¡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.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

New change!

Hello!
so here´s the news. I´m gonna be here the same for another 6 weeks boys. that means that I´m basically gonna complete a year in the mission and have 2 areas and 4 comps. impressive right? sometimes it feels kinda imprisoning to have spent so much time in so few areas and to know that i´m not going to get a change for another month and a half. the good side though, is that I´ve got this area figured out pretty well now and we´ve got 10 possible baptisms lined up for this here change with plans and all. not just a lofty unrealistic goal yáll, we´re talkin probability. so we´ve got some exciting stuff on the horizon. should be legit.
not a whole lot of really exciting things have happened since last week so there's not much to write about. I destroyed some 18 year old chick in a debate about the ¨holy death¨ it was funny. I wasn't rude, but I think I rocked her ¨beliefs¨ a bit just using scriptures and such. lets see... ya, not a whole lot. this week was pretty sad actually. ever since Thursday literally ALL of our appointments fell through so we were pounding doors for 3 days straight. its ok though. we always get blessings later for that. its like a blessings bank. if you want blessings, you need to pray, fast, and knock doors. works every time.
we have been working extremely hard and have seen lots of cool things. I have been able to be an instrument in the lords hands and feel the spirit working through me more than ever. I´ve been working hard through lots of struggles including being pretty sick but I want you to know I have not missed 1 day of work since my first change due to being sick. its been extremely hard but I´ve been way blessed for my efforts. the mission is awesome and I´m super glad I am out here. the church is true. I come to know that more and more as I get to know my savior and as the spirit strengthens and teaches me every day. just wanted to share that with you. Also I am getting better at following the still small voice and just doing stuff when I feel prompted to do it instead of just brushing it off as a stupid thought that crossed my mind. for instance lots of little things have just been conveniently working out like bringing my flashlight when I feel I should, then having it come in very handy later, or a while ago I felt like I should put some pieces of chalk in a bag and carry them in my backpack just in case we needed some in district meeting or something like that. well we didn´t need them in district meeting, but yesterday in church the teacher ran out of chalk and there was no more in the building that wasn´t being used so I was like, ¨hey, I´ve got chalk!¨ and scored about 5 points with the members. it was cool. there´s been lots of other little things too that help life to be just that much easier. well, love you guys! you´re awesome! have a week filled awesomeness with magic. (watching harry potter might help).
here´s a random pic of us in the bus. we´re headed to Zone Conference. these are the other three missionaries that lived in the house with me last change.
love,
Elder Henze

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Planting Seeds

hola!!
Sounds like things are finally calming down over there from the holidays. that's always kinda sad but nice at the same time. I´m glad you guys had a good time with jam and cor and ali and ron and macy and everyone. I do miss those times. but look forward anxiously to the day when I can be chillin with you all again. it´ll be cool. as for right now though things are going good here in the mission. I´m still planting seeds but enjoying the work.!

this week we received a lot of blessings from heavenly father for our hard work so far this change. two people from another ward contacted us because they had super references for us that were from our area. This past week we found 13 new investigators!!! normal is like 5 or 6. and the week before we found 11! none of them are progressing, but hey, the chances of someone getting baptized out of those 24 is pretty high. the families we met this week seem much better than all the others. (new investigators means anyone who listened to a lesson and set a return date for another) we also put 3 dates for baptism but they´re kinda iffy. we did, however, convince a family to come to church this week that´s been inactive for 2 years! so that was cool.

so ya, I´ve been working the hardest i´ve ever worked in the mission and it feels great! me and my companion get along really well and have learned lots of things from each other. He´s helped me to be more efficient because his job before the mission was industrial engineer with a specialty in productivity and quality. potentially annoying but with the right perspective and some humility its a huge blessing and help for me especially this being my first time being totally in charge. so its cool.

Dad, thanks for the advice about reading dyc 18. that's a super good chapter and especially verses 15 and 16. I read over them and pondered for a while this morning and feel good and excited about the work! sorry this is so short. I miss you all and love you (as you know).
talk to you later!

