The further I get out here on the mission the more convinced I am that missionary work should be much more centered on the members. This week I was reading a conference talk that Elder Perry gave in the April 09 conference titled "Bring Souls to Me" which talked about how it’s the members’ duty to do the finding and fellowshipping and the missionaries’ duty to do the teaching (read the whole talk, it́s super good). It works so much better that way! We get hardly any references, but the investigators we have that are references are our best investigators because they have someone they can look to as an example of a good member. They can ask them questions when we leave (most investigators are too timid to ask us questions, so having a member is super important because members can get closer to them and be their friends). Members have a huge advantage over missionaries: they can be normal people. They can get into many more doors than missionaries can. The trick is to just be a good example of living gospel standards until they initiate a gospel centered conversation, that way you know you have a captive and interested audience and you aren’t just preaching to unwilling ears.
This week was great. I am feeling much better and we finished out the transfer here in Muñecas. I get to stay here another transfer and Elder Vidal and I decided we are going to work a whole lot more with the members. This is a whole lot harder down here because our ward mission leader only comes to church every once in a while, and the missionaries before us didn’t leave us much. It́s going to take lots of work and arm pulling, but we are putting together a big list and map of all the members willing to work with the missionaries; that way we can pair investigators with members who live nearby and can bring them to church (that is by far the hardest thing to do down here, getting people to church).
Anyway, all is well. The Spanish is going great! Ím a sleep talker, and my comp told me the other day that I sleep talked for the first time in Spanish. We celebrated, of course.
Love all your guts! Write me lots of letters!!!
The book is blue, the church is true, go cougars!!!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
May 24
Everyone,
Wow, this week was crazy. Truly a week of miracles. It started off with me being ridiculously sick. I was kinda sick last week, but this week it hit hard and Monday, p-day, I spent most of the day in bed. I made myself a deal in the MTC, however, that as long as I could breathe I would work, so Tuesday morning I hit my knees and begged Heavenly Father to just give me the strength I needed during the hours where we needed to work. We got ready to go and my head, throat, back, stomach, and legs still hurt like crazy, but we pressed forward anyway. We got halfway down the street and suddenly I felt much better. We worked the whole day super hard. I think this week wéve walked more than any other week. As soon as we got close to the apartment, the weight of my cold returned and I collapsed in my bed. This happened the following four days as well. I was sick enough that I could very reasonably stayed home most of the week, but the Lord lifted me up and carried me as I put forth my best effort. I am 100% sure that I could not have worked without the divine help I received and this experience was another addition to my testimony that our Heavenly Father really does listen to each and every prayer we say and is ready and waiting to pour out his tender mercies upon us if we will just ask. The results of this were also phenomenal. Instead of wasting the week in the apartment, we completed and then some on all of the mission goals. We found several golden investigators and our investigators who had previously been uninterested started progressing. Moral of the story: Pray always and do your very best, and the Lord will build the very best you.
-Elder Spencer
PS. Today for our P-day we went to a zoo down here. It was super fun. They dońt have nearly as many safety features and you can reach out and feed most of the animals (at your own risk, of course). They had lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) and Cougars!! Woooo!!! But my camera died before I could get a picture with my relatives (I bleed cougar blood). The birds were incredible, tons of super cool colors. Ím going to send a couple pics of them.
Wow, this week was crazy. Truly a week of miracles. It started off with me being ridiculously sick. I was kinda sick last week, but this week it hit hard and Monday, p-day, I spent most of the day in bed. I made myself a deal in the MTC, however, that as long as I could breathe I would work, so Tuesday morning I hit my knees and begged Heavenly Father to just give me the strength I needed during the hours where we needed to work. We got ready to go and my head, throat, back, stomach, and legs still hurt like crazy, but we pressed forward anyway. We got halfway down the street and suddenly I felt much better. We worked the whole day super hard. I think this week wéve walked more than any other week. As soon as we got close to the apartment, the weight of my cold returned and I collapsed in my bed. This happened the following four days as well. I was sick enough that I could very reasonably stayed home most of the week, but the Lord lifted me up and carried me as I put forth my best effort. I am 100% sure that I could not have worked without the divine help I received and this experience was another addition to my testimony that our Heavenly Father really does listen to each and every prayer we say and is ready and waiting to pour out his tender mercies upon us if we will just ask. The results of this were also phenomenal. Instead of wasting the week in the apartment, we completed and then some on all of the mission goals. We found several golden investigators and our investigators who had previously been uninterested started progressing. Moral of the story: Pray always and do your very best, and the Lord will build the very best you.
