I'll miss having P-days.

Entertaining the crowd, that's our boy!

Well. My last p-day! I'll miss having P-days.

There's not much to say, but I just want to add my testimony to all those who have gone on missions that these really were the best two years.

I've learned so much, and grown so much. I feel so much happier now. I know more, I feel more, I love others more. I feel like a better person, a better neighbor, a better brother. I have a stronger testimony and know that what I've preached for 2 years is true. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints really does have the power and authority of God to act in His name. It was restored to Joseph Smith! Who later translated the Book of Mormon, which is the Word of God, by the Power of God. I know that's true thanks to the holy witness of God's Spirit.

But more importantly than what I've gained, I've been able to see the lives of many others change. They've decided to apply this gospel in their lives, and have seen the changes! They're happier, they know this is true, they've become better people. They've started a lifestyle which will influence generations, and have been converted to become the salt of the earth. They are now being examples to others, a light unto the world.

I love this work. When we serve others, our life has meaning and is valuable. I love the scriptures, I love the people, I love my companions, and I love Costa Rica!

See you all soon!

Well Mom, I love you tons! I'm so happy to be able to happy to go home to my family. I'm happy that were a happy little gospel living family.

See you on Thursday!

-Elder Henry

Meeting his fourth "grandson," Elder Guirola is training again!

Special Farewell Dinner at the Mission Home with the Hayes

Signing the handprint quilt the Hayes made for their mission

With Presidente and Hermana Hayes and the missionaries who spent half their mission in the San Jose Costa Rica Mission, and half in the San Jose Costa Rica East Mission. Well done thou good and faithful servants!

Goodbye to this wonderful district! Hermana Zerilli and Hermana Moon had changes this transfer to new areas.

Good bye to this wonderful zone and country!

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.

At the Temple with Margarita!

With Elder Guirola and Isabel the first person I baptized!

Love my San Ramon friends, with Victor!

With Andres!

With Indira and her children--I can not believe how big the baby is! He was a newborn!

My good buddy Andres!

I think this is an old photo but I can't remember

Zone Meeting =) FOOD YUM

Zone Conf last week--Elder Henry in back second from left

"Just a few chairs in a pickup!"

 

The Murillos surprised my mom with this pic =) Brother Murillo works in the temple so I got to see him there too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skype with the fam!

Many tears and much joy

Don't forget, Elder Henry's birthday is next week on the 7th (and one year mark in the mission). Address below =)

104 Me with the kids :')  (the two missionaries he has trained/is training)

 
105 Everybody saying bye, to each other and to President & Sister Wilkinson.

106 Hasta luego, Elder Acuña! (assigned to the East Mission)

108 Some MTC comp action & a group photo of (most) of our MTC group

113 Cat action! In a members house. (Funny story: It was laying on top of a bunch of freshly ironed clothes on top of a chair. Reminded me of Autumn)

115 Fathers day activity! Free mustaches!

116 Father-Father and Father-son!

Zone photo

 Full mission photo! You can't really see Spence, he's in the back about 1/3 from the right behind someone

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Helloooo! I once had a zone leader who always answered the phone like that.

This week has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. It feels like time multiplied and the week lasted like a month or something.

Well we started the week off with sending President Wilkinson off :( Tomorrow he goes, but on Tuesday we had the goodbye conference. Lots of crying. Loots of crying haha. And, because the mission is splitting. lots of saying goodbye to good friends.)

But the good news is, lots of pictures! haha.

From there we hit the pavement and got working, and didn't really see many results. But we put in a lot of effort, and had the opportunity to start making some really great plans to work with the ward (I sure do love this ward, Mom). Both projects to reactivate and projects to strengthen the active members.

I won't bother telling about which streets we walked this week, especially since they're the same ones we walked last week haha, but something really funny has been happening lately. I've been here for 2 months and  I'm starting to recognize everyone. From former investigators to pastors from other churches, I've also gotten to know which street-people (drunks/drug abusers) are my friends and which ones don't like me, You throw that in with the people that we simply see on a daily basis, and it's starting to stop being "say hi to every person you see" and started being saying hi because, well, I know them! haha. It's pretty funny really.

