HELLLOOOOO!!!!
It´s a beautiful Pday in Ocotlan de Morelos, Oaxaca with partly cloudy skies and a current temperature of about 83 degrees...
well guys, this past week went pretty well! not a whole ton to report, just a lot of contacting and looking for new investigators, working with some super pilas new converts, and putting together some programs for the branch! We decided that we´re going to use the Tuesday night FHE´s to train the priesthood on how to do their home teaching and the sisters on how to do their visits.
SIDENOTE: the key to retention in the church is friend-shipping! a ward that does their home and visiting teaching thrives every time. also the bishop plays a large role with his visits. just a little somethin I´ve learned out here.
Furthermore my companion and I made a ballin calender for the branch members to sign up to do a sweet FHE in their house with us and we are going to contact all their neighbors and invite them to the FHE and see what we can rustle up wtih that! also we´re going to invite them to fast as part of it I think. according to their willingness to do it. Dad, you´d be proud of the calender. I did everything by hand and measured the lines all out using math and rulers and everything! haha. not quite a drafting project, but hey I can say I learned by watching you how to do a tiny bit of that kind of thing. It turned out perfectly! I like math :) its always so reliable. wow, I sound like a geek! I am actually pretty pumped to go back to school after the mish. I miss learning about that kind of stuff.
ALSO, we´re gonna start doing English classes out here to try to rummage up some more investigators! Lots of people have asked us if we are going to do it so to me it looks like it should be much more successful here than it was in Antequera where the interest is higher and the opportunity of learning English much lower. so I´m excited to see what comes from that :)
We´ve been focusing more on contacting families as of late as a council from the prez. Its a lot more intimidating for some reason, but more effective i´ve found. I think its more intimidating cuz the dad lots of times is in male turkey prance mode with his family and is very gruff and onry at first with us to try to look like the boss in front of his family. but its just a shell.
so this week we were contacting on tuesday i believe and an old lady answers one of the doors and says "what do you want?" quite rudely. I then proceeded to give the door approach and she, almost yelling this time, shouts, "What do you want?!" so I was like... "uh... I´m trying to tell you..." turning to my comp giving him the "your turn" gesture. well, as he started talking she cut him off after about .5 seconds and said "we´ll see you here on Saturday at 4:00pm!" and terminated the interaction by slamming the metal door. I looked over at my companion and said "well, we got the return appointment." and we both laughed. we looked up at the sign above the door that we´d missed before knocking that said "Centro de Catequismo" basically means catholic school. I then proceeded to note the appointment in the planner with much enthusiasm as my comp asked me "are we really going to go?" and I said "Sí!" well, two days later (on Thursday) we had interviews and my comp mentioned to the prez the experience and the prez said "GO!!! what a marvelous opportunity!" so come Saturday we went :) I was super nervous but marched right over there. they let us in and after about 5 minutes of everyone staring at us like "what the heck are they doing here?" I found someone who looked important and introduced myself and my companion and he asked what we were doing there so I explained to him the situation and he directed us to a small group of niños and a half gay looking dude who was the teacher who looked to be about 23ish. He instantly got very nervous and was talking to us like we were idiots but invited us to participate in the class after telling him who had invited us (that lady never showed up). so at the beginning he gave me the floor to share with them a bit about what we do so I started out with explaining to them that we preach the doctrine of Christ and after about 10 seconds I opened my bible to show them a scripture as part of the overview and the guy stops me and says "we haven´t gotten there yet. we´re just starting the new testament today (because the scripture was in James) and he continued talking cutting me off and proceeding with his lesson. He gave me about 30 whole seconds to talk. so that was pretty funny. the dude´s voice was cracking and everything cuz he was so scared that we were going to make him look like an idiot. I just sat there with a pleasant smile as he jumped around from topic to topic without direction. he went from Elijah to some apostasy books that supposedly were supposed to come in the bible, to Abraham, to job, to a random story about a train, to who knows what else. After 20 minutes or so it was "prayer hour" so all the little niños went over and participated in some apostasy saying the recited sermon on the mount example of prayer that Jesus gave while we chilled in the back reviewing our plans. then we left. it was quite interesting :)
well, thats about all i´ve got for you this week. Keep the faith my dear friends and family!!!! I love you all :)
love,
Elder Spencer Henze
me and my comp riding on a transport truck chuck norris style back to Ocotlan from a little pueblo where we had our district meeting.
