Hey Everybody!
This was a pretty chill week I must say. Kinda like when I used to have ¨half days¨ in school. This was like a half week cuz we left Ocotlan on Saturday morning at about 10 am to make the hour long sojourn to the magnificent city of Oaxaca so that we could watch conference. As always it was sick to be able to see all my missionary buddies and chill with them, along with some of the many members I was able to meet while serving in the city. It was like a mission reunion! haha. see, the thing is that here nobody gets BYU television here (believe it or not...) so they all have to congregate in their respective stake centers to watch. so it was a party. This time I didn´t have the opportunity to watch it in English which is kind of a bummer cuz the translators sound like robots and its not nearly as powerful. luckily though, I can now understand everything they say so it still works. It was kind of interesting because I was having trouble switching between languages to take notes so I just took all my notes in Spanish. I didn´t know I could do that until this week seeing as how even in English they talk so fast sometimes its tough to take good notes. Saturdays sessions were awesome. the two hours between sessions was a party. we went to burger king in El Centro. Booyah. I might have put on the cardboard crown while eating... then that night we slept in the offices that are located about a half mile from the stake center we belong to. when we got there the assistants were on divisions and the assistant that showed up to let us in didn´t have the keys. haha. so we ditched our stuff in a safe place and cruised on into chedraui (Mexico´s walmart) and scored ourselves some fried chicken. after that I started to develop a king size headache. well, that headache later wouldn´t let me sleep so I took me an Excedrin. I hesitated to do that seeing as how each pill has 65 mg of caffeine, but i figured, "well, cant sleep anyways." and took it. well, just like I thought, the caffeine took effect and after talking to a couple of the other guys who were dealing with stomach problems that weren´t allowing them to sleep either for about an hour I decided to try to sleep again. This time I got a magnificent idea. "Doctrine and Covenants!!!" so I whipped out my triple and in less than 3 sections I was sound asleep :) so powerful...
Next Day... (law and order chung chung)
The morning sessions went super well. Then afterwards we partied even more than the day before because each ward or branch separated into a different room and they had food arrangements for each one. we got to eat steamed vegetables with cheese and rice. YUM! haha. it was actually not too bad. and for dessert we had carrot shavings and cream with raisins! I also met a cool sister from Australia that married a dude from here and has been living here off and on for about 7 years. it was kinda cool to hear an Australian accent.
the last session was legit. I don´t really remember which session it was on Sunday but it was the intense one where the dude was talking about being rather than just doing. (which hit me super powerfully as a sort of revelation as another testimony about what the mission really is) and when he was talking about how we need to hate the sin and not the sinner and how we should never assign negative things to our kids as discipline he was giving examples as calling them stupid, bad, rebellious, etc. well, the funny thing is that the word "stupid" in Spanish is "estupido" and its a moderately strong swear word... now normally when the word is said in general conference or anything that is being translated into Spanish from the church, the translator uses the non offensive word "tonto." well, this time I guess this translator forgot and he threw it right out there. Directly following the which everyone who was gathered in the chapel gave an audible gasp. I was silently laughing :)
then at the end I don´t know if you saw, but just before they turned off the cameras while everyone was getting up to leave after the closing prayer a dude who looked kinda like Ali's friend cordin stood up, turned around and gave a big dumb smile taking up most of the screen. I laughed.
also in that session a dude spoke who had a Mexican accent, don't know if you remember but his name is Elder Benjamin De Oyos from the 70. well, he recently visited my mission and gave us a zone conference back in September or so. I got to shake his hand and participate in a training with him. it was sweet. he´s way cool. I saw him up there and was like "hey, there he is!" haha. just an interesting little tidbit for you :)
well, after conference we came home exhausted and today was a nice relaxing P day. we watched the RM in the prayer house :) I also pounded a v8 today. so, naturally it was a good day. AND i´ve officially decided to change my diet seeing as how im getting kinda fat but loosing body mass at the same time (hows that possible? i´ll let you know when I figure it out) but I perused the fruit and vegetable section today and picked myself up some humble little morsels of joy including apples, oranges, papaya, and more to see if I cant eat a little healthier. I´m excited to see what kind of positive effect it has on my mission :)
well my dear friends and family, I finally conclude this message of awesomeness. I wish you all the best this week and hope you are all able to be blessed by putting into practice the "upgrades" (speaking video game language) we scored in conference. and guess what? I´VE ONLY GOT ONE MORE GENERAL CONFERENCE LEFT IN THE MISSION Y´ALL!!! that's a weird thought. alright. PEACE!!!
love,
Elder Spencer Henze
me being the virgin of Guadalupe
me on the roof of the prayer house
the sunset from the roof of our prayer house
