Happy March 1 (actually it was March 2)

Dear Everyone,

This last week has been incredible! Everything happens so fast here, and by the end of the day I feel like I never have enough time to get in the studying that I need. This week, I got a new companion! His name is Elder Matagi, pronounced mah-tong-ee, and he is a big, friendly Samoan. With him here we now have ten people in our district, which is nice, because being in a trio was fun, but cumbersome. So the best part about the MTC is all the wonderful speakers we get to hear. Every week we get two people, one on sunday, and one on tuesday. This week we got Elder Jay E Jensen, who talked about studying and teaching with the Book of Mormon, (It was of course incredible), and we also got to hear from Stephen B Allen, who talked about dilligence and obedience, also awesome.

Last week we were working on learning the first lesson and learning how to teach it, (The Restoration) and this week we have been working on learning the second lesson (The Plan of Salvation) The things that we are learning are incredible, yet simple truths. I feel so blessed to have been born into the knowledge of these things, unlike most of the world, but that's why we're here: to bring it to them. In our ward this week I understood about 97 percent of what was spoken in spanish, which is great, but then I heard a native speaker talking to someone and couldn't understand a word. Haha! The cool thing about the way they run sacrament meeting out here is that they assign everyone every week to write a 5 min talk on some topic and then at the beginning of the meeting, they randomly call on two people to share theirs, and then one of the bishopric talks for the rest of the time. This week, it was on faith, and I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to give my talk, because it rocked! I'll share a little bit of what I learned with you.

We read in the scriptures a lot about how faith is hope, but as I was studying I decided that I like using the word trust a whole lot more. Trust imlplies intent to action. Where hope is a passive word, trust is a very active word. If we have faith, we trust in God and that his will is more important than our selfish desires. Trust also implies humility, because you have to be able to tear down all the pride that you know what is best and rely completely on the Lord, being willing to do whatever He asks. When we have this trust, however, we have all the power of God on our side. In 1 Nephi it says that the Lord is able to do *all* things according to his will if we can just have faith. This of course is easy to talk about, and even easier to write about, but when it comes down to the choice between paying your tithing and feeding your family that week, do you have the faith? Do you trust that there really is a God and that he really is watching out for you and will take care of you? I testify that He is there, and and will always take care of His children in a way that only a loving father Can.

Much love,
- Elder Spencer