¡bienvenido!

Spencer Michael Henze served a 2 year, full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints among the people of Oaxaca, Mexico (pronounced wa-ha-ka). This is the week-by-week account of his service. Elder Henze returned with honor March 21, 2012.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Utah Salt Lake City South Mission


Click anywhere on the letter to enlarge it so you can read it better :)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Here we go again...

Little update from Spencer... these consulate fools can't make up their minds on whether or not they're going to let him go to Mexico! :(

"I officially got reassigned to Salt Lake South last week right after I emailed you so I couldn't tell you. I got a phone pass but couldn't get ahold of the parents so i traded it in for email time on friday just to find out the server for myldsmail was down, then i tried chatting with the technical service people to see if they could get it up and running for me and the dude only spoke spanish which in a way was cool cuz I got to chat in spanish but then again not cool cuz explaining technical problems in english is hard enough... so I figured I could just tell you on tuesday (today). It was a headache though.
i'm gonna find out what the SLC South mission home address is so you'll have it..
i have no idea how long i'll be in SLC.. could be an hour.. could be a month.. i dont know.. so ya.. sorry about the double periods.. the computers here suck.."

So, that's what I know so far. As soon as he gets his new address, it will be on this blog! Stay tuned...




Friday, June 18, 2010

Classroom Creeper Peepers

This took forever for me to type out from Spencer's hand-written letter because I couldn't stop laughing & shaking from all the laughing. He is hysterical! Enjoy :)

"So about 2 weeks ago, I got a genius idea. So our classrooms all have these peepholes that people can peer through and we have no idea. This is a disturbing thought to me that creepy fools could be watching me without me knowing since I'm in there all day. Not because I'm doing anything I wouldn't want others to know about, but I just don't like the thought of being watched by creepy peepers. So I took matters into my own hands. Also people peep into the rooms to look for things to steal. and since we have many luxuries we would be robbed like no other had I not done what I did. You're probably like "ok I get it freaking tell me already!" So here you go.
I went to a room that looked exactly identical to ours through the peephole and had all those normal chair/desk things and arranged them all neatly and boringly so it looked like the perfectly average room and took a picture from the spot of the peephole. I then had that picture printed. Size? 8x10. I then took that 8x10 picture of a perfectly average room and out of paper and tape made a contraption that would hold the picture just the right distance away in front of the peephole that when you look through the peephole, all you see is a perfectly average classroom with nobody in it. It works perfectly!
Our room has an especially large amount of people peepin' cuz the tutor sign up sheet for the entire 4th floor is located on our door. And what better thing is there to do when crowded around someone's door than to take a peek through their peephole? See what's goin' on ya know? So they do, and they get very confused when they see an empty room but hear us in there. They almost always open the door and poke their heads in to try to figure out whats going on and calm their minds about it. We probably, no joke, have 10-15 people a day just open our door, look inside, see us, then pull their head back out so fast they almost shut the door on themselves when we look over and say "Sup?" Its really funny. So there's today's story."

(pic of their actual classroom)

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Visa Update

hey!
so... i'm still waiting for the chance to go to salt lake to sign the visa papers... they haven't gotten an appointment for me to do that yet and have absolutely no iformation about it. its a tad frustrating cuz my visa has been here since last tuesday. the other mexican missionaries who are in my same position are pretty sure we'll all go by the end of the week but I cant say for sure. last night we cleaned out our classroom and put everything back the way it's supposed to be with the crappy desks and everything cuz there's a new district coming in to inhabit the room tomorrow. also Elder Ford left for his reassignment in the Salt Lake City South Mission. so i'm kickin it with the ZL's today until we decide who my real companions are gonna be until i leave. It's so weird. its like i'm being replaced and now i'm just a burden on everyone :( I miss Elder Ford too. i guess thats to be expected after spending every waking moment with someone for 3 months. you get pretty comfortable with each other. so today has been a little tough, but i'm doin' alright :) going to the temple was just what I needed.
...i have a feeling i'm gonna be here a few more days.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Se va a Mexico!

Looks like Spence is finally leaving the MTC! A couple days ago he told us that he heard a rumor that he might be reassigned to an area in Utah, but turns out his visa came through after all.

