March 12, 2012

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