ABOUT RALEIGH

Raleigh (pronounced /ˈrɔːli/) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina, the seat of Wake County and the second largest city in North Carolina (after Charlotte). Raleigh is known as the "City of Oaks" for its many oak trees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's estimated population on July 1, 2008 was 401,552 (a 42% increase from the 2000 Census), over an area of 114.6 square miles, making Raleigh the 8th fastest growing city and the 45th largest city in the United States.

Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill make up the three historically primary cities of the Research Triangle metropolitan region. The regional nickname of "The Triangle" originated after the 1959 creation of the Research Triangle Park, located between the cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill and the three major research universities of NC State University, Duke University, and UNC-Chapel Hill. The Research Triangle region encompasses the U.S. Census Bureau's Combined Statistical Area of Raleigh-Durham-Cary in the central Piedmont region of North Carolina. As of July 1, 2008 the estimated population of the Raleigh-Durham-Cary CSA was 1,690,557, while the Raleigh-Cary Metropolitan Statistical Area was estimated at 1,088,765, making it the nation's fastest growing metropolitan area.

HELLO Y'ALL FROM RALEIGH

Man I don’t really feel as southern now...I’m in the big city ha-ha. It has been great. The area is amazing, we cover downtown Raleigh, so it’s fun to go down there on Saturday’s and contact all the people walking around! My comp is Elder Worsley, he was actually in my district while in Goldsboro, so we know each other. We are stoked to be serving with each other. Elder Worsley is from Star, Idaho. He is a great Elder and I am stoked to be serving with him. The ward is BOMB! The ward members are so cool they are so missionary minded and focused on the work. I’m stoked to serve with them. The wards mission leader is an ex-running back from BYU. Tyrone Brown. He is legit! He loves the work and helps us out a lot.

Well investigator wise, there is great work going on here. We have an investigator, Maurice, who has a baptismal date set for April 10th! He was interviewed yesterday and he is good to go! His wife and sister-in law are recent converts and he is great! Maurice has a great desire to learn and is ready for the commitment of baptism! Then we have Corey, he is a young guy about 27...he is on probation though so he cannot be baptized...but he see him every week to help him gain his testimony. He is limited to how far he can travel, so he can sometimes come to church and he has to be back in the house at 7 pm. so if it wasn’t for the probation, he would be baptized. Willey, he is a Hispanic man, he just got out jail himself. He wants to turn his life around, and asked us the other day what he needs to do to become baptized, and hopefully he’s not on parole or probation. We are also working with a lot of part-member families who are close to making the commitment, but I haven’t met them yet so we'll see what happens from there. So good work going on here!

We live close to the mission office so I should get mail sooner than usual ha-ha. We live in a nice complex.
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Downtown Raleigh is legit! We took some cool pics while we were down there on Saturday. Its fun talking to all different sorts of people, we also ride the bus every now and then.DOWNTOWN RALEIGH

Well I hope all is well with y'all. I love and miss each and every one of you! I know that this is the Lord's work and miracles are so real! i love this gospel and the Book of Mormon is amazing!

Skraight Outta Raleigh,
Elder Henricksen

TRANFER TIME & STAKE CONFERENCE

Tomorrow I am being transferred, so when I email y’all next Monday I’ll be somewhere different. Sister Bass is hoping I go to the Burlington Ward, because that’s where her daughter Beth is at ha-ha. I did get to say bye to my fav Tarboro people, the Bass', Gossers, Mulstays, Beckwith's and tonight we're eating with the Rogers, so that will be fun. Today will be the deciding factor of me and Elder Christensen! It’s tied 2-2, and today is the final showdown! I won’t disappoint y’all :)THE P-DAY GOLF SHOWDOWN W/ELDER CHRISTENSEN

Well Mike, we are no longer teaching him...we went over on Thursday night and right when we walked in, he wanted to show us a video, it was called the search for truth, something like that...and it was pretty much anti-Mormon stuff and comparing Jesus to Joseph Smith. It bashed on the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith...it was just not good. he stopped it with like 3 mins left and said, I can’t believe something that I can’t see (lack of faith) and can’t see himself believing in our faith, and pretty much said he's trying to save us from hell. Then we started arguing again about how we should be going off of a Testimony from the heart and not words from men, and I just stood up and said, “This isn’t going anywhere, we're just going to leave”, and that was that. We had a great lesson with Jamika that same day, and had a great review lesson on the restoration and she understood a lot and I’m excited for Elder Nielsen, and Elder(?) to continue teaching her.

