Dear Fam,
This week was awesome, with a few slightly bad news. Bad news, Carlos and Macarena can't get baptized yet because they haven't quite kicked some problems. It's all right, they'll be baptized in another few weeks. Good news, we have this really awesome investigator named Alejandra. Last week was her first Sunday in church, and after church at the night we had a little activity with her in the church and watched The Testaments. Her husband was baptized 30 years ago but hasn't been active for the last 15 years, where, in the meantime, he married her and had a family. He still doesn't feel ready to come back to church yet, but he's getting there. This week we had a lesson with them and we talked about prayer and the importance of it and at the end of the lesson we had a kneeling prayer with the whole family (3 kids) and he gave it. It was awesome. You could feel the spirit super strong after that prayer. Then, Alejandra went to the RS session of conference with one of the members on Saturday and loved it. She is already identifying here as a member of the church and is meshing super well with the ward. This Sunday she came with all her kids (no husband still) and loved it. She even gave the prayer in gospel principles class, which was super awesome. This Sunday night, we had another activity and this time her husband came instead of drinking with his friends like he did the last one and got to know the current bishop. He knows he needs to change a lot of things in order to have a happy family, but he is always there helping his wife with the discussions and she is progressing super well. She will probably get baptized the next week after conference, which is a shame because conference is a day before transfers and I won't be here. But it has been such a blessing to get to find her, teach her, and see her progress, that even if I don't get to be here for her baptism, I'll still be super pumped.
Also, other cool stuff that happened this week. After working with several investigators for a loooong time, we had 12 come to church on Sunday. The mission goal is 4. We were super blessed. Also cool thing: Veronica (my convert from a few months ago) got called as a Primary teacher and this Sunday was her first week teaching. Her son Junior who recently got ordained passed the Sacrament this Sunday for the first time. It was pretty awesome seeing them get rooted in the Gospel and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have had to be able to teach such awesome people. Anyway, that was my week. Pretty much the same as always, teach, work, see blessings. The Church is true. I'm so excited for conference this week. We have a chance to hear from a prophet of God and here the will of God in these the modern days. Listen well.
Love you guys! Thanks for writing!
-Elder Jonathan Spencer
Monday, September 27, 2010
September 20
Dear Family,
This has been a good week, but it's had its ups and downs. I'll get the downs over with first. I got some kind of food poisoning so I spent the past couple days running to either the apartment or the chapel between appointments. Still don't feel too pretty, but, as they say down here "A la carga, dijo Varga" which means "[Go] to the task, said Varga" aka, the Nike slogan, "Just Do It".
This week we were also teaching Carlos´ mom and Grandma and had a really good lesson. The spirit was so strong in that room. We have been working with them for quite a while, but we can't get them to come to church. We promised so many blessings and helped them to realize how important it is to come to church, but they still didn't come this Sunday. That's one of the big disappointments of the Mission: You come to love the people and want the very best for them, and provide a way for them to be happier, but because of their agency, they don't choose those things that will truly make them happy. Other than that, the week went really well. Pretty much a normal week, not much out of the ordinary. We got to ordain Dante (Junior) this Sunday as a deacon and next Sunday he'll get to pass the Sacrament. We are working with his sister (Macarena) and her boyfriend Carlos to get baptized this Saturday. We have been teaching them for the last 2 months and it seems like they are really prepared. Yesterday, however, we talked about their baptismal date and they were pretty nervous about getting baptized this week. We're going to be visiting them almost every day this week, so hopefully we can conquer their fear and get them baptized. They already know everything, just a little nervous. Pray for them.
Anyway, short on time. The church is true and it's the only way to be completely happy! Love you all tons. I'm doing great, gettin' fat and happy. I´m totally loving it down here, but still miss you guys. Write me! (Promise, it's worth it.)
Love, Elder Spencer
This has been a good week, but it's had its ups and downs. I'll get the downs over with first. I got some kind of food poisoning so I spent the past couple days running to either the apartment or the chapel between appointments. Still don't feel too pretty, but, as they say down here "A la carga, dijo Varga" which means "[Go] to the task, said Varga" aka, the Nike slogan, "Just Do It".