"so, sorry about this roller coaster of info. a lot of things have been happening the last couple days. so the latest news (which is confirmed and not just a rumor) is that I am not being reasigned! My visa came on tuesday and they are going to send me to the consolate office in Salt Lake either today, tomorrow, or early next week to sign papers, then a few days after that i'll be off to Mexico! Elder Hunt got his visa about a week ago and is leaving for Vera Cruz tomorrow. Elder Outsen got reassigned to ogden and is leaving today in 2 hours, Elder Ford got reassigned to Salt Lake City South and leaves tuesday, and I just got lucky and got my visa! pretty good news huh? i'm excited but pretty dang nervous. I still have a hard time understanding natives and i'm not excited to get sick and have crazy conditioin-D (diah) but it'll be cool to actually be in the field! anyways, thats the update. I'm finally almost done with the MTC after over 3 months! I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all a lot and hope to hear from you soon!"

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Letter from Spencer 6/3/2010

Hey Spencer fans! Jamie here. Sorry there hasn't been many new posts - Elder Henze is still stuck in limbo waiting for his visa, so we're all kinda just waiting to see what happens. BUT - we did get this sweet letter from Spencer the other day, and I officially got permission from the man himself to share it with everyone :) So here ya go! Enjoy.


"hi! ... i'm just gonna tell you about some cool things that have happened to me lately that I forgot to put in the letter I sent out to you yesterday. So last tuesday D. Todd Christofferson came and spoke to us. it was way cool. he taught us a bunch of stuff from D&C. then afterwards we went out to wave bye to him (its usually customary for the apostle to just get in his car and drive away and wave to us) (and they all drive toyota camrys) and he opened his door and put his bag in the car then shut the door without his wife getting in... kinda strange. then to our astonishment he started walking over to the side I was on and I was at the very front of the pack of missionaries so i was like "NO WAY!" he walked right up to us and started shaking hands and talking to the missioinaries! this was a first. well I (keyword) was at the front of the pack, but somehow about 15 elders managed to slunk in front of me. irritating. but i was still among the first to shake his hand! he pronounced my name Henz but oh well. it was still way cool to shake the hand of an apostle! also Elder Foster from the second quorum of the seventy came this tuesday and talked about a lot of cool stuff about prayer and God and a bunch of other stuff but he showed us a couple short videos about science stuff :D one was where they pointed the hubble at a patch of "empty" space that was about the size of a grain of sand held out at arm's length, zoomed in, and left the shutter open for several days. what they found was insane. in that tiny patch of empty space they found over 10,000 galaxies each containing several billion stars and tons of planets. with some physics calculations they were able to determine roughly the distances of these galaxies and put together a 3-D visualization of what it would look like to travel into that seemingly empty spot of space at unreal speeds and eventually pass by all these galaxies until the extent of the picture. it was unbelievable. it was a lot like I had imagined when contemplating the universe in my own head. he showed us this to give us some rough idea of what God took moses out and showed him that one night as recorded in the book of moses. he related that to knowledge and success and how when that comes externally we will always want more. even though moses had seen at that time more than any scientist could hope to see today he still wanted to know more. he then said when we truly understand our divine heritage and who and what we really are thats when we are truly satisfied. it only comes from within. we need to connect to that "stream of living water" which is Christ and we will "thirst no more." this knowledge only comes from prayer and the spirit. the next video was about Earth and how every aspect of the earth is perfect for sustaining life. down to the density of the earth's core so that its gravitational field could pull in and sustain just the right thickness of gas molecules around the earth to create the protective barrier called the atmosphere that protects us from everything from harmful rays of the sun to most space debris. and how it is jsut the right thickness that it allows just the right amount of light from the sun in and to escape so we don't burn and keeps just enough in that we have sufficient heat. how the earth's crust is just soft enough that it can release just the right amount of heat from the earth's core so that we don't burn. those are only a couple small examples. but if you think about it logically, there's NO way this could have all come about by chance. God created this earth for us because he loves us and wanted us to be able to have this experience. also to think that God is in charge of all those other millions of galaxies in the universe brings a new light to how powerful and omnicient he really is. also knowing that it makes us appreciate more how amazing it is that we, through prayer, can communicate with him. and that he knows us by name. also about prayer he talked about how its a principle of agency to decide to pray and that God doesn't usually answer prayers untill we ask. but when we do ask it says in D&C that our prayers are heard and recorded and god has committed to us that he will answer them. we just need to be patient and wait on the answer because he will answer in his own time and way. even if it takes a lifetime, he will answer. anyways, it was a cool talk. I just wanted to share some hilights with you. i didn't really have time to proof read this so hopefully it all makes sense. k well i will talk to you later! have a good week and tell everyone I say hi and that I love them.


love

-Elder Henze"