Spencer's Adventures: A bit of the celestial.

Elder Sepulvedra! Saw him in the zone meeting :)

Elder Vasquez his last "son", Elder Henry, Elder Guirola his first "son", and Elder Perez his "grandson"

The light one they named Henry after me (its the most gringo cat haha)

This week was awesome! Sadly, my companion Elder Vasquez had to have changes today, but besides that it was awesome.

The crowning event, of course, was when we went to the temple on Friday.

2 PM and we were on the bus headed to San Jose! We met up with Elder Guirola and my grandkid, Elder Perez, in the train station at like 5 and we went to Heredia by train! Woohoo! That was cool. and WAY fast. and cheaper! yay!

So we get to the temple, go buy some things at the distribution center, etc. and enter into the temple nice and early to wait. First off, what a wonderful moment to just wait and feel the reverence of the temple. It was so renewing for me. and I really learned a lesson about real happiness. The world's definition of happiness and God's definition of happiness are so different. While the world tells us that happiness is found in rushing around and loud noises and bright colors, real happiness can be felt in the quiet, reverent moments when you're alone and calm. So that was a great experience.

Then Margarita and the rest of the ward entered the temple! So that was wonderful and it was such a sweet experience to chit chat with them afterwards. So many people that I love so much. I just understood in that moment why service brings true happiness. When we serve, it makes us happy as we see those we served and them happy as they served us! It's like double happiness! But when we look to make ourselves better or benefit ourselves, we tend to have some sort of negative influence on someone else. So when we serve more and more and more, we're seeding more and more happiness which we can later reap and enjoy :) and the more you serve others the better it'll be. And the better you serve.

It was especially touching when Margarita, crying, shook our hands and thanked us for having taught her the gospel. Since she couldn't hug us, she just shook my hand and then Elder Guirola's hand and then my hand again and so on and so forth. It was so touching to see how much the Gospel has blessed her life. I know that, really, whatever missionary could have taught her and she would have found it, but I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to be the one that made the connection for her.

Apart from that, it was wonderful to see how the mission has helped Elder Guirola too. I've always thought that he's a better missionary than I am, but it's awesome to see how the mission has helped him develop a more sincere love for the people and a more humble character. He's really such a great guy.

I hope that we can all serve so that one day we can reap these sweet blessings of happiness. I'm planning on working harder than ever these last 6 weeks because I want to be able to look back on this time as a time of great happiness as well.

-Elder Henry

From his letter when he was teaching Margarita:

16 Dec 2014:
Elder Guirola is amazing. He was baptized 3 years ago even though his family didn't want him to be (they were very Catholic). He decided to go on a mission even though he was the only member in his family. Then, about 2 weeks before he left, his mom was baptized :) His (only) older brother is receiving the missionaries along with his dad. He's amazing and is out here on a mission for all the right reasons! :)

We have just been seeing a ton of miracles here in San Ramon. One that sticks out is an investigator named Margarita. A friend of hers, Saida, who's a member, invited her to the Christmas devotional. While she was there, Saida took her on a tour of the Church building. When they walked into the baptismal font room, Margarita felt a strong impression from the Spirit. Even though she was Catholic, she felt that she needs to be baptized. Then, after that, the Christmas Devotional really touched her heart. The words spoken there rang true to her, until she was in tears. We're meeting with her to help her prepare and everything, but she has a baptismal date of the 3rd of January. Also, we're going to start teaching her family (3 daughter and one son in law). It's amazing that Margarita's going to be baptized all because a friend invited her to a church activity.