This week we were also teaching Carlos´ mom and Grandma and had a really good lesson. The spirit was so strong in that room. We have been working with them for quite a while, but we can't get them to come to church. We promised so many blessings and helped them to realize how important it is to come to church, but they still didn't come this Sunday. That's one of the big disappointments of the Mission: You come to love the people and want the very best for them, and provide a way for them to be happier, but because of their agency, they don't choose those things that will truly make them happy. Other than that, the week went really well. Pretty much a normal week, not much out of the ordinary. We got to ordain Dante (Junior) this Sunday as a deacon and next Sunday he'll get to pass the Sacrament. We are working with his sister (Macarena) and her boyfriend Carlos to get baptized this Saturday. We have been teaching them for the last 2 months and it seems like they are really prepared. Yesterday, however, we talked about their baptismal date and they were pretty nervous about getting baptized this week. We're going to be visiting them almost every day this week, so hopefully we can conquer their fear and get them baptized. They already know everything, just a little nervous. Pray for them.
Anyway, short on time. The church is true and it's the only way to be completely happy! Love you all tons. I'm doing great, gettin' fat and happy. I´m totally loving it down here, but still miss you guys. Write me! (Promise, it's worth it.)
Love, Elder Spencer
September 13
Dear Family,
Fun fact: the numbering system for hair clippers is different here than in the States.
Other Fun fact: I loaned my clippers to another apartment and couldn't wait to get mine back, so used a Latino elder´s clippers.
Determine your own conclusions.
The truth is, my hair is pretty short. In the last two days I've been called "bald head" more times than I have fingers or toes to count, and I tried calling on some she-bears to avenge me (2 Kings 2:23-24), but nothing happened, so I'm just enjoying the nice scalp breeze and hoping it reaches a decent length before zone conference in 2 weeks. I'm sending some pictures, and if you're wondering what the expression is on my face in the bald pictures, its the " ...wow, I can't believe I cut my hair that short" expression. Hope you all enjoy (also please note the nice wedges of baldness creeping in... uh oh..)
Other than that, the week went pretty awesome. This Thursday we got to have a conference with all the missionaries in the closest 3 zones and one of the 70 who is in the new Area presidency. His name is Elder Bradley Foster and he is a stud. He gave us a super good training on how we are going to be able to strengthen the wards down here and work with the members a whole lot better. This is great, because Argentina has one of the lowest retention rates world-wide. Right now I'm in a ward with membership around 400 and our weekly attendance averages 70 per week (including us and the 8 investigators we have with us). That's one of the things I wish we had here a lot: strong wards with strong leadership. Here we don't have an elders quorum president, let alone ward missionaries or anything like that. Hopefully though, the things the church is working on right now will work. Elder Foster told us that if the church down here keeps running the way it has (it's pretty relaxed), in 20 years it will shrink till it disappears. Wow. Lots of work to do.
He also gave a really cool talk on how Heavenly Father listens to prayers and how he knows each of us personally. The church did some study and found that half of the members surveyed were not sure about those two facts. He told us that our job as missionaries is to make sure that everyone knew those two facts. We also did this really cool thing where we read the first chapter of the book of Moses replacing our name for where it said Moses' name. I recommend it to you guys too. He also showed us some videos from deepastronomy.com when we read the parts about God showing Moses the universe and all his creations. After seeing those I could really understand why Moses would say "I realized that man was nothing, which thing I had never supposed". Then after all that, seeing all the grandeur of God's creations, we read in Moses 1:39 that all of the greatness and glory and purpose of God is centered completely on us, our well being, and eternal happiness. Pretty cool stuff.
Our investigators are doing well. Carlos and his girlfriend Macarena are doing great getting ready for their baptism in 2 weeks. This week they both dropped coffee cold turkey, and we taught Macarena a lesson on treating our bodies with respect and dressing modestly. She was super accepting about it, and earlier was going to get a lip peircing, but decided against it, and completely stopped wearing immodest dresses. We are super happy for her and she and her mom are now working together on reading the whole Book of Mormon for personal progress. Her mom, Veronica, whom we baptized 2 months ago, just got called to be a Primary teacher, so we are also super excited for her.
Also, her son Dante (Junior), the 12 year old we baptized last month, will get the preisthood this Thursday and be able to pass the Sacrament on Sunday. So cool!
Carlos is also doing super well. He comes from a very rough family background and he used to be very involved in drugs and gang violence (and he's only 15). The other day, he told us that in their house they didn't have anything to eat, so he walked outside with the idea of robbing to get food for his mom and little brothers. As he got outside he started thinking about what he had learned from us when we taught him about the iron rod and the temptations that were the fiery darts. He decided to go inside to pray and read the scriptures to be able to
overcome the fiery darts of the devil, the temptation to rob. He didn't rob, and his mom was able to get some work and they had enough food. He is doing super great now and is reading and praying daily. So is his mom, and she has almost quit smoking completely. She started out smoking 20 cigarettes daily and now she is down to 1 or 2. It is completely amazing to see what a huge change the gospel has wrought in their family. It truly is, as it says in Mosiah 5:2, a mighty change in heart. I know the church is true, and every experience like that that I have makes my testimony stronger. Hold to the rod with all you've got. If it can help Carlos stop doing drugs, stop fighting, stop robbing, and become a loving patient son of God (and soon to be priesthood holder), it can help you in whatever problem you have.
