January 31, 2011

Dear Family,

This week was great! It started off with the greatest family home evening lesson ever! Out here there are several members who are the only active member in their family so we do a Branch FHE for them where we have about half the active members (5-7 people) show up and we do a lesson. This week we decided to teach about building upon the Rock of our Redeemer (Hel. 5:12) and so my comp and I labored tediously during companionship study to make little cardboard houses. I made a nice simple brick house and he made the Babylon house that was covered in glitter glue. Then we read scriptures about how we can build upon the rock in our lives by living the gospel (3 Nephi 11:38-39), taking the sacrament every Sunday (3 Nephi 18:1-12) and hearing and *doing* the words of Christ (14:24). And then we did a super awesome demonstration where we filled a cardboard box with sand and a brick. We super-glued the bottom of both houses and put my house on the brick and the Babylon glitter-house on the sand. We then took the hose and let the rains come down and the floods come up as my comp power-sprayed the houses with the hose. Miraculously, my house stayed stuck on, but both houses were so soaked that they were kinda falling apart. Oh well, it was fun. :)

This week we’ve also been working super hard to update all the church records here. There are about 180 members on the list, and about 40 of them have moved, but nobody tracked down their new address, I think 5-10 of them are dead, and only about 10-15 actually come to church. So, we are now making a huge push to visit every single household and encourage them to return to church activity. The first presidency sent out a few months ago a new mission plan for working with ward councils to reactivate (and hence baptize lots from part member families and references from reactivated families. Recent converts and recently reactivated families are actually some of the best reference sources), but since there is no ward council here we’re just gonna do it all by ourselves. Haven’t been on it long enough to see fruits yet, but we’ve been getting great referrals and hopefully it’ll have good yields.

Anyway, that’s about all that time allows. I love you all tons! Let your light so shine so that men may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven. A question I wrote in my planner once: Do I live in such a way that people, without even talking to me can recognize me as a disciple of Christ?

The Church is true!

-Elder Spencer