June 13, 2011

Dear Family,

What a week! Good news and sad news. Sad news, Elder Petersen got transferred to Jujuy. Good news, I have a new companion, Elder Dehnike, who is from Buenos Aires. We’re just getting to know each other, but he is super nice and I am excited for this transfer because we’re going to work a lot and hopefully have lots of success.

So this week we decided to try to use José in a lesson. Remember Fernando Herrera? He’s the guy who was super excited to read the Book of Mormon (he’s really old), but couldn’t meet with us for a while because of a mortgage problem. We ran into him and he said he wanted to meet with us again. We decided to set up an appointment with José and... It was soooooo good!!! Holy Smokes! We couldn’t have scripted him better. He bore his testimony so great, but from one man to another. He committed Fernando to read and pray and come to church and offered to pick him up. It was just soooo great, and the spirit was so awesome.

Other good news. So since we started teaching José, his wife kinda just lurked in the shadows and didn’t really comment much. Of the times he went to church, she only went about half the time. She’s a member, but has been inactive for quite a while. Well, this week we also did a Family Home Evening with them and it went great. We did that cornstarch thing about testimonies and talked about how the substance was the testimony, but it was worthless unless we constantly worked it so it could become something. It isn’t enough just to have a testimony, we need to become converted. It’s not what we know, it’s consistently living what we know so as to become. Apparently it had a good effect on them because yesterday when we stopped by for Elder Petersen to say goodbye Noemi surprised us with the great news that she had quit smoking! Yay! They’re making their way toward the temple!!

Also, we had stake conference this week. Elder Anderson, Elder Packer, Elder Zivic (Seventy), Rosemary Wixom spoke. It was soooooo Good!!!!

Anyway, that’s about it on the mission front. I love you all tons. The church is true! The Book of Mormon is great! Read it!

-Elder Spencer