to me. I wasn´t the typical or tradicional dinner, but it was a nice treat. I think my favorite part was the dessert. No pie, but a chef did make us a banana crepe with carmel on top and we added vanilla ice cream. Yum. Some missionaries questioned if we were really going to go out and work after that and we just assured them that because of our gratitude toward God, we wanted to do nothing more than go and teach the Gospel. Seems like a pretty sensible manner to demonstrate gratitude to me-in action.
President Lara´s favorite word is "gratitude". Thus, he often reminds us that we should be grateful to the Lord and to other people. I remember a long time ago that Hna Lara used all of her time in conference to talk about showing and expressing gratitude, especially to members that serve us. She emphasized that we shouldn´t just let the gratitude stay as a feeling incide us. Instead, we should express it, show it, write it down, so others know of the love and gratitude we feel for them.
Friday night a sister in Cotocollao hosted a Thanksgiving dinner. She not only invited us two, the members of the stake presidency and their wives, but all the missionaries of the stake (right now, that´s 11 because there´s a trio of sisters). She asked us to sing some hymns as a group and for me to share the story of the origen of Thanksgiving. It made me want to review the actual facts, but I just went from the classic and basic story with the pilgrims and native americans. Then, I shared the tradition of expressing gratitude, telling them that each person should tell us something they´re grateful for. They really loved it. I did too. It actually turned into a testimony meeting, which we even better, considering the non-members present. Then, we pulled out the turkey, salads, rice and potatoes and were physically fed. I´m not sure how much the nun there loved it, but if she opened her heart a bit, she really felt the Spirit. However, I hear she was trying to grill/interrogate the stake president and bishop afterwards. Note: trying. I mean, really, do people realize Who we work for? There you have it. 
Anyway, I´m very grateful for the testimonies of the saints, be they missionaries or "regular" (spectacular, amazing) members. I´m also so grateful for kind people like Hna Irene that think of doing nice things like that Thanksgiving dinner that not only help us feel more at home, but provide us with more opportunities to share the Gospel and show others what it really is all about. I´m SO grateful for my wonderful family. Holidays can be hard away from home, but when you know you can be together forever, what´s a couple holidays? Exactly. I´m also grateful for this amazing opportunity to share the Gospel with my fellow men. I really identify with DyC 14-15. I cannot think of anything better that I could be doing with my time, talents, and life. I´m grateful for the call and opportunity to serve. I´m grateful for the little tender tercies that the Lord sends down to us. Sometimes I just think "Heavenly Father must love me so much!" and I know it´s true, not only by what He does for me, but by the Spirit I feel as such thoughts come to my mind.
That happened this week with changes. As you all know, I´d been in my sector for 9months. Thus, a bunch of elders told me that I was going "de ley" (for sure). I just responded that one never knows. Well, as it turns out, I´m still here in Cotocollao and Condado. I think it´s hilarious. Hna Merback and I were so happy that we were jumping up and down screaming for joy..once again into the phone and ear of the zone leader, but he didn´t mind.  So, I´ll at least be here for 10.5 meses…just over half my misión. That´s fine with me, because I know I´m where the Lord wants me to be. Also, I´m so grateful I can extend down here, because otherwise it´d all be over in a couple weeks! It´s not that I don´t love you all and want to be home for Christmas; it´s just that I feel I need to stay until February.
I´m also grateful for the power of fasting. These are some of the blessings I saw as we fasted: Yesterday a new GOLDEN family came to church in Condado. They´re definitely looking and receptive to the truth. They´re relatives of some members. Of course, they don´t live in our sector, but they´re planning to move here in a couple months. The kids loved primary, so I bet that will help them come back soon…I hope. We also accompanied an investigator, Anita, to youth Sunday school and YW. Thus, I was in the very first YW class that Glenda Zambrano (a convert of a couple months) gave. It was amazing. I felt like I was seeing my child make her first steps. It was so wonderful to see her progress and to hear her bear her testimony to the girls of scripture study. She admitted that it had been something hard for her to do, but once she started, she just felt so good and so enthralled that she didn´t even want to stop reading the Book of Mormon until she had finished it. I wanted to cry it was so great.
Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful week. I don´t think I could have asked for better tender tercies from the Lord. But He always knows just what we need. 
Love you all!

Hna CS Henrichsen

Ecuabit: All the delivery guys down here use motorcycles. The funny thing is that it´s pretty normal to see two men on the same moto, (not as delivery boys, but policemen, etc.) which just seems a little…akward to us. That´s all.

P.S. This letter is a little late because we were in the doctor´s office for a couple hours today. Don´t worry, Mom, my tonsils are just swollen and they can´t figure out why. But it´s nothing that bothers me. It´s actually fun to have tonsil show and tell. More dramatic that way. Haha I guess we should have taken them out before…I sure would have liked to have all the ice cream I´d dreamed of as a little kid-the only real reason to get them taken out in my young mind.