Dear Family,
An awesome week! It started off with this wonderful investigator we have. His name is Fernando and he is an older man. Last week we were looking for an address and asked him for directions. We got to talking and he told us that he had always seen us walking around and had been curious about what we do. We asked him if he had a minute to talk and he did and invited us into his house. He is super sincere, just trying to become closer to God and open to really anything. We taught him a little about how God calls prophets to guide us and how he established his church during Christ's ministry. We left him a pamphlet to read and came back this week. When we got there he told us that he didn't have very good memory, but read the pamphlet every single day and had lots of questions. His biggest question was: Where can I get a copy of the Book of Mormon and how much is it? He was in luck because we just happened to have a few copies of that book lying around so we could give him one. He was super excited to get it and we're getting together on Tuesday so hopefully it goes well.
The thing that struck me most about that experience was that it was just some random guy whom we asked for directions. He asked us why we were so different from the normal young people and we responded with a simple invitation. How many people do we know like Fernando? People who would accept the gospel, but are held back by shyness (ours or theirs). In conference, I think President Uchtdorf said something like: "We should preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words." Be wonderful examples of the gospel and when people ask why you are so different, respond with a simple invitation to come to church, or learn more.
I hope you loved conference!! It was wonderful! How about another temple for Colorado?! And for those of you who saw priesthood session, go BYU Basketball!! =)
I love you all! The church is so true!!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, April 4, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
March 28, 2011
Dear Family,
Well this week was downright awesome. First, a clarification, Tucuman is a pretty big city, and it has zones, so I am now in the other zone on the opposite side of the city. Anyway, I love my new ward, it is called Villa Alem, and it is wonderful. It is the biggest ward in the mission with 4 missionaries and roughly 160 active members. It used to be much bigger, and they’ve already divided another ward and a branch off of it because it is just solid. It’ll probably form the next stake here in Tucuman.
Anyway, my new companion is seriously awesome. He is super new, on his second transfer, but is not afraid to talk, and his Spanish is improving super quickly. He’s also a super genius and knows tons about the gospel and we get along fantastic. This week we taught several lessons where the spirit was just so strong that I couldn’t help just walking around with a big grin on my face the whole rest of the day.
One of our lessons was with a recent convert who relapsed to her smoking addiction and is having a hard time quitting. We read Alma 43:45-50 and talked about how even when our opposition is strong and we want to give up, we just need a little inspiration. It can come from church leaders or scriptures, or thinking about loved ones, then, if we pray with all our might we can overcome the difficulty. With her, we had her write down a list of reasons why she wanted to quit, an inspiration list. It included her health, being free, her children and setting an example for them, and being able to feel the spirit. We then challenged her to read that and pray every time she felt like smoking. So far she’s been doing good. I’ll let you know how it goes.
This weekend we have General Conference. Can you imagine? We have the opportunity to listen to the prophet of God. What an incredible opportunity!!! Don’t miss one minute!
The church is true!
-Elder Spencer
Well this week was downright awesome. First, a clarification, Tucuman is a pretty big city, and it has zones, so I am now in the other zone on the opposite side of the city. Anyway, I love my new ward, it is called Villa Alem, and it is wonderful. It is the biggest ward in the mission with 4 missionaries and roughly 160 active members. It used to be much bigger, and they’ve already divided another ward and a branch off of it because it is just solid. It’ll probably form the next stake here in Tucuman.
Anyway, my new companion is seriously awesome. He is super new, on his second transfer, but is not afraid to talk, and his Spanish is improving super quickly. He’s also a super genius and knows tons about the gospel and we get along fantastic. This week we taught several lessons where the spirit was just so strong that I couldn’t help just walking around with a big grin on my face the whole rest of the day.
One of our lessons was with a recent convert who relapsed to her smoking addiction and is having a hard time quitting. We read Alma 43:45-50 and talked about how even when our opposition is strong and we want to give up, we just need a little inspiration. It can come from church leaders or scriptures, or thinking about loved ones, then, if we pray with all our might we can overcome the difficulty. With her, we had her write down a list of reasons why she wanted to quit, an inspiration list. It included her health, being free, her children and setting an example for them, and being able to feel the spirit. We then challenged her to read that and pray every time she felt like smoking. So far she’s been doing good. I’ll let you know how it goes.