We've had a lot of struggles with the two people we wanted to baptize this month. On Wednesday we went and had a super! spiritual lesson with one, but she said that she just doesn't want to get baptized. So, that was a bit of a bummer. 

But on the bright side, God is smiling on our reactivating efforts. This week we were able to contact and bring to church 2 more elders, who had more than 10 years of being inactive. That was a really sweet treat :) After having problems with smoking and drinking, he had been changing his life piece by piece for about a year so when we got there, we was all good and prepared to come back and enjoy the blessing he's missed for so long.

All in all, it was a pretty crazy week, but a pretty normal week too haha. Ups, downs, happy, sad, miracles and disappointments. All in the life of your average missionary! :) But more than anything happiness, because it's tough to be sad when you're in the Lord's service.

I love you all. Have a great week! Make an impact on someone else's life.

-Elder Henry

(It does not have to be in all caps btw) Postage is $1.15

MISION COSTA RICA SAN JOSE
ELDER SPENCER HENRY
APARTADO POSTAL 249-2010
SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA
CENTRO AMERICO

The beautiful gift of Agency

Sometimes you just gotta snap a quick jungle selfie

Holy cow. January's already gone!

It's ridiculous how the time flies when you're walking around all day! hahaha. Also, on an other note, I've learned how to make hand made tortillas and pupusas pretty well now. By the time I get backed I'll be a certified chef at this rate ;)

I learned how to make popcorn like a big boy! haha

I'm so happy I decided to come here on a mission. Looking back, I've gained so much from that one decision. There's no other choice in my life that could have made me happier than I am. This one decision has changed my life dramatically! And the lives of a few other people here in San Ramon, too. Even though I had to give up some things, and there were a few reasons that I didn't want to go, I'm so glad that I took the decision to go.

Actually, I wanted to talk about a little thing called Agency today. Our ability to choose. I've been thinking about it a lot this week!

We're all children of God. All of us lived with him in our spirit bodies before we were here on the Earth. I testify to you that that is the truth. But, even way over there in the pre-mortal life, we got to make a choice. There was a war in the heavens, where we had to decide to follow the Plan of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, or the Plan of Lucifer, later known as Satan.

Revelations 12:4 says:

And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them
to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready
 to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

Later in the chapter, it explains that this dragon is Satan. He was exiled from the presence of God, along with the third part of our Brothers and Sisters.

We're all here, and we all have bodies! We have chances to experience joy and sadness, injustice and grace, good and bad. We have all these opportunities as a consequence of our choice, the choice to follow the Plan of Salvation!

One third part of our brothers and sisters will never have bodies, or have the chance to experience everything that we experience. All those opportunities were taken away from them as a consequence of their choice.

My point is that Agency is a sacred gift, something far more important than we often times think.

Just like how our heavenly choice gave us the opportunity to live our lives, my earthly choice to go on a mission has brought me more blessings than I can list. I have grown in knowledge, in love, in patience, and in confidence. I can tell that I am closer to being the person that God wants me to be. A little closer to the example that Jesus Christ gives us!

Many times we take this opportunity, this ability, for granted.

This world isn't ours. We didn't make it, or buy it, or anything! One could say that we're living on rented space. No matter what we do to 'pay' our Heavenly Father back for the opportunity he gave us, we're just giving him what's already his.

What we have, that's our own, is our agency. Our right to choose. That is absolutely and definitively ours. Nobody can strip away that ability. They can influence it, sure, but at the end of the day it's our choice.

As we do what God wants us to do, we will grow like we have never grown before. We will see miracles in our lives that are as important as the vision was to the blind man, or the blessing was to the Lepers. We will gain blessings here on earth and in the heavens. There's a word in Spanish, Demasiado, which I don't think has a direct translation. It expresses the feeling of having more than you can deal with, or count. Really, as we Obey God's will and his plan, we receive Demasiado blessings. More than we could ever count.

But there's something even more beautiful to me about our Agency.

