Dear Family,
Kinda a crazy week, but a good one! Crazy because it was the last week of the transfer, so we didn’t know if my comp or I would be staying in the area or going. Great news, we’re staying together! I feel really blessed because I feel like I’ve worked hard, but I could still work even harder, so I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to work in this part of the viñard. The great part of the mission, and the church, is knowing that our calls to serve come straight from God. In the mission, not only is my calling straight from God, but the very place I am in is called from God, which means that I have a special purpose here right now. Pretty neat. Oh yeah, this week I also had to make a nice 8-hour round trip to Salta to get my visa finally worked out. Good news is that I’m completely legal for the next year.
So sad news, Fernando, our old investigator told us flat out he decided he didn’t fit in in our church. He told us that after 80 years of eating oranges, he didn’t want any apples. It’s always hard when people decide not to get baptized, especially when you know that they’ve felt the spirit teach them how true the message is. The good news is, this week we had 3 investigators in church, and in the coming weeks we’ll be having some baptisms.
Last night we were knocking doors and we ran into a couple who had just walked outside to start arguing. We started talking with them and I realized how much it’s true that the Gospel blesses families. Without the Gospel, families become one of the sources of greatest pain and suffering, but with the Gospel in our families, men might really have joy. Thanks for being a great family! I love you guys a lot! The church is true!!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
July 18, 2011
Dear Family,
An excellent week!!
So update on Fernando (our 78-year old stud). We went there on Tuesday and he gave us some bad news. He had gone on Sunday to a birthday party for his mom (98!!!) and it was a big family reunion. The topic of religion popped up and he told them how he was planning on getting baptized. That opened up a huge can of worms and they all ganged up on him telling him that he was disgracing his family by breaking the tradition of Catholicism that had existed since his great grandfather. When we got there on Tuesday he told us: "Bad news, my friends, I’m not going to get baptized." We listened intently as he told us what had happened. Then we explained to him that as far as religion is concerned, it’s not really a matter of preference, it’s either right or wrong. If it’s wrong, don’t follow it, but if it’s right, follow it, no matter what the consequence. We shared with him Mom’s conversion story, and then committed him to pray and seek an answer and then follow it, promising him that happiness would come by following that answer. We also invited him to come to church for the first time. We tried setting up a return appointment, but he said that he would tell us in church when to come by. So basically, everything hung on how church went. If it went well, we would be able to keep teaching him and he’d get baptized, if it went badly, I don’t think he was planning on setting up a return appointment. Well, we set up for José to take him to church and..... He loved it!! We’ve got an appointment with him on Tuesday, so I’ll let you know how he’s doing.
We met our new mission President this week. He’s super great! He’s young, he’s got 5 kids, and he’s about 45-50. He’s super direct and to the point. He gave us a wonderful conference on the doctrine of Christ.
My time to write is far spent, there is little remaining. I love you all tons! The church is true!!!
-Elder Spencer
An excellent week!!
So update on Fernando (our 78-year old stud). We went there on Tuesday and he gave us some bad news. He had gone on Sunday to a birthday party for his mom (98!!!) and it was a big family reunion. The topic of religion popped up and he told them how he was planning on getting baptized. That opened up a huge can of worms and they all ganged up on him telling him that he was disgracing his family by breaking the tradition of Catholicism that had existed since his great grandfather. When we got there on Tuesday he told us: "Bad news, my friends, I’m not going to get baptized." We listened intently as he told us what had happened. Then we explained to him that as far as religion is concerned, it’s not really a matter of preference, it’s either right or wrong. If it’s wrong, don’t follow it, but if it’s right, follow it, no matter what the consequence. We shared with him Mom’s conversion story, and then committed him to pray and seek an answer and then follow it, promising him that happiness would come by following that answer. We also invited him to come to church for the first time. We tried setting up a return appointment, but he said that he would tell us in church when to come by. So basically, everything hung on how church went. If it went well, we would be able to keep teaching him and he’d get baptized, if it went badly, I don’t think he was planning on setting up a return appointment. Well, we set up for José to take him to church and..... He loved it!! We’ve got an appointment with him on Tuesday, so I’ll let you know how he’s doing.
