December 20

Dear Fam,

Great week! First things first, Freddy’s doing great! He hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol this week. The other day we had a lesson with him where he told us that he had decided to read the Book of Mormon from the beginning. This is a huge step for him because earlier he was very hesitant to read. He’s 31, but doesn’t have a high school diploma so it is one of his weaker areas. Last week we read Lehi’s dream with him and showed him the painting of it and explained it to him and that had a really good effect on him and built up his confidence for reading the scriptures. We had always left him sections to read that we thought he might like, but we got to our appointment and he told us that he felt like he should start from the very beginning. We were super excited for him! We also challenged him to be baptized that same appointment. He told us that he wanted to wait and see because he felt like he would do it right now for us because he loved us so much, but he wanted to do it for God. We challenged him to pray and ask God if that’s what he should do and the next day he told us he had prayed and God responded to him and told him that that was what he needed to do. Yay! He should be baptized by the end of January

And that’s about it on the mission front. We also had a baptism yesterday of a lady who had talked to the Missionaries about a year ago but didn’t get baptized for one reason or another. We found her about 2 months ago knocking doors and she’s progressed super well. As it turns out both her daughter and sister are receiving the discussions and her daughter got baptized a few weeks ago and has been a super good support for her mom in helping her progress to baptism.

In other news, the weather here is crazy. Right now we are in the middle of summer. It’s been a little weird listening to Christmas music while eating watermelon, but it’s a nice twist. The weird part is that about once a week out of the blue it rains super hard for a day. So there is a week of grueling hot weather, in some parts up to 50 degrees Celsius (120 degrees F), and then one day it gets wet, cold and rainy. It’s actually quite refreshing having the break from the heat, but after it stops raining, immediately it all evaporates and it is nice hot, heavy air again. Nuts, huh?

Anyway, that’s about it. I look forward to hear your beautiful voices on Christmas and if I don’t hear from you, have a very Merry Christmas and remember what it’s all about. The Church is true!

-Elder Spencer