June 6, 2011

Dear Family,

Great week! It got cold! Really cold! Haha, actually not that bad, but once you’re used to 110-120 degree weather, Colorado weather seems frigid. For example, yesterday I was so cold I went out with 2 coats, a scarf and gloves. Later on we checked my companion’s thermometer and it was a whipping 60 degrees. Hahaha. I guess I’ve turned wimpy. :)

So the cool news of this week is that we found a completely golden family. First, let me explain something. Our mission president has challenged us as missionaries to set a baptismal date in the first lesson we have with people. This does several things. First, it sets up the relationship and our purpose as missionaries, lest the people misunderstand and expect something else of us. Second, it gauges their real interest. The baptismal date we do is really a conditional one. We invite them to pray about our message and then ask them, "If you receive an answer to your prayers will you follow Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone with the restored priesthood authority of God?" It was about 4 months ago when President Northcutt challenged us to do it in every first lesson. For me it was very difficult at first to summon up the boldness to do that. Anyway, we were knocking doors a few weeks ago and got to a little corner grocery store and asked the lady if she knew anybody who could use a visit from the missionaries. She told us about a lady who lived half a block down. We tried finding them but there was nobody home. We kinda just forgot about them until this week we were left with a few extra minutes before we needed to finish up the night. We looked over our agendas at the contacts we had done and saw them and decided to give them a shot. The mom and her son were there. She immediately let us in and we started talking. We didn’t have much time so we taught them about how God is our Heavenly Father and the Gospel blesses families and about how to pray. It was about time to go, but we decided to be bold and invite them to be baptized. ...and they accepted! We went back for the next appointment and the wife had prayed and had had a wonderful experience. The husband was there and years earlier had spoken with missionaries, but had never been baptized. He, too, accepted. The next appointment the husband and wife had read from the Book of Mormon and the wife was so excited about it. She told us about how she was seeing such a big difference in their life. Their daughter was there this time and she accepted the invitation as well. Pretty much they are just counting the minutes until they can get baptized, haha. We feel super blessed to have found them and are excited for their progress.

Anyway, that’s about it from the Argentine front. I love you all so much. The gospel is so true! Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and he made it possible that our families can be together forever.

Love, Elder Spencer