-Elder Spencer
PS. Today for our P-day we went to a zoo down here. It was super fun. They dońt have nearly as many safety features and you can reach out and feed most of the animals (at your own risk, of course). They had lions, tigers, and bears (oh my!) and Cougars!! Woooo!!! But my camera died before I could get a picture with my relatives (I bleed cougar blood). The birds were incredible, tons of super cool colors. Ím going to send a couple pics of them.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Pictures - May 17
District with other MTC teacher, Brother Dallon
Us with MTC teacher, Brother Quintana
Me and Elder Matagi, two men on a mission, oh yeah!!
View from apartment
Capital building in Tucuman
First baptism Franco Ezekiel Romero and comp Elder Vidal
Incredible sunrise view from our apartment
Second baptism Elba Ruth Paz
Hello hello!
Another crazy week! Today I complete 3 months in the mission which is weird because the time just kinda flies and you don't realize it at all. This week I've been a little sick because the weather here is getting colder, but we still worked our tails off anyhow and had another baptism this week! Her name is Ruth Paz and she's a 19 year old girl who started investigating four years ago, forgot about the church, and we found her about a month and a half ago. She has had a lot of problems because she has a 2 year old and she had a hard time quitting smoking and she had to kick her boyfriend out of her house, but now she is a super strong member and she has lots of good friends in the church to support her and she is also giving us a ton of great referrals.
This week I also got to go to Salta for a day to do some work with my immigration papers. It was super fun because I got to see all my friends from the MTC and see how they are doing. They are all studs and doing a great job.
Anyway, good to hear how things are back home. Keep the letters coming. This week I was studying and I came across the words to the third verse of Choose the Right. "Choose the Right, there is peace in righteous doing. Choose the Right, there's safety for the soul" I especially love that last part because it is so true. So choose the right, and feel the strength and safety that comes from doing that.
Love you all!!
This week I also got to go to Salta for a day to do some work with my immigration papers. It was super fun because I got to see all my friends from the MTC and see how they are doing. They are all studs and doing a great job.
Anyway, good to hear how things are back home. Keep the letters coming. This week I was studying and I came across the words to the third verse of Choose the Right. "Choose the Right, there is peace in righteous doing. Choose the Right, there's safety for the soul" I especially love that last part because it is so true. So choose the right, and feel the strength and safety that comes from doing that.
Love you all!!
May 10
It was great to talk to you guys yesterday, I love your guts! Also, if you have any suggestions from my panel of medical consultants for knee problems, stretches or stuff like that, or some magical ligament soup that cures anything, send it my way.
By the way, I´ve already beaten all possible gross food stories. They have a traditional soup here called locro that they eat on certain holidays and I had the pleasure of trying. It contains: cow and pig stomach and intestine and pig skin and any other weird thing you can think to put in there. It tastes... weird, and has a really unsettling texture, so there you go.
Church´s true, book´s blue, go cougars!
-E Spencer
By the way, I´ve already beaten all possible gross food stories. They have a traditional soup here called locro that they eat on certain holidays and I had the pleasure of trying. It contains: cow and pig stomach and intestine and pig skin and any other weird thing you can think to put in there. It tastes... weird, and has a really unsettling texture, so there you go.
Church´s true, book´s blue, go cougars!
-E Spencer
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Physics review
This week I had a nice physics review of Bernoulli's principle. On Tuesday we turned on the tap and... nothing came out. This isn't good when you are all hot and sweaty after a hard day's work (the winter here is as hot as the summer in Colorado). Luckily the water came on the next morning so we could shower, but what happens is that the water pressure here is on a pump system where each building pumps its own water up to a big tank on the top of the building. If you are on the top floor of a building and everyone is using water... then tough luck. This morning I had a similar experience: I tried taking a shower but only a trickle came out so I ended up showering crouched in a ball because the showerhead was detachable and I could get a decent stream that way. Honestly, I love it. It isn't that bad going without a few of the luxuries of home and now I have some really good stories.
The work is going great. This week Elder Vidal and I reached all the mission goals for key indicators and we have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday. We have a ton of investigators who are progressing and if all goes well, about half of them will get baptized in the coming weeks. The Spanish is going fine. Elder Vidal speaks barely any English, which is wonderful because it forces me to speak a whole lot more Spanish than I probably would have. Lots of the other missionaries and members tell me that my Spanish is really good, but I still have a really hard time understanding them. It's like this: If they are talking about church stuff I can understand 95-100% of what they are saying, but if they are talking about any random subject, I don't know that vocabulary so I get about 60% of what they are saying. Obvious solution: learn vocabulary, but this has been kinda difficult. I've tried writing down words I hear but don't know, but they talk so fast and there are so many silent letters that that doesn't work really well unless they repeat the word a ton of times. I also tried just going through the dictionary from the beginning, but there are a ton of words that you never use, so that didn't work so hot. I'm open for any suggestions on finding vocab to study. Lately I've just been trying to tell Elder Vidal stories and then writing down words I need in order to tell the stories, and that's been working decent, but any suggestions on things that have worked for you guys would be nice, just shoot me an email or send me a letter or something.
