January 23, 2012

Dear Family,

What a great week!

We had another zone conference. It was super good, super inspiring. It was just what the zone needed because lots of missionaries had gotten a little out of focus from Christmas, so this helped to get everyone back on track. They talked about vision and showed this really cool video about soap sculptors and how you can create anything, it just depends on what you see in the soap bar. Try and see if you can find it. The message was that in our lives and in the lives of our investigators, we can take any possible form we desire, we just need to have a vision of what we or they can become. Neat. So we have this really cool investigator named Damian. He’s 19 and his older sister is a convert from about 3 years ago. Anyway, we’ve been teaching him for about the last 3 or 4 weeks but we could not at all get him to commit to come to church. Some people will say yes, and not go, but Damian wouldn’t commit at all. We tried so much to find out what was holding him back and he told us he didn’t even know what was holding him back. So, we prayed really hard, and prepared a lesson about faith. We talked about how we use our faith to gain a testimony of the truth (Alma 32) and we talked about how we can also us faith to produce miracles in our lives, using the story of Naaman (2 Kings 5), and finished up talking about the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. The spirit was really strong the whole lesson, and at the end my companion and I bore our testimonies, and then, without us even asking him he blurted out, "I’ll go to church this Sunday." Sunday rolled around. Sacrament meeting here is at the end. We waited outside church before Priesthood meeting started. Nobody. We went back and waited before Sunday school. Nobody. Finally before Sacrament meeting we waited until it started. Nobody. We walked in a little downcast, and then right as we were singing the opening hymn, in walks Damian with his sister. We were pretty happy. He really liked it, and this week we’re going to set a baptismal date with him. He’s going to institute with his sister, and just loving it too. The funny part is that he’s totally a punk rocker with long hair, bad habits, and again, one of the last people you would expect to get all excited about the gospel, but when the spirit works on somebody’s heart it changes. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Everybody needs the gospel. Everybody has some empty spot in their soul that is looking for the spirit to fill it. Parties, Music, Money, and things will not fill it. Only the restored gospel of Jesus Christ will fill it.

Well. This week we have lots of work cut out for us. I love you all, I thank you for your prayers and support. The church is true! He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.

-Elder Spencer