¡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 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