This weekend we have General Conference. Can you imagine? We have the opportunity to listen to the prophet of God. What an incredible opportunity!!! Don’t miss one minute!
The church is true!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, March 21, 2011
March 21, 2011
Dear Family,
A crazy week!! It all started out on Monday when I felt like I got a pebble or something small in my eye. I pretty much ignored it until Wednesday night when it started getting pretty painful. Now, in Argentina you don’t really need a prescription for anything; you can just go to a pharmacy and ask the pharmacist, and if it doesn’t sound too ridiculous they’ll give it to you. On Wednesday night my eye was hurting like mad, so in a frantic decision I ran in to the pharmacy and asked them for something to fix it. I thought I had gotten it from a cat I was playing with on Monday, so the pharmacist gave me some random antibacterial eye drop. Zone Conference was the next day and while we were there the mission mom told me "Elder Spencer! You’re supposed to call me before buying medication, you know that!" I had honestly completely forgotten that we were supposed to do that.
We looked through her medical binder and decided that I had pinkeye from what the descriptions were (she doesn’t have medical training, but they give all the missions a really nice diagnostic book), so I went off and got pinkeye medicine. While I was figuring out what type I needed to buy I called the missionary doctor for the area and told him my story. He told me exactly what I needed, and after hearing what I did at first (buying eyedrops without calling) he said "Elder, I really wish you wouldn’t do that. Those eye drops have substances that many people are allergic to and it could have really harmed you." (Luckily, I had only used them twice before realizing how dumb that was.)
The story continues... after 2 days, the pain wasn’t going away and it was getting way worse, almost excruciating when I saw light. I called him again and after hearing what I had to say he immediately realized the I had an ulcer in my cornea. He prescribed me some eye drops and told me to see an eye doctor to see what they said. Well, as it turns out, the missionary doctor is a complete stud and was exactly right and diagnosed to the nail what I had and needed, and the eye doctor just told me I have to wear and eyepatch for the next couple of days for it to heal more quickly. The pain is almost completely gone and I am much better.
So moral of the story: Sometimes we decide not to obey God’s commandments. In Elder Kearon’s talk in October 2010 General conference, he said that many times, out of laziness or rebelliousness we decide not to obey the commandments; and whenever we do that we invite undesirable results. I honestly forgot that that was a mission rule that we always needed to call the doctor, but by not consciously making an effort to remember the commandments and their importance, we choose to forget. I wonder how many times God says the same thing as the doctor when we disobey the commandments. "Jonathan, I really wish you wouldn’t do that. Those activities will harm you. That’s why I forbid them, because I love you and want the best for you." We cannot afford to let laziness, rebelliousness, or forgetfulness keep us from keeping the commandments. When we stop consistently making the effort to remember the importance of trusting in God by daily scripture study, we fall into the same group as Laman and Lemuel. My dumb mistake turned out all right, but it caused extreme pain. As the doctor said, corneal pain is some of the most intense pain of the body. Whenever we choose to trust in the arm of flesh instead of the arm of God, we get stung, bad.
Anyway, hope you liked my little story. I got transferred and I’m back in Tucuman with Elder Peterson from Maple Valley, Washington. I love you all tons!! Go BYU Basketball!!!!!
-Elder Spencer
A crazy week!! It all started out on Monday when I felt like I got a pebble or something small in my eye. I pretty much ignored it until Wednesday night when it started getting pretty painful. Now, in Argentina you don’t really need a prescription for anything; you can just go to a pharmacy and ask the pharmacist, and if it doesn’t sound too ridiculous they’ll give it to you. On Wednesday night my eye was hurting like mad, so in a frantic decision I ran in to the pharmacy and asked them for something to fix it. I thought I had gotten it from a cat I was playing with on Monday, so the pharmacist gave me some random antibacterial eye drop. Zone Conference was the next day and while we were there the mission mom told me "Elder Spencer! You’re supposed to call me before buying medication, you know that!" I had honestly completely forgotten that we were supposed to do that.