I saw Marcella on Saturday night; it was SOO good to see her! Man we were both very happy! I’m pretty sure she's already called you and told you ha-ha. Yeah she is doing great; she has a grip of callings and working toward the Temple for sure! I saw the Granthams, I love that family, they are moving back to Utah in June. I saw other people from the good ol’ Goldsboro Ward, so that was a good reunion. The Stake Conference was good; President Packer was presiding and the concluding speaker, along with Elder Sitati and sister Thompson.

This week I have gained a great testimony about this Gospel and the Book of Mormon. Yesterday as we were reading from the Book of Ether 12, it just hit me how much the Book of Mormon teaches us how to be the best we can. It’s something the Bible can’t do. I can’t remember what verse but it talks about the formula for gaining faith, hope and charity and teaches is SO clearly, it’s hard to miss. And of course Ether 12:27 make our weaknesses strong with humility and faith, (fav scripture). I have definitely been living by that scripture now.

I love you and I miss y'all so much. Hope all is well. I will be somewhere else next week! Take care.

Skraight Outta Tarboro one last time,
Elder Blake Henricksen

ZONE CONFERENCE & BOOK of MORMON

So yes last week I beat Elder Christensen for best out of 3 in golf! Today is alright weather; I think we can get 9 in today. This Saturday and Sunday is Stake Conference, the one that got delayed from last month. It is being broadcasted from Atlanta Georgia and going to all the churches on the east coast pretty much. So I should be seeing Marcella this Saturday at the adult session. I wrote her last week and told her that, so hopefully the letter gets there by Friday, which it should, Goldsboro is like 45 mins away.

We didn’t get to meet with Mike this week, he was pretty busy, but hopefully we can this week because it may be my last week here...but we will see what “Black Saturday” brings! Y’all will find out on Monday if I will be transferred. We saw Jamie this week just for like 10 mins at her door. She’s been ok, work and school and 3 kids is hectic ha-ha. She is going to be calling us today for an appointment sometime this week :) She is reading from the Book of Mormon though which is great.

We had Zone conference last week and it was GREAT! It was about the Book of Mormon. It was the most spiritual Zone Conference that I have been to. President Cotterell made sure that everyone was Spiritually prepared to be fed! In every Zone Conference he doesn’t want us to learn from him, he wants us to learn from the Spirit. So with that in mind plus learning about the most powerful book on earth, it was legit! I walked away with a stronger testimony for the Book of Mormon and for this gospel! And President Cotterell wants to "flood" NC with Books of Mormon! So every companionship is using the Book of Mormon hardcore now, which is great!

I love you and miss you a lot! Hope all is going well, because it definitely is here :) this church is true, Book of Mormon is the word of God and this is the Lord's work.

Skraight Outta Tarboro,
Elder Blake Henricksen

Well again, nice weather outside! Elder Christensen beat me by 1 stroke last Monday(P-Day) playing golf, but we had to go into 2 playoff holes ha-ha, it got intense. It’s beautiful today, like 62ish outside! so were teeing off again today!

Well this Sunday was the first Sunday combined with Rocky Mount! It was a great meeting, with it being Fast and Testimony meeting too. All 4 of us Missionaries bore our testimonies and the spirit was just strong there. I think there was about 170-180 people there, and the goal is in the next couple years to split the ward into 2 wards, so hopefully that'll happen in the future. So quick funny story, while i was in Roanoke, we were contacting some people in the ghetto-ish area and we saw this guy with dreads just down the sidewalk so we approached him, talked about Jesus a little bit and he bore testimony about how God answers prayers...but in a different sense...he prayed to receive 5 bucks so he could buy a blunt (weed pretty much) and one day he was walking down the railroad tracks and he found 5 bucks and bought a blunt ha-ha. so that was interesting ha-ha, only in North Carolina.