***

Jam. dont got no time but wanted to send you a shout out. yes, its tuesday. we didn´t have much time for internet yesterday so we`re pumpin out some short shout outs right now before the work. thanks for the fruitsnacks and the ovaltine and best of all the hair hookups! they´re workin´ just dandy. also wanted you to know i`m still rockin´ the RWH ring. i`ve officially had it for a year now boys! heres a pic. have a good week yo! you too cor. booyah SON!
-E. Spence

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Every Member a Missionary

hey!
Thats sooo cool that Carrington got baptized. With all your help those missionaries had it EASY!!! I just gave a talk in church yesterday about how important the members are in missionary work and explained how they could smoothly share things about the church with their friends using the methods they teach us now which is start by talking about Christ first and his doctrine. then that brings up interest about the authority and the ordinances and the restoration and is a perfect time to invite the missionaries to join. however, the members seemed very unreceptive to the message and that depressed me for a while yesterday but who knows, maybe one of them will be animated about the work as a result of the talk. from the pulpit they all just looked soo like... ¨oh here we go... stupid elder wants us to do his work for him¨ and it effected me a lot. for a couple minutes the spirit left me as I was speaking when I realized the general reaction of the audience and was shocked. my Spanish went out the window for a few moments and I just felt weird. however, with a prayer in my heart the spirit returned and so did my Spanish. I held onto the hope that maybe someone would be touched by my talk. I have faith that it will result in if not references, maybe at least someday down the road someone will hear the gospel because of the way I explained to them how to start talking about it. anyway so for a little bit yesterday I was a little down but like always with prayer and faith my spirits were lifted again and I feel great!
We´ve been working hard out here. I always thought that once I was senior comp and could do things my way I would see more success. I was sure of it, but the success has been very hard to see. Its there, I just have to look for it. Miracles still happen every day even though they´re small, but thats what helps me keep the faith and desire to walk 10 miles each day talking to people until I almost don´t have a voice at night and exerting myself physically, mentally and emotionally until I wonder how much longer I can do this having almost nothing to show for it. I think my time in this area has just been mostly planting seeds and strengthening the members even though a lot of them don´t like me a whole lot because I can´t speak super well and they don´t understand my personality. Don´t get me wrong, I´m not unhappy, in fact I´m very happy. Its just hard to keep up the spirits at all times when It appears that my efforts have almost no effect. I know that amidst the grim appearance, though, the success is there. and even though I don´t see it I have been helping people a lot more than I probably realize. The spirit has confirmed that to me and thats what keeps me going. It helps me to realize that I DO see these little miracles every day. we´ve been able to make progress with some VERY difficult inactive members. when the members hear about some of the in-actives we´ve been visiting they are shocked that they are letting us visit them. so things like that are cool but don´t produce much in the way of numbers. I´m not concerned about the numbers though. You all in the fam talking to you on Christmas and from the letters from Dad have helped me to realize that the numbers aren´t important. they´re just guidelines. and that the real success is how I work to serve the lord. and there is a lot more to the lord´s work than just baptizing people. Obviously thats way important, but you know what I mean. So thats been my thoughts lately as I reflect on this change seeing as how it is coming to a close very quickly. It looks like there aren´t going to be many changes this change because nobody is coming into the mission so i´m most likely going to be here another change. I´m gonna complete a year in the mission with 2 areas!! haha. oh well :) I´m gonna know the city really well if you guys come back with me afterwards so I guess thats a plus!
on a more positive note, we figured out we have this little pueblo in our area called San Felipe Tejalapa in which we knocked 7 doors on Saturday and found 7 new investigators!!! (2 families) the only problem is they live about an hour away from the chapel and there isn´t much in the way of transportation out there. who cares though. we´re gonna teach them the gospel! BOOYAH!
well, I´m doing good. its just been a little more difficult mentally lately but i´m busting it out! haha. thanks to you guys and your support and council :)
I love you!!!
-Elder Spencer Henze

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

2011

booyah!
best way to start a letter.
haha. new years here was pretty exciting. new years eve we spent trying to visit people but seeing as how new years is an even bigger deal than christmas here nobody wanted us. so we pretty much just were cruizing around the streets alone. we found a new investigator though! booyah! that night was cool.