I got the letters you all wrote from the family reunion and I was mighty happy to hear from all of you. I love you all tons. Keep me posted!
-Elder Spencer
P.S. Funny story, my companion this week repaired his suit with super glue. Who knew those crazy missionary stories were actually true.
Me and my comp making the cookies last week. So fun.
Posing in front of the cookies.
Another pose, I'm considering modeling when I get back.
All the cookies cooked. There were a lot, and the people were mighty happy to eat them.
The beautiful Argentine scenery.
Wow, there goes my hair, and modeling opportunities...
Another hair shot, I tried putting on a pretty distracting tie to divert attention from the hair. It didn't work.
Fun fact: the numbering system for hair clippers is different here than in the States.
Other Fun fact: I loaned my clippers to another apartment and couldn't wait to get mine back, so used a Latino elder´s clippers.
Determine your own conclusions.
The truth is, my hair is pretty short. In the last two days I've been called "bald head" more times than I have fingers or toes to count, and I tried calling on some she-bears to avenge me (2 Kings 2:23-24), but nothing happened, so I'm just enjoying the nice scalp breeze and hoping it reaches a decent length before zone conference in 2 weeks. I'm sending some pictures, and if you're wondering what the expression is on my face in the bald pictures, its the " ...wow, I can't believe I cut my hair that short" expression. Hope you all enjoy (also please note the nice wedges of baldness creeping in... uh oh..)
Other than that, the week went pretty awesome. This Thursday we got to have a conference with all the missionaries in the closest 3 zones and one of the 70 who is in the new Area presidency. His name is Elder Bradley Foster and he is a stud. He gave us a super good training on how we are going to be able to strengthen the wards down here and work with the members a whole lot better. This is great, because Argentina has one of the lowest retention rates world-wide. Right now I'm in a ward with membership around 400 and our weekly attendance averages 70 per week (including us and the 8 investigators we have with us). That's one of the things I wish we had here a lot: strong wards with strong leadership. Here we don't have an elders quorum president, let alone ward missionaries or anything like that. Hopefully though, the things the church is working on right now will work. Elder Foster told us that if the church down here keeps running the way it has (it's pretty relaxed), in 20 years it will shrink till it disappears. Wow. Lots of work to do.
He also gave a really cool talk on how Heavenly Father listens to prayers and how he knows each of us personally. The church did some study and found that half of the members surveyed were not sure about those two facts. He told us that our job as missionaries is to make sure that everyone knew those two facts. We also did this really cool thing where we read the first chapter of the book of Moses replacing our name for where it said Moses' name. I recommend it to you guys too. He also showed us some videos from deepastronomy.com when we read the parts about God showing Moses the universe and all his creations. After seeing those I could really understand why Moses would say "I realized that man was nothing, which thing I had never supposed". Then after all that, seeing all the grandeur of God's creations, we read in Moses 1:39 that all of the greatness and glory and purpose of God is centered completely on us, our well being, and eternal happiness. Pretty cool stuff.
Our investigators are doing well. Carlos and his girlfriend Macarena are doing great getting ready for their baptism in 2 weeks. This week they both dropped coffee cold turkey, and we taught Macarena a lesson on treating our bodies with respect and dressing modestly. She was super accepting about it, and earlier was going to get a lip peircing, but decided against it, and completely stopped wearing immodest dresses. We are super happy for her and she and her mom are now working together on reading the whole Book of Mormon for personal progress. Her mom, Veronica, whom we baptized 2 months ago, just got called to be a Primary teacher, so we are also super excited for her.
Also, her son Dante (Junior), the 12 year old we baptized last month, will get the preisthood this Thursday and be able to pass the Sacrament on Sunday. So cool!