We met our new mission President this week. He’s super great! He’s young, he’s got 5 kids, and he’s about 45-50. He’s super direct and to the point. He gave us a wonderful conference on the doctrine of Christ.
My time to write is far spent, there is little remaining. I love you all tons! The church is true!!!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, July 11, 2011
July 11, 2011
Dear Family,
Well this week was great! Great, but tiring. We have lots of investigators that are almost progressing well. Almost. Translation, we have been working a lot, visiting them, committing them, following up, making arrangements for people to walk with them to church, recommitting, etc. The good news is that we have about 5 people committed firmly to get baptized this and next month. The bad news is that it is pulling teeth to get them to come to church. Oh well, salvation isn’t a cheap experience.
One especially cool experience we had. Remember Fernando, our awesome 78-year old investigator who was just dying to get hold of the Book of Mormon (no pun intended). We had taught him, then he had tons of problems with a mortgage to work out, so we left him for a while. We ran into him a month later; things had improved, but he still had some issues to take care of. Well this week we had some plans fall through one night and we decided to pay him a visit. He was very excited to see us. :) He’s already in Helaman 6! We talked for about 10 minutes and circled the conversation around to baptism. Earlier, he had a baptismal date, but it had fallen because we stopped teaching him. I asked him how he felt about putting another baptism goal and he readily accepted. He offered the closing prayer, and in it prayed that he would be able to get baptized and that he would be able to prepare himself in time for his goal (mid August). It was a very nice appointment. He has such a humble, accepting heart. He loves the Book of Mormon. It’s a pretty good book :)
This week’s going to be busy! We’ve got conference and interviews with the new Mission President. We’ve also got to work like crazy to get all of our investigators to church. We had one baptism scheduled for Saturday, but he can’t get baptized because he didn’t go to church, so we had to bump it back again. My comp’s great! Today he cooked pizza for the whole district. What a stud!
Love you all tons! The church is true!
-Elder Spencer
Well this week was great! Great, but tiring. We have lots of investigators that are almost progressing well. Almost. Translation, we have been working a lot, visiting them, committing them, following up, making arrangements for people to walk with them to church, recommitting, etc. The good news is that we have about 5 people committed firmly to get baptized this and next month. The bad news is that it is pulling teeth to get them to come to church. Oh well, salvation isn’t a cheap experience.
One especially cool experience we had. Remember Fernando, our awesome 78-year old investigator who was just dying to get hold of the Book of Mormon (no pun intended). We had taught him, then he had tons of problems with a mortgage to work out, so we left him for a while. We ran into him a month later; things had improved, but he still had some issues to take care of. Well this week we had some plans fall through one night and we decided to pay him a visit. He was very excited to see us. :) He’s already in Helaman 6! We talked for about 10 minutes and circled the conversation around to baptism. Earlier, he had a baptismal date, but it had fallen because we stopped teaching him. I asked him how he felt about putting another baptism goal and he readily accepted. He offered the closing prayer, and in it prayed that he would be able to get baptized and that he would be able to prepare himself in time for his goal (mid August). It was a very nice appointment. He has such a humble, accepting heart. He loves the Book of Mormon. It’s a pretty good book :)
This week’s going to be busy! We’ve got conference and interviews with the new Mission President. We’ve also got to work like crazy to get all of our investigators to church. We had one baptism scheduled for Saturday, but he can’t get baptized because he didn’t go to church, so we had to bump it back again. My comp’s great! Today he cooked pizza for the whole district. What a stud!
Love you all tons! The church is true!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, July 4, 2011
July 4, 2011
Dear Family,
Another exciting week! It started off with another interesting story. So on Wednesday we had a service project. I really ought to just delegate them considering my past experience. This week a sister from the ward needed help taking the roof off of a shack in her backyard. Here pretty much all the roofs are made out of those wavy metal sheets (corrugated steel?). She needed the roof for another part of her house, and she had an old shack in her backyard with lots of extra roof, so instead of having to buy new roof sheets, she had us take off the old ones. Problem: we did the service in the morning so there was frost on the roof. Another problem: I’m pretty reckless when it comes to climbing up buildings. Biggest problem: the neighbors had a wall right next to the roof with a nice inviting topping of broken glass bottles. So, put two and two together and I was walking along the edge of the roof, slipped, and jammed my hand on the bottles. Yeah, bad news bears. The good news is, I was able to jam some cotton balls in a glove with my hand, and by the time we finished it stopped bleeding. It’s a much smaller wound than the machete chop, and it’s almost healed. Next week I’ll send pics.
