¡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.

Monday, March 21, 2011

ONE YEAR!!!!!

(Celebration)
HOWDY!!!
Alright its officially official! I´m a year old!!! woohoo!! only 361 days left and i´ll be at home kickin´ it with all of you! but until then, Its my time to shine boys!! haha. this year´s gonna be sooo much better than the first. the language wont be such a struggle, teaching is coming along pretty nicely, I´ve now got an idea about how to approach the changes, like, the ¨game plan¨ if you will, and ya, it should be a lot less stressful and i´m SUUUPER excited to see what I can accomplish this year. Its gonna be great :)
SO, heres some of the highlights!
On wednesday we put a baptismal date with a lady and we´re gonna put one with her son this week! so that was pretty exciting. we also received a reference and contacted her and it seems like she´s going to progress nicely :) then thursday evening we had to head out to the city of Oaxaca (which is about an hour away from where we´re at currently) for the conference on friday and the temple trip on saturday! It was a weekend fulled with fun and adventure! haha. sounds like something peter pan would say... so upon arriving home on thursday night we made my 1 year shirt.
BACKGROUND INFO: it is customary in the mexico oaxaca mission to burn a shirt upon completing a year in the mission.
SO, I whipped out the markers and started to draw beautiful drawings and words on my year shirt. pictures are attached. (Don´t worry mom and Dad, the shirt I chose to destroy was one that was already destroyed. I ripped it in my first area getting into a mototaxi and it was beyond repair. The only reason why i hadn´t thrown it away before this is for this exact event.) Upon finishing my drawings and writing my quotes on it, I proceeded to put the shirt on and take pictures of myself gracefully flying through the air with my guitar in hand and awesome expressions on my face. celebration.
after that we didn´t get to burn the shirt because it was super late and we had to go because the last bus to oaxaca was going to leave in 10 minutes. so we grabbed all our stuff and ran 5 blocks to the bus.
we stayed that night in the offices with some of the coolest elders in the mission. It was a super fun night. (pics also attached)
the next day was the conference. it was legit. as Josh Groban would say, "It raised me uuuup!!!!" haha. While I was there I learned that my Kid (the missionary I trained) now is going to be training... yes, he just started his 3rd change in the mission. don´t ask. but hey, I´m officially a grandpa!!! (mission-ly speaking) so thats kinda cool!
the rest of that day we did divisions with the ZLs and I got to help my zone leader answer some very direct questions one of his investigator ladies had about what goes on inside of the temple :D between him and I we were able to solve her questions without revealing more than the topical guide does in the scriptures. whew!! thats always a slightly difficult topic. especially when they know a lot more than they should already. then we went home and I opened my packages! WOOHOO!!! thank you JAM COR MOM DAD ALI AND THE JOHNSONS!!!! You´re all the best.
The NEXT day we went to the temple at a very comfortable time, 6:00am. it was terrific! They made some changes to the session which made things even more exciting :) then after that we headed back to the area. at night we burned my shirt!!!
Sunday went well. I got to give a talk again. This time I didn´t even bother writing it though. I just jotted some topics on a note to keep myself organized and went for it. it turned out well I think. I got the people to laugh a few times which always makes me happy :) after church we found a new family to teach :D awesome.
That brings us to today. you all are officially updated!
Well, I know I always say this, but I love you ALL! thank you for all your love and support. you all are truly helping make my mission awesome. thank you :)
Love,
E. Spencer Henze






Me burning my shirt :) HAPPY ONE YEAR FOR ME!!!

Package from Cor & Jamie

Me with the Prez and the Hermana De La Cruz

(left to right) me, my kid (Elder Martínez), and my grandson, (Elder Madrid)

Tuesday, March 1, 2011