Carlos is also doing super well. He comes from a very rough family background and he used to be very involved in drugs and gang violence (and he's only 15). The other day, he told us that in their house they didn't have anything to eat, so he walked outside with the idea of robbing to get food for his mom and little brothers. As he got outside he started thinking about what he had learned from us when we taught him about the iron rod and the temptations that were the fiery darts. He decided to go inside to pray and read the scriptures to be able to
overcome the fiery darts of the devil, the temptation to rob. He didn't rob, and his mom was able to get some work and they had enough food. He is doing super great now and is reading and praying daily. So is his mom, and she has almost quit smoking completely. She started out smoking 20 cigarettes daily and now she is down to 1 or 2. It is completely amazing to see what a huge change the gospel has wrought in their family. It truly is, as it says in Mosiah 5:2, a mighty change in heart. I know the church is true, and every experience like that that I have makes my testimony stronger. Hold to the rod with all you've got. If it can help Carlos stop doing drugs, stop fighting, stop robbing, and become a loving patient son of God (and soon to be priesthood holder), it can help you in whatever problem you have.
I got the letters you all wrote from the family reunion and I was mighty happy to hear from all of you. I love you all tons. Keep me posted!
-Elder Spencer
P.S. Funny story, my companion this week repaired his suit with super glue. Who knew those crazy missionary stories were actually true.
Me and my comp making the cookies last week. So fun.
Posing in front of the cookies.
Another pose, I'm considering modeling when I get back.
All the cookies cooked. There were a lot, and the people were mighty happy to eat them.
The beautiful Argentine scenery.
Wow, there goes my hair, and modeling opportunities...
Another hair shot, I tried putting on a pretty distracting tie to divert attention from the hair. It didn't work.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Hey family!
Hey Family!
We had a pretty good week! We spent all Tuesday afternoon making 192 cookies (16 dozen) and then spent the whole night delivering them. They were very well received by our investigators. Our purpose in making them was trying to get closer to our investigators, get more confidence in them that way they might start keeping commitments and just showing them that we loved them. I’d say it worked pretty well, but even if we don’t see any immediate success from it, we sure as heck had a good time making them, and I know they had a good time eating them, so I feel pretty justified in the labor.
All our strong investigators are doing great (Carlos, his girlfriend Macarena) and continue coming to church every week, and they even bring their friends, which is really sweet, but we’re still having a hard time getting our other investigators who have never been to come for the first time. It seems like every week they have some long lost relative come visit, or something crazy, or the sky fall, to make it so they can’t come. Oh well, Just proves the quote "You can have eternal life, as long as you don’t want some other thing more". We were finally able to get in contact with one of my favorite investigators, Rosaura, again. We found her when I barely got here and taught here for a good stretch of 2 weeks where she progressed super well until she disappeared off the map. We found her again a month later with my new comp, started teaching her again, got her all the way to the baptismal interview and then she disappeared again. We finally found her again and turns out she’s been working a ton, but she really wants to get baptized, so we’re going to work with her to get work off on Sundays so she can come to church and get baptized!! She put down the goal to get baptized October 2nd, so hopefully everything goes well and she can get baptized then. Other than that, all is well. This Thursday we get a private conference with Elder Bradley Foster, one of the 70 and our area president, so I’m pretty excited for that.
I’ll let you know if I learn anything cool.
Love you guys! Church is true!
-Elder Lindo
We had a pretty good week! We spent all Tuesday afternoon making 192 cookies (16 dozen) and then spent the whole night delivering them. They were very well received by our investigators. Our purpose in making them was trying to get closer to our investigators, get more confidence in them that way they might start keeping commitments and just showing them that we loved them. I’d say it worked pretty well, but even if we don’t see any immediate success from it, we sure as heck had a good time making them, and I know they had a good time eating them, so I feel pretty justified in the labor.
All our strong investigators are doing great (Carlos, his girlfriend Macarena) and continue coming to church every week, and they even bring their friends, which is really sweet, but we’re still having a hard time getting our other investigators who have never been to come for the first time. It seems like every week they have some long lost relative come visit, or something crazy, or the sky fall, to make it so they can’t come. Oh well, Just proves the quote "You can have eternal life, as long as you don’t want some other thing more". We were finally able to get in contact with one of my favorite investigators, Rosaura, again. We found her when I barely got here and taught here for a good stretch of 2 weeks where she progressed super well until she disappeared off the map. We found her again a month later with my new comp, started teaching her again, got her all the way to the baptismal interview and then she disappeared again. We finally found her again and turns out she’s been working a ton, but she really wants to get baptized, so we’re going to work with her to get work off on Sundays so she can come to church and get baptized!! She put down the goal to get baptized October 2nd, so hopefully everything goes well and she can get baptized then. Other than that, all is well. This Thursday we get a private conference with Elder Bradley Foster, one of the 70 and our area president, so I’m pretty excited for that.
I’ll let you know if I learn anything cool.
Love you guys! Church is true!
