Dear Family,
What a week! We were so blessed!
This week I want to show you a little I learned about faith from the Ramos family, They are so willing, so faithful! We taught them this week about tithing! They had had bad experiences in other churches seeing tithing abused and seeing church leaders set their hearts on money, so we were a bit nervous to teach them this law! When we taught it and they learned about tithing in the true church, their response was: Do we have to wait to be baptized to pay tithing?
The biggest show of faith for me, though, was from Gabriela! She has a heart of gold! She works as a nurse! You remember how last week we saw the miracle of her coming to church? well this week we were kinda worried about how it would turn out because her boss only let her have last Sunday off! Well, Gabi in order to come to church on Sunday worked two days double shift (16 hours straight) just to be able to come to church! You remember how I told you that last week they all went in matching pink? Well this week, we showed up to their house to go together to church and Carlos, without us saying anything to him, was in a suitcoat and tie for his second week in church! What a love for God! What a desire to please him!
There is an 18 year old member boy here who works a lot with us! His name is Alan! In a lesson the other day he shared his testimony of tithing and fasting and the blessings that come from living those commandments! The gist of it is that he was blessed with another chance to finish his last year of Highschool! His only desire is to graduate this year so next year when he turns nineteen he can serve as a missionary! Because he slacked off a few years ago and didn’t pass a couple classes, he might have to stay an extra year, but in the last couple months he changed his vision and now his greatest desire is to serve the Lord as a missionary! He fervantly prayed and fasted and tithed to be given the opportunity to retest his last couple classes and the windows of heaven were opened upon him because of his faith and righteous desires.
It’s really inspiring for me to see the great love that these people have for God and their desire to serve Him! It makes think a lot of Matthew 5:6 "And blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." ("...with the Holy Ghost." see 3 Nephi 12:6) I feel so blessed to see people change their lives and start to hunger and thirst after righteousness! How blessed they really are! That promise is so true!
So family, as my time soon comes to see you, I leave you with that. What do we hunger and thirst after? money? recognition? commodities? fleeting diversions? Blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled! I love you all so much! I know with all my heart that the church is true! I feel very very blessed and very "filled" after having been given the chance to serve in the Lord’s vineyard.
See you soon!
-Elder Spencer
Friday, March 16, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
March 5, 2012
Dear Family,
I think this has probably been one of the best weeks of my mission. It was incredible, mainly because of the miraculous experience we had on Sunday. So we have this family that we’re working with: the Ramos family. They’re a different Ramos family than the one I’ve told you about before that has two identical twins named Carlos Eduardo and Eduardo Carlos. This new Ramos family is incredible. Since the first visit we had with them we’ve felt the Spirit so powerfully in their home and they are just such willing, faithful seekers of truth. For example, this week we taught them the Word of Wisdom. Quite often when we teach that commandment the people protest saying: why can’t we have tea or coffee?? Gabriela, the mother, upon learning excitedly told us that she would give away her new coffee maker to one of her friends. They’re just awesome.
The only and main problem that they’ve had has been attending church. A few weeks ago, the whole family accepted the baptismal invitation, but since they hadn’t attended, we had to keep pushing it back. There was so much opposition for this awesome, celestial family to attend church. Somebody really didn’t want them to get there. At first it was that Gabriela was afraid of coming, then it turned out that she had to work on Sundays, then the family was going to go, but they didn’t wake up on time, then someone got sick. And there it went on and on. Well, this fast Sunday we decided to do a special fast so that Gabriela would have work off and they could attend church. We prayed for a miracle.
A miracle happened. We started our fast at 4:00. At 4:30 we passed by their house and Gabriela was just bouncing up and down to tell us that her boss let her have Sunday off and that they were all going to attend church. The only thing that could possibly go wrong was that their 10 year old daughter Sofía was pretty sick. We arranged with them to pass by their house Sunday morning at 8:45 to go together to church. We kept fasting and praying.
Sunday morning at 8:45 finally rolled around and we knocked on the door. Out came their 12-year old son and their daughter, miraculously better, and then out came the parents and... the whole family was wearing matching pink shirts! It was pretty much the cutest thing I’ve seen in quite a while. They live close to church so we went and took a tour of the church before it began. We showed them the sacrament room, the classrooms, and last of all, the baptismal font. We had the Elders Quorum President share with them the experience of his own baptism, and we all just kinda stared together at the font. The spirit was really strong.