I had a fever the 30th and was still feeling pretty bad the night of the 31st so we came home at about 9 and went straight to bed. I had my ear plugs in and everything but was woken up at exactly 12 by all kinds of those dynamite bottle rockets going off at the same time. and my ear plugs are like made of wax stuff so it was a pretty incredible ammount of noise to be able to wake me up. so I looked at my clock and saw that it was 12 and ¨huh, look at that. its 2011.¨ and went back to sleep. very festive. my halo pillow has been helping me stay propped up at night to drain my sinuses. pretty much owe it my life.

so the next day (the 1st) we went out a little early cuz a nice newly wed family wanted to give us tamales for breakfast. so we ate us some tamales and hung out there for a bit then went out to work. after about 2 hours we realized it was pointless to even be out of the house because everyone was drunk or dead from partying their guts out the night before so we were like ¨hey we´re gonna have a baptism tomorrow, lets go get the font ready!¨ so we did.

turned out to be a fiasco. we litter ally had to syphan water with hoses from a large tank called a tinaco which was located above the ceiling of the church into the font. after we finally figured out how to do that we had to go to the food appt and afterward came back to make sure the church didn´t flood. it didn´t but we made a huge mess trying to get the water to syphan. so we cleaned that up and after finishing that we realized that that day was our ward´s turn to clean the church and absolutely nobody showed up other than the poor bishop and his family so we stayed and helped them clean the whole building.

then we spent about an hour making programs for the baptism. then we went to visit people but realized we were just bothering everyone so we just went home and went to bed cuz now we were both feeling sick. (I´ve been out working every day this week even though i had a fever for 2 days and still have a nasty cold--UHHHHHH!!!!!) the next day, Sunday, we spent the morning visiting people and inviting them to church cuz our services start at 1 now. only 1 came but thats better than 0.

then we had the baptismal interview scheduled for Ingrid at 12 so we got to the church an hour early. Ingrid showed up but just to tell us that she wasn´t going to get baptized because word leaked out to a cousin or something about her baptism and he flipped out and started causing all kinds of family problems over the issue. the poor girl was in tears and felt terrible but felt that she shoud try to solve the problems first before getting baptized. I was very understanding and supportive, telling her not to worry and that everything was alright even though I was suuuuper let down inside and realized that we just threw away a day of work for nothing, but didn´t let on to that and just let her know we were on her side. so that sucked.

but later on we had our last choir performance wich went well. especially for my voice condition of being sick. I was totally prepared to croak during my solo but everyone said it was my second best one. ...not sure what that means about the other ones, but... i´m just taking it as a complement and not thinking too much into it. the truth is i really could care less. haha. it was fun.

so that brings us to today!!! this last couple of weeks has been pretty lame as far as the work goes because of the holidays, but I think it should start picking up here soon. everyone says thats just the way it is during these times with missionary work. it makes sense! its been alright though and the best part is its just gonna keep getting better from here! so there you have it. my whole last week basically! today has been way relaxing and chill. i´ve enjoyed it thoroughly.

me and the ward hie´d to kolob yesterday. I played piano for the prelude music and just played ¨if you could hie to Kolob¨ a million times. I think we were about to arrive there too but then the bishop got up and made me stop.



The attached pic is a tradition here.
for new years they make a scarecrow dude which represents the old year and they pack it with bombs and other exciting things then at 12 on new years eve they burn him...
yes, the second one is a shopping cart on an escalator. don´t worry though.
its designed to do that.
and finally the missionary choir.
I have a video of my solo but it was too big to include.
this is the second to last performance

take it easy my friends.
you are missed.
love,
E. Spencer Henze