Anyway, the church is true!! The work is going great!! I read a great quote the other day that said: "Easy things make a man weak." Salvation isn't easy or cheap. We need to get used to that idea, put our shoulder to the wheel and work on the things that really matter in life, in spite of their difficulty. Love all your guts!!!
Elder Jonathan Spencer
PS. Send Peanut and peanut butter m&ms. We actually have a Walmart in our area but they only carry local goods. (They do have peanut butter though :) They have very little chocolate, and what they have is not that good. Also, remember that little whiteboard that elder Jones had? I tried looking for one here but they didn't have any so if you could send one that'd be cool as well. and as far as recipes go, I donno, really simple recipes that don't require a lot of ingredients. I seem to remember my friend Jason Lyndhurst had a cool missionary cookbook that was small and simple so if you could track down something like that. Also, in the MTC/BYU bookstore they had this really cool dictionary that was subject based and had pictures of everything that I didn't get but kinda wished I had. If you can track any of this stuff down that'd be cool, but if not, don't worry about it. If you do send something, when you declare the customs, just write candy and missionary supplies and *ahem* round down where it asks for the cost because we have to pay half the value of the stuff in customs upon arrival. Oh, and tape a passalong card on the outside. Usually if it says missionary supplies and has a picture of Jesus they don't mess with it.
PPS again, love your guts. I get to call you this week. I'll call later in the week to say what time and stuff I'll be calling on Sunday.
The work is going great. This week Elder Vidal and I reached all the mission goals for key indicators and we have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday. We have a ton of investigators who are progressing and if all goes well, about half of them will get baptized in the coming weeks. The Spanish is going fine. Elder Vidal speaks barely any English, which is wonderful because it forces me to speak a whole lot more Spanish than I probably would have. Lots of the other missionaries and members tell me that my Spanish is really good, but I still have a really hard time understanding them. It's like this: If they are talking about church stuff I can understand 95-100% of what they are saying, but if they are talking about any random subject, I don't know that vocabulary so I get about 60% of what they are saying. Obvious solution: learn vocabulary, but this has been kinda difficult. I've tried writing down words I hear but don't know, but they talk so fast and there are so many silent letters that that doesn't work really well unless they repeat the word a ton of times. I also tried just going through the dictionary from the beginning, but there are a ton of words that you never use, so that didn't work so hot. I'm open for any suggestions on finding vocab to study. Lately I've just been trying to tell Elder Vidal stories and then writing down words I need in order to tell the stories, and that's been working decent, but any suggestions on things that have worked for you guys would be nice, just shoot me an email or send me a letter or something.
Anyway, the church is true!! The work is going great!! I read a great quote the other day that said: "Easy things make a man weak." Salvation isn't easy or cheap. We need to get used to that idea, put our shoulder to the wheel and work on the things that really matter in life, in spite of their difficulty. Love all your guts!!!
Elder Jonathan Spencer
PS. Send Peanut and peanut butter m&ms. We actually have a Walmart in our area but they only carry local goods. (They do have peanut butter though :) They have very little chocolate, and what they have is not that good. Also, remember that little whiteboard that elder Jones had? I tried looking for one here but they didn't have any so if you could send one that'd be cool as well. and as far as recipes go, I donno, really simple recipes that don't require a lot of ingredients. I seem to remember my friend Jason Lyndhurst had a cool missionary cookbook that was small and simple so if you could track down something like that. Also, in the MTC/BYU bookstore they had this really cool dictionary that was subject based and had pictures of everything that I didn't get but kinda wished I had. If you can track any of this stuff down that'd be cool, but if not, don't worry about it. If you do send something, when you declare the customs, just write candy and missionary supplies and *ahem* round down where it asks for the cost because we have to pay half the value of the stuff in customs upon arrival. Oh, and tape a passalong card on the outside. Usually if it says missionary supplies and has a picture of Jesus they don't mess with it.
PPS again, love your guts. I get to call you this week. I'll call later in the week to say what time and stuff I'll be calling on Sunday.
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