¡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.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

BAPTISM!!!!


HEY EVERYONE!!!!
whats up?? things are going GREAT here in Ocotlan Oaxaca!! i´m feeling great, my companion is cool, we´ve got lots of work and guess what else??? we had a BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!! this sunday!!! Her name is Ana and she´s 17. she was super rebellious and nasty but she´s matured like a fine cheese!! haha. Its incredible what the gospel can do to change a person when it can reach their hearts. well, thats the big news for this week, but we´ve got 6 more possibles for this change!! and if not this change then the next one and i´m pretty sure I´ll be here for another one since I´m training. BOOYAH!!!!!! haha :D I´m so PUMPED!!! It was pretty stressful to get the whole thing to happen. Satan was pulling out all the stops but we kicked his trash!
well, I´m healthy and everything is good. Its been starting to rain here a lot. sometimes it rains super hard and the streets turn into rivers. literally. its pretty legit. I´ve gotten to use my sick army boots a couple times this week!!!
the family of Adriana (the one where the husband was about to be kicked out and stuff) has been our main focus this week. after frequently visiting them (almost every day) the more we taught and the more the spirit worked on Andres (the Dad) the more he hardened his heart. on tuesday of last week after listening to a couple of lessons where we taught him about the roles of the parents in the family and how principles of the Gospel are the best things to fix problems in the family and all that, Adriana came to the branch family night in the prayer house and afterward pulled us aside to talk to us.
she explained through tears that she has been trying so hard to do the things we have been teaching them to do and exerting herself to the max to follow the principles we have been teaching in her home because she can feel of their truth and power, and that Andres has been mocking her and her kids when they say their prayers, he laughed at a sweet little note she left for him on the wall with some pictures of the kids she put up that basically said that she loved him and that she wanted their family to be a happy family and things like that. Super nice, and he scoffed at it. I couldn´t believe it. and the worst part is that just that afternoon she found him in bed with the neighbor lady who she was already jealous of. I was floored that he would be so stupid as to be such a douche when it was clear that this was his LAST chance. The only reason he wasn´t gone is because we came and started teaching. the funny thing is that at first we thought that Adriana was the problem because that first night we taught them she was very loud, rude, I don´t even know how to describe it, but we thought that she was going to be the problem but turns out that Andres was the wolf in sheep's clothing and Adriana was just misguided but had a pure heart. She has made an absolute 180 degree turn around and is basically a fully active member of the branch! haha. She just hasn´t been baptized yet. She has told us many times that she can just feel how right it is to be there.
anyways, we counseled her that it was not her fault about the him being in bed with the neighbor and stuff because Satan was putting those thoughts in her head about how she wasn´t pretty and all that crap making her think she was the one to blame. well, the following evening we had a nice VERY direct lesson about the law of chastity focusing on the principle of adultery. They´re not married but thats the goal and he still has a responsibility to his family. a HUGE one. so it applied. just to be safe we also covered in detail what fornication was too :) we taught it playing ignorant to the situation as if we had just randomly chosen the topic and while teaching made him answer lots of questions to be sure he understood. well, as nephi says, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard and the dude was all kinds of uncomfortable. the spirit was destroying the guy but he still wouldn´t commit to live the law of chastity. even though we shared some scriptures that explained what would happen to him if he didn´t. the next time we visited Adriana was laying on the bed depressed as heck. we asked andres what was the matter and he just played it off as if she was a crazy person and just randomly decided to be depressed. so I explained to him why she was unresponsive to is void of love questioning of basically, "what the hecks wrong with you?" "get up woman" crap like that. we started talking about how he needs to show love for her and after he still claimed to not know what the problem was I straight up called him to repentance. I said basically "Andres the problem is that you have done things recently, since we have been teaching you, that are abominations in the eyes of God and they are destroying your family." after he said "what what I haven´t done anything, what?" completely denying any fault I said "Andres, you can not lie to us." "Every time you lie to us the spirit tells us that you are lying." "plus your facial expressions and actions are a dead give away even without that." "We know what you have been doing and so does God." "You can deny it all you want but until you repent your family is going to get worse and worse and you are going to lose them and have to answer to God for your actions." well, he still denied it.
anyway, Adrianda is about to kick him out of the house. We have been fully supporting her decision based on his response to the invitation to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how pathetically he has been behaving. and all this on his last chance. if he can´t do it with these circumstances, I have no faith that he will never do it.
She´s been great though and wants to be baptized as soon as possible.
ALSO!
we found another family in the street on Tuesday! the dude actually found us and asked where the church was cuz he´s an x branch prez but is divorcing his wife and going to marry this other lady who was with him who is not a member! She´s SUUUUUPER golden though! her and her kids came to my english class on thursday AND saturday AND to church AND to the activity tonight! they want to be baptized asap too :)

The Lord is blessing us like crazy out here. all my hard work is finally starting to pay off and its incredible! thank you as always for all your prayers and support. I know it makes a HUGE difference!! I love you all!!!



"I literally had to change clothes when we got back to the apartment but its was fun :) I felt like a little kid bustin through the puddles. also later on the streets were like rivers 6 inches deep. for real. see the attached pics. (below) it was the real deal."

Completely SOAKED!