Then, after Priesthood and Relief Society, Gospel Principles rolled around and Carlos (yep, we’re teaching 2 Carlos Ramoses) and Gabriela were sitting together. It was my turn to give the class, so before starting right up I had everyone introduce themselves. When it got to Gabriela she said her name and shared how awesome she felt and the beautiful tranquility she had felt from the moment she walked in. The Spirit was very strong. Carlos introduced himself and, almost breaking down to tears, affirmed what his wife had said and shared that he planned to come back every Sunday. The Spirit was even stronger. Every eye in that room was watery after that beautiful couple shared their simple testimony of what they were feeling. It was one of the more powerful spiritual experiences I’ve had on my mission. They loved Sacrament meeting (on top of everything, a beautiful testimony meeting) and left glowing.
In Alma 27:16-18 it talks about how Ammon was so happy he fainted. I always kinda chuckled reading that part, trying to imagine him collapsing from happiness. This Sunday I got somewhat close. What a beautiful, miraculous week. I don’t know what I did to be able to feel the spirit so much and so strong, but I probably didn’t deserve it. The church is true! The Gospel brings everlasting happiness! The Spirit changes hearts!
Love
-Elder Spencer
I think this has probably been one of the best weeks of my mission. It was incredible, mainly because of the miraculous experience we had on Sunday. So we have this family that we’re working with: the Ramos family. They’re a different Ramos family than the one I’ve told you about before that has two identical twins named Carlos Eduardo and Eduardo Carlos. This new Ramos family is incredible. Since the first visit we had with them we’ve felt the Spirit so powerfully in their home and they are just such willing, faithful seekers of truth. For example, this week we taught them the Word of Wisdom. Quite often when we teach that commandment the people protest saying: why can’t we have tea or coffee?? Gabriela, the mother, upon learning excitedly told us that she would give away her new coffee maker to one of her friends. They’re just awesome.
The only and main problem that they’ve had has been attending church. A few weeks ago, the whole family accepted the baptismal invitation, but since they hadn’t attended, we had to keep pushing it back. There was so much opposition for this awesome, celestial family to attend church. Somebody really didn’t want them to get there. At first it was that Gabriela was afraid of coming, then it turned out that she had to work on Sundays, then the family was going to go, but they didn’t wake up on time, then someone got sick. And there it went on and on. Well, this fast Sunday we decided to do a special fast so that Gabriela would have work off and they could attend church. We prayed for a miracle.
A miracle happened. We started our fast at 4:00. At 4:30 we passed by their house and Gabriela was just bouncing up and down to tell us that her boss let her have Sunday off and that they were all going to attend church. The only thing that could possibly go wrong was that their 10 year old daughter Sofía was pretty sick. We arranged with them to pass by their house Sunday morning at 8:45 to go together to church. We kept fasting and praying.
Sunday morning at 8:45 finally rolled around and we knocked on the door. Out came their 12-year old son and their daughter, miraculously better, and then out came the parents and... the whole family was wearing matching pink shirts! It was pretty much the cutest thing I’ve seen in quite a while. They live close to church so we went and took a tour of the church before it began. We showed them the sacrament room, the classrooms, and last of all, the baptismal font. We had the Elders Quorum President share with them the experience of his own baptism, and we all just kinda stared together at the font. The spirit was really strong.
Then, after Priesthood and Relief Society, Gospel Principles rolled around and Carlos (yep, we’re teaching 2 Carlos Ramoses) and Gabriela were sitting together. It was my turn to give the class, so before starting right up I had everyone introduce themselves. When it got to Gabriela she said her name and shared how awesome she felt and the beautiful tranquility she had felt from the moment she walked in. The Spirit was very strong. Carlos introduced himself and, almost breaking down to tears, affirmed what his wife had said and shared that he planned to come back every Sunday. The Spirit was even stronger. Every eye in that room was watery after that beautiful couple shared their simple testimony of what they were feeling. It was one of the more powerful spiritual experiences I’ve had on my mission. They loved Sacrament meeting (on top of everything, a beautiful testimony meeting) and left glowing.
In Alma 27:16-18 it talks about how Ammon was so happy he fainted. I always kinda chuckled reading that part, trying to imagine him collapsing from happiness. This Sunday I got somewhat close. What a beautiful, miraculous week. I don’t know what I did to be able to feel the spirit so much and so strong, but I probably didn’t deserve it. The church is true! The Gospel brings everlasting happiness! The Spirit changes hearts!
Love
-Elder Spencer
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