We looked through her medical binder and decided that I had pinkeye from what the descriptions were (she doesn’t have medical training, but they give all the missions a really nice diagnostic book), so I went off and got pinkeye medicine. While I was figuring out what type I needed to buy I called the missionary doctor for the area and told him my story. He told me exactly what I needed, and after hearing what I did at first (buying eyedrops without calling) he said "Elder, I really wish you wouldn’t do that. Those eye drops have substances that many people are allergic to and it could have really harmed you." (Luckily, I had only used them twice before realizing how dumb that was.)
The story continues... after 2 days, the pain wasn’t going away and it was getting way worse, almost excruciating when I saw light. I called him again and after hearing what I had to say he immediately realized the I had an ulcer in my cornea. He prescribed me some eye drops and told me to see an eye doctor to see what they said. Well, as it turns out, the missionary doctor is a complete stud and was exactly right and diagnosed to the nail what I had and needed, and the eye doctor just told me I have to wear and eyepatch for the next couple of days for it to heal more quickly. The pain is almost completely gone and I am much better.
So moral of the story: Sometimes we decide not to obey God’s commandments. In Elder Kearon’s talk in October 2010 General conference, he said that many times, out of laziness or rebelliousness we decide not to obey the commandments; and whenever we do that we invite undesirable results. I honestly forgot that that was a mission rule that we always needed to call the doctor, but by not consciously making an effort to remember the commandments and their importance, we choose to forget. I wonder how many times God says the same thing as the doctor when we disobey the commandments. "Jonathan, I really wish you wouldn’t do that. Those activities will harm you. That’s why I forbid them, because I love you and want the best for you." We cannot afford to let laziness, rebelliousness, or forgetfulness keep us from keeping the commandments. When we stop consistently making the effort to remember the importance of trusting in God by daily scripture study, we fall into the same group as Laman and Lemuel. My dumb mistake turned out all right, but it caused extreme pain. As the doctor said, corneal pain is some of the most intense pain of the body. Whenever we choose to trust in the arm of flesh instead of the arm of God, we get stung, bad.
Anyway, hope you liked my little story. I got transferred and I’m back in Tucuman with Elder Peterson from Maple Valley, Washington. I love you all tons!! Go BYU Basketball!!!!!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, March 14, 2011
March 14, 2011
Dear Family,
Super busy week, but super great. The biggest thing was having the Mission President come down on Saturday for an audit of the financial records, and then talking in church on Sunday. That turned out to be about a 2-hour sacrament meeting, because they had 4 people talk: Him, his counselor, my comp, and one of the members, and all of the talks were *really* long. The President’s talk was really good though. He talked about 1 Nephi 14:11-14 and how they church will always be comparatively small because of how much of a hold Satan has on the hearts of the world. He then, however taught that although we are small, we will go forth and cover the earth. The Mission Presidents had a meeting with Elder Anderson and he told them that they need to get Argentina (and every other country) self sufficient and more with missionaries, because the First Presidency is currently having talks with Chinese leaders and the time is soooo close to be able to get into mainland China, and when we do go in, the current 50,000 missionaries we have aren’t enough for just China. That’s part of why last conference the Prophet made the call for missionaries, we need them!! So, you future missionaries, get ready!!!
Anyway, I’m out of time, but I love you all tons! The church is so true!!!
-Elder Spencer
Super busy week, but super great. The biggest thing was having the Mission President come down on Saturday for an audit of the financial records, and then talking in church on Sunday. That turned out to be about a 2-hour sacrament meeting, because they had 4 people talk: Him, his counselor, my comp, and one of the members, and all of the talks were *really* long. The President’s talk was really good though. He talked about 1 Nephi 14:11-14 and how they church will always be comparatively small because of how much of a hold Satan has on the hearts of the world. He then, however taught that although we are small, we will go forth and cover the earth. The Mission Presidents had a meeting with Elder Anderson and he told them that they need to get Argentina (and every other country) self sufficient and more with missionaries, because the First Presidency is currently having talks with Chinese leaders and the time is soooo close to be able to get into mainland China, and when we do go in, the current 50,000 missionaries we have aren’t enough for just China. That’s part of why last conference the Prophet made the call for missionaries, we need them!! So, you future missionaries, get ready!!!
