October 31, 2011

Dear Family,

Wow, this week was super crazy. I’m so glad to be in this mission! I wish I could stay an extra two years!!

Ok first. My new companion came in!! His name is Elder Bárcenas and he’s awesome!!! He’s from Toluca Mexico and he’s pretty much a stud. So I went to Salta Tuesday at midday to pick him up because he was supposed to get in Tuesday night. To pass the time I went out to work in the afternoon with the elders who spend the morning doing office work. That was super fun and we had lots of great lessons. Then, about 6 o’clock we get a call that apparently he’s supposed to get in on Wednesday. I’m a little disappointed with that prospect because I didn’t bring any change of clothes with me from Jujuy, but still happy for a little change of scenery. We kept on working and went to their apartment at the end of the night. At about 10:30 we were all ready to crawl into bed when we get a phone call. Apparently the church offices in Buenos Aires had screwed up with the itinerary of my comp and he had actually flown in that night as we had originally thought. Here’s what happened. He waited at the airport for 2 hours. Then some friendly people who just happened to live a couple blocks from the church offices offered to take him there. Weighing his options, he accepted and got there about 10 at night and of course there was nobody there. They took him to a pay phone around the corner where he called the mission president from Mexico who called the church offices who called President Levrino (who was in Tucumán at the time). My comp headed back to the mission offices and Sister Levrino swung around to pick him up a few minutes later. Really, a pretty smooth turnout considering what could have happened. The next morning we went first thing to the mission home and picked up my companion. Yay! The only other bad news was that we had to stay another day in Salta to do his visa paperwork, and I still didn’t have any change of clothes, but that’s lo de menos. So that’s the big story. Now we’re all safe and sound and working our tails off here in Jujuy.

President Levrino is awesome. This month as a mission we had 177 baptisms. That’s more than the mission’s had since 1995. We’re just seeing so many miracles out here. We’re also all very excited for the visit of Elder Christofferson to Jujuy in two weeks (the 12 and 13 of November). I love the gospel so much and it’s so true! God is still a God of miracles! Look for them, obey, and you will find them.

Much love,

Elder Spencer