As we give our agency, through our actions, to God, we're giving him something that he doesn't already have. He has all the power in the universe, and really he owns everything, but he doesn't have our agency. He doesn't have our choices. But as we give him our agency, as we choose of our own will to do what he wants, we give him all that he ever wanted. We give him the chance to see his children, his kids, happy. That's all God ever wanted for us. He sent the third part of all his beloved children to exile, just to give us the opportunity to progress and be happy.

Giving our agency to God isn't giving up anything. Rather, it's receiving the greatest blessings ever. But there's nothing that will make that Heavenly Father of ours happier.

I love you all so much! Make sure to use that Agency of yours well this week! :-)

-Elder Henry

Elder Guirola and nice view from a part of our area, Zarcero, which is like an hour away in bus.

Beautiful Zarcero!

Cow Tongue is delicious!

Hiking to a volcano (FOGGY volcano) and waterfalls for a District pday! Bonding, yeah!  This plant is called Poor man's umbrella or something like that. Huge little bugger haha

Selfie with the Guatemalan!

Me, with fog!

 

Me with the first waterfall

Some weird little waterfall thingies

Me with the 2nd waterfall

The District!

 
Cow tongue is delicious! I didn't know it was cow tongue until I tried it. I was like, holy cow (no pun intended), what is this meat? It's so good! So I asked the lady and it was cow tongue. It is seriously tasty stuff!

This week has been pretty good :) I hope all of you are well and safe and healthy too!

This week has been a lesson for me on patience.

Starting Monday, we were just injected with the spirit. We were feeling so great! Elder Guirola and I were dedicated to start doing better. And we did!

We were more obedient, including running to the house to get there before 9:00 (and we arrived at 8:59 on several occasions). We saw the fruits with a GREAT Monday and Tuesday (and maybe Wednesday too?)

Then the challenges came. Even though we were improving, we just saw all of our appointments falling through! It was really frustrating. What were we doing wrong?! Well, obviously, a lot of things, but if we were improving why weren't we seeing the fruits?!

I've come to realize that, sometimes, God doesn't give us the reward right away. Of course, he helped us know right away that we were doing what was right, but then he gave us a little trial to pass through.

God wants us to really improve as people! He wants his teachings to penetrate us to the very core of who we are. But sometimes, to do that, it can hurt a little bit. I like to think of it a bit like a dentist, giving me a filling. On the other side of the whole ordeal, my tooth will look a whole lot better, but first the dentist has got to drill drown and get rid of all the junk.

In 2 days, Elder Guirola and I found that obedience is important. But had we really learned our lesson? With a full week of trials, really "drilling" out all the gunk, obedience with exactness is something that's been well applied into who we are. And it's a whole lot better than just using it because it seems to work! We have a firm testimony that it's true.

The analogy of a refiner's fire is often used in relation to our mortal experience, because that's just how it is. Following all the commandments doesn't mean that all our problems are going to go away. Look at Jesus Christ! He was the perfect example, and never disobeyed our Heavenly Father, but he had to carry the greatest burden of all!

This purpose of this life isn't to look for excuses and slide on by. It's a time of probation, a time to really refine who we are through experiences, challenges, and actions. Just like refining a metal can take a little bit of time, our challenges might last for a little bit. But, in the end, that's all this life is! A little bit of our existence as children of God. All that's required is that we put in our effort! That we accept Christ! That we 'refine', or sanctify, ourselves, little by little. Christ has paved the way for us, and he's there to help.

To all of you who are in times of trial, be patient. Patience doesn't mean just suffering through it, but accepting the Lord's timing over your preferred timing. Keep on refining yourselves! This trial has a purpose. Take it week by week, or day by day, or hour by hour. As you break it down into tasks, you'll find that you have the power to overcome it. As 1 Corinthians chapter 10 says:

 

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make away to escape, that ye may be able to bear.

Don't worry about overcoming the challenges. You have the promise of God that there is a way to overcome them. Just worry about finding that way, and putting in your effort to do it!

I love you all so much! Have a great week this week :)

-Elder Henry 

This church in Grecia totally looks like a gingerbread house

 

 

Selfie!

This is the volcano crater...with fog