We had an appointment with Mike, it went pretty good, not how we planned it, we brought out more concerns, because he thinks he's perfect, according to Hebrews 10:14, so next time we go over there, our lesson will be on that pretty much. Marianne, the wife, gave me a letter to give to President Cotterell, about how she doesn’t want me to leave. I’ll have to copy it and send it to you, it will make you a happy mom :) and with Lisa, that one referral, we called her 2 days ago, and she WANTS to meet with us, but she is going out of town to Hawaii for 2 weeks, so if i get transferred I’ll never meet her. We should be getting up with Jamie this week, last week was busy for her being a single mom with 3 little girls and work and school, crazy right?

This week we went out with Bishop Compton twice to visit member and less-actives to make them have a better attitude and more comfortable with the merge, so that was great! We had great visits with some members and Bishop Compton knows how to work with members very well. The Ward here is very excited and involved with missionary work, so that is really good and should help out a lot for Tarboro area of Rocky Mount Ward. One person this merge is good for is Bro R., he is a non-member married to a member and he comes to church every week, he is really cool guy we get along way good haha. In the ward there are more people his age that are cool, so i think that will help a lot for him. I totally see him being a member before the years ends. We are going over tonight; we usually go over every other Monday and have dinner and FHE with them. I love that family.

Well my family, I have developed a greater testimony of Joseph Smith this week. We watched the new "Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration" movie with the Mulstay's and it was a great movie!! (I recommend seeing it) and that night i prayed to reaffirm my testimony and the next morning while studying, it hit me, he is a true Prophet and through him Jesus Christ restored the complete full Gospel on the earth today! He went through a lot and yet he fought the good fight of faith and dedication! I love you and miss ya'll. Hope all is well and I’m praying for you!

Skraight outta Tarboro,
Elder Henricksen

TARBORO BRANCH NOW PART OF THE ROCKY MOUNT WARD

Last Monday (P-Day) after we got done emailing, it rained allllllll day so we couldn’t golf, but this week is nice weather so were definitely playing today! Roanoke Rapids Elders came down so there will be 6 of us playing! This week I’ll be up in Roanoke with Elder Fastje on an exchange and you gotta love that Paper Mill smell. Ha-ha

Yesterday was it, the whole Stake Presidency came down and released the Branch Presidency and then all at once released all Quorums, auxiliaries, teachers, assistants, and everyone. We then sustained Bishop Compton as our Bishop and this Sunday we'll be heading to Rocky Mount for church. This is definitely going to be the true test for our investigators to see who will make the big trip all the way to Rocky Mount, which is about 22 miles away. I asked Pres Cotterell what would happen to us and he said that the missionaries will stay in Tarboro as long as there is good member support and work happening in Tarboro, so we need to work out butts off and keep the members alive and going.
NOW THIS IS A "LEGIT" SIGN HA-HA

We still haven’t gotten up with Mike since he came to church, he had Funerals 2 weeks in a row and there is a virus going around Tarboro right now, and it hit Mike so we couldn’t meet him on Saturday, and couples other of our investigators were hit by it too, along with 5 members. Luckily it hasn’t hit us! Last week we tracted some apartments that we found and got 3 potential gators! And one of them turned into an investigator! Met with her (Jamika) the next day and had a great lesson with her. She was interested in The Restoration of the Gospel a lot, and compared herself to Joseph Smith, so that was pretty cool. The other two potentials, we should be getting up with this week! We are excited to see if they go anywhere. Most of them told us they had little church background and looking for something right now, so hopefully they will recognize the truth that we hold :) Had another good lesson with Harry with reading the Book of Mormon with him, just need to get him into the Gospel and get him to church and all that stuff...mainly he just needs to ask if this Church is true...I hope we can make it happen.
"COOL OLD CHURCH"

Well my beautiful family and the new addition to the family Skye! I hope that all is going well and know that I love each and every one of you with all my body! Ryan, thank you for the idea of having the family send me your testimony of the Book of Mormon to place in Books of Mormon we pass out to investigators. I think it’ll be SICK and your testimonies will be with someone here in NC! This is the Lord's work and I’m grateful to be a part of it, and Elder Bair and I say to each other, “We’re on the front lines of this great battle and we're winning!”

Skraight outta Tarboro,
Elder Henricksen