¡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, May 2, 2011

Almost Mother's Day SON!!!

HELLOOOOOO!!!
Its P-Day again and here I am sending another quick shout out to all my dearest family and friends :) my favorite part of the day!!!
This week has been pretty good if I say so myself. Me and my new greenie Elder Torrez have been marching all around Ocotlán and the surrounding area preachin, testifyin, invitin, and all that other great stuff we get to do as missionaries. We started off the week by making fliers to pass out in the center of the pueblo and to all the people we know to invite people to my English classes. we passed out quite a few. I don´t know how many exactly but somewhere around a hundred. could have been more but we actually talked to each person so it took a little longer. also we don´t have a ton of space in the house of prayer we´ve got here and thought from those we´d have plenty come because the majority said they´d come. well, it was a good effort, but the fine citizens of Ocotlán showed their ignorance by wasting the opportunity to have some free English classes taught by someone who can actually pronounce the words. doesn´t get much more convenient than that, but that somehow didn´t register with any of the people we invited. haha yep, thats right. absolutely nobody came as a result of the efforts of Wednesday morning. Thursday or Saturday. Just the three people who have been coming since day 1. Alicia and her two daughters. They´re great students and we´ve been able to actually progress nicely with the class because they always come and they already know the super basics and we can talk about more interesting things. true, Its not very productive as far as finding people to teach goes, but we´ve definitely been inviting and inviting and inviting and not even one member has ever showed up. Just those three nonmembers. well, this week I straight up contacted them to see if we could teach them and the rest of their family about the gospel. I had high hopes because they seem like such a great family, but they flat out rejected the invitation. so now, unless we can get more people to come to the class we´re gonna have to cut down the "dry tree" of an activity and cast it into the fire. Its kinda sad cuz it should be a powerful advantage to have the ability to do English classes, but so far its not producing much "fruit" and is quickly becoming a waste of time. Makes me a little sad.
anywhoo
in other news, we caught a big rat right outside the door of our apartment. I accidentally suffocated it cuz I had to hold it tight to keep it from going all ape shiz on me and biting the crap out of my hand or arm. ...poor thing. it reminded me of that baby bunny I accidentally killed when I was little... I was going to let it go too somewhere far from the house. but killing it was probably the safest option. Don´t worry I had my sweet workin gloves on so It was safe.
ALSO
Saturday after arriving to an investigators house a HUGE rain and thunder storm hit. it looked like a baby hurricane and their house doesn´t have windows. just some lamina sheeting over some of the "window" holes in the brick wall. ...needless to say, it was exciting :)
AND
yesterday I tried something new. After talking to my district leader he reminded me of some pointers from "calling on the powers of heaven" which i had already forgotten but are super great and I applied them in a prayer before leaving to work. (this was in the afternoon after eating and going home to drop off our jackets and reporting the numbers for the week). Me and my companion said a powerful prayer and asked God to help us to know EXACTLY where to go and EXACTLY what to teach explaining why and all that. We decided we were going to go visit a certain family that has been off and on with us. when we got there the mom was in a consultation (she´s a doctor who has her clinic built onto her house) with an emergency patient and the young adult members of the family were playing catch with a football (American... booyah) with their little cousin. When we got there I asked if we could share a message with them for about 15 minutes and they said ya but wanted to wait for their mom to be there so I felt that I should play catch with them to build confidence and stuff (also cuz I haven´t thrown a football around for over a year :D) so we played for a while and then the mom of the cousin came out of the house (turns out the cousin and his mom live in the same house) and just about then we were winding down from playing. afterward we ended up right there by the mom of the cousin kid and the thought came to me "contact her!" so I started introducing myself and my companion and talking casually guiding us into a religious topic. the contact turned into my companion getting bored and talking to Kelvin (the kid of the doctor. 20 years old), and me teaching lesson 1 to this lady. I taught it differently than I´d ever taught it before and when we got to the part about the Book of Mormon I focused on teaching her all about it. I showed her some cool scriptures, explained how it came forth and all that like normal, but this time with more details and examples and passion than I normally teach. She asked me a couple questions about worshiping "images" and a couple other questionable doctrines from the catholic church. all of which I showed her the answers for in the Book of Mormon and she was way into it! we had to end the lesson soon after but I was able to explain almost everything and she was excited to be able to talk again! we forgot to bring a copy of the BOM for her but we are going to talk to her next week! I´m so excited! It was literally an immediate answer to our prayer. Just so you all know, Prayer works. I´m really excited to keep teaching her and see her and her family progress.
well, Thats about it! gotta go. Thank you so much for everything! I love you ALL!
love,
E. Spencer Henze



a giant Hercules beetle we found

THE RAT!!!