-Elder Lindo
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
August 30
Hello Family!
This week my comp and I tried our hand in the kitchen a little more than normal and we were able to get our hands on some brown sugar, so we made some chocolate chip cookies. They turned out yummilicious, so we’re going to make 4 batches tomorrow and bring them by every single one of our investigators. We’re pretty excited about that. I also introduced him to wild and wacky willies and he loved it. The missionary pancake tradition shall go on!
Also great news. We had a lesson with Carlos, our awesome investigator who’s been coming to church for the last month or so, and we challenged he and his girlfriend to be baptized. We had been asking them for about the last three weeks when they wanted to do it, but they were both super nervous and didn’t want to think about it at all. Now, they are both super excited and want to get baptized on the same day. Wéve tried changing our approach after teaching them for a while without seeing much progress. Instead of continuing to teach them the lessons, we started just reading chapters out of the Book of Mormon with them and praying with them to help them develop more faith. It worked super well! Lesson learned: Read the Book of Mormon!!!!!!
Some other funny stories, we were talking to the bishop this week and apparently that crazy lady we met last week, after she was baptized told the obisbo (bishop) that she got a revelation she would be the next obisba (female bishop...) heh heh heh, gotta love the crazy people.
I don’t know if I told you yet about the political parties yet, but out here politics is pretty funny. When I first got here I thought there was a ton of graffiti, but turns out that *before* election time, all the political parties send out groups to clean up the streets and paint their name on all the curbs and walls so the people like them and vote for them. I was talking with a member who works for one of the clean up crews and he told me they have turf wars just like gangs, and when the other political party gets into their neighborhood, they go over to their neighborhood and paint over the other party’s names and paint their own. Haha, pretty funny. Argentines have this other weird obsession with watering dirt. Some people have real sidewalks and driveways, but a lot just have dirt sidewalks and driveways. Anyway, you always see the people with real tile sidewalks outside hosing them off to keep them clean, but the funny part is seeing the people who have dirt sidewalks hosing off the dirt to get it... cleaner? Yesterday we saw a lady who had wet down the entire dirt road in front of her for about 50 ft. in either direction. Haha, what a waste of time.
Anyway, good to hear from ya’ll. Keep up the updates, and email or send pics, I like seeing your smiling faces.
Church is true!
-Elder Spencer
This week my comp and I tried our hand in the kitchen a little more than normal and we were able to get our hands on some brown sugar, so we made some chocolate chip cookies. They turned out yummilicious, so we’re going to make 4 batches tomorrow and bring them by every single one of our investigators. We’re pretty excited about that. I also introduced him to wild and wacky willies and he loved it. The missionary pancake tradition shall go on!
Also great news. We had a lesson with Carlos, our awesome investigator who’s been coming to church for the last month or so, and we challenged he and his girlfriend to be baptized. We had been asking them for about the last three weeks when they wanted to do it, but they were both super nervous and didn’t want to think about it at all. Now, they are both super excited and want to get baptized on the same day. Wéve tried changing our approach after teaching them for a while without seeing much progress. Instead of continuing to teach them the lessons, we started just reading chapters out of the Book of Mormon with them and praying with them to help them develop more faith. It worked super well! Lesson learned: Read the Book of Mormon!!!!!!
Some other funny stories, we were talking to the bishop this week and apparently that crazy lady we met last week, after she was baptized told the obisbo (bishop) that she got a revelation she would be the next obisba (female bishop...) heh heh heh, gotta love the crazy people.
I don’t know if I told you yet about the political parties yet, but out here politics is pretty funny. When I first got here I thought there was a ton of graffiti, but turns out that *before* election time, all the political parties send out groups to clean up the streets and paint their name on all the curbs and walls so the people like them and vote for them. I was talking with a member who works for one of the clean up crews and he told me they have turf wars just like gangs, and when the other political party gets into their neighborhood, they go over to their neighborhood and paint over the other party’s names and paint their own. Haha, pretty funny. Argentines have this other weird obsession with watering dirt. Some people have real sidewalks and driveways, but a lot just have dirt sidewalks and driveways. Anyway, you always see the people with real tile sidewalks outside hosing them off to keep them clean, but the funny part is seeing the people who have dirt sidewalks hosing off the dirt to get it... cleaner? Yesterday we saw a lady who had wet down the entire dirt road in front of her for about 50 ft. in either direction. Haha, what a waste of time.
Anyway, good to hear from ya’ll. Keep up the updates, and email or send pics, I like seeing your smiling faces.
Church is true!
-Elder Spencer
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