Also, I got all your letters!!! Thanks a million!! It was great hearing from you guys and receiving all your love. I really appreciate it. Today to celebrate the 4th of July we went up to the mountains and got lost again. Haha, we accidently missed the city bus back, so we ended up taking a nice 3 hour trip by foot, local bus, and taxi. We did get to see some really cool waterfalls, though. God Bless America!
This week we also found this really cool newlywed couple. I don’t know if I told you, but here it’s pretty much a miracle to find people that are married, because the majority aren’t married (casados), they’re juntados (...together). Some people live their whole married life, have kids and everything without actually getting married. The sad part is when one dies and the other has absolutely no legal rights to inheritance and loses everything. Anyway this couple, Gabriel and Gabriela Gomez (no joke) are super legit. We knocked their door one day and Gabriel told us that he had always seen us walking around and had always wanted to talk to us. We obliged. We taught a great lesson to them and at the end of the lesson (their first one) set a baptismal date and they accepted. Gabriela said the closing prayer, her very first prayer, and started crying. It was a really cool moment. I’ll let you know how they progress.
This week I had the opportunity to give two priesthood blessings. On both occasions I felt the Spirit very strongly and was very grateful for being worthy and prepared to do that. We never know when the Lord needs us to help one of His children. Save the trouble and always be ready. The church is true!!!
I love you all so much!
-Elder Jonathan Spencer
Another exciting week! It started off with another interesting story. So on Wednesday we had a service project. I really ought to just delegate them considering my past experience. This week a sister from the ward needed help taking the roof off of a shack in her backyard. Here pretty much all the roofs are made out of those wavy metal sheets (corrugated steel?). She needed the roof for another part of her house, and she had an old shack in her backyard with lots of extra roof, so instead of having to buy new roof sheets, she had us take off the old ones. Problem: we did the service in the morning so there was frost on the roof. Another problem: I’m pretty reckless when it comes to climbing up buildings. Biggest problem: the neighbors had a wall right next to the roof with a nice inviting topping of broken glass bottles. So, put two and two together and I was walking along the edge of the roof, slipped, and jammed my hand on the bottles. Yeah, bad news bears. The good news is, I was able to jam some cotton balls in a glove with my hand, and by the time we finished it stopped bleeding. It’s a much smaller wound than the machete chop, and it’s almost healed. Next week I’ll send pics.
Also, I got all your letters!!! Thanks a million!! It was great hearing from you guys and receiving all your love. I really appreciate it. Today to celebrate the 4th of July we went up to the mountains and got lost again. Haha, we accidently missed the city bus back, so we ended up taking a nice 3 hour trip by foot, local bus, and taxi. We did get to see some really cool waterfalls, though. God Bless America!
This week we also found this really cool newlywed couple. I don’t know if I told you, but here it’s pretty much a miracle to find people that are married, because the majority aren’t married (casados), they’re juntados (...together). Some people live their whole married life, have kids and everything without actually getting married. The sad part is when one dies and the other has absolutely no legal rights to inheritance and loses everything. Anyway this couple, Gabriel and Gabriela Gomez (no joke) are super legit. We knocked their door one day and Gabriel told us that he had always seen us walking around and had always wanted to talk to us. We obliged. We taught a great lesson to them and at the end of the lesson (their first one) set a baptismal date and they accepted. Gabriela said the closing prayer, her very first prayer, and started crying. It was a really cool moment. I’ll let you know how they progress.
This week I had the opportunity to give two priesthood blessings. On both occasions I felt the Spirit very strongly and was very grateful for being worthy and prepared to do that. We never know when the Lord needs us to help one of His children. Save the trouble and always be ready. The church is true!!!
I love you all so much!
-Elder Jonathan Spencer
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