Anyway, I’m out of time, but I love you all tons! The church is so true!!!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, March 7, 2011
March 7, 2011
Dear Family,
Another great week here in Frías. It’s been kinda hard to keep track of people because they’ve been on their summer break, but now school has started and people are getting back into their schedules so it’s been easier to find people. Also this week one of the people I worked a lot with in my last area just got baptized, so I was pretty happy for him.
Cool story, we found a really cool kid this week knocking doors and we got to talking. He let us in, and after teaching a bit, he started telling us about how he did sports and played rugby and stuff, and we asked him if he knew a kid named Lucas Galarza. Lucas played rugby a lot, and just went on his mission to Brazil about 2 months ago. He said he did, but hadn’t seen him for a while because he hadn’t been coming to rugby practice anymore. When we explained how Lucas was now a missionary and how he had been a member of our church since he said: "That makes sense! Lucas was always seemed different from everyone else." Because of the great example of that boy, he’s doing missionary work here even though he’s in another country. Your best missionary tool is yourself. I did the math the other day, and right now the church has about 14,000,000 members. If we wanted to double that number this year, each missionary would have to find and baptize roughly 270 people (540 for each companionship), or each member can find one. That’s what President Hinckley was referring to in his "Feed My Sheep" talk (look it up, it’s good). So go out there and be great examples and when people ask you why you’re different, invite them to a family home evening or to church.
Anyway, the work’s going great. Love you all tons! The church is true!
-Elder Spencer
Another great week here in Frías. It’s been kinda hard to keep track of people because they’ve been on their summer break, but now school has started and people are getting back into their schedules so it’s been easier to find people. Also this week one of the people I worked a lot with in my last area just got baptized, so I was pretty happy for him.
Cool story, we found a really cool kid this week knocking doors and we got to talking. He let us in, and after teaching a bit, he started telling us about how he did sports and played rugby and stuff, and we asked him if he knew a kid named Lucas Galarza. Lucas played rugby a lot, and just went on his mission to Brazil about 2 months ago. He said he did, but hadn’t seen him for a while because he hadn’t been coming to rugby practice anymore. When we explained how Lucas was now a missionary and how he had been a member of our church since he said: "That makes sense! Lucas was always seemed different from everyone else." Because of the great example of that boy, he’s doing missionary work here even though he’s in another country. Your best missionary tool is yourself. I did the math the other day, and right now the church has about 14,000,000 members. If we wanted to double that number this year, each missionary would have to find and baptize roughly 270 people (540 for each companionship), or each member can find one. That’s what President Hinckley was referring to in his "Feed My Sheep" talk (look it up, it’s good). So go out there and be great examples and when people ask you why you’re different, invite them to a family home evening or to church.
Anyway, the work’s going great. Love you all tons! The church is true!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, February 28, 2011
February 28, 2011
Dear Family,
A great week. First of all, we did another "lawn mowing" job with machetes and this time I didn’t chop my thumb off, so I feel like that went successfully.
The weather down here is pretty crazy. Right now it is the dead of summer, but apparently we’re going through the tropical storm "la niña," (For those of you that don’t habla español, "la niña" is Spanish for... "the niña". Laugh, those of you who got it. Google it, those of you who didn’t.) which translates to lots and lots of rain. When it rains, it *rains*. However, it’s summer, so it rains one day and then it’s super hot the next day, so it gets so humid that you can get about a gallon of water by wringing out your shirt. Anyway, on Thursday night, we were pretty worn out from having cut the grass for about 4 hours in the morning and it started to rain. Our schedule had opened up because some of our appointments were no-shows, and so we stood under an awning wondering what to do. We said a quick prayer and then started thinking of ideas. It would have been pretty tempting to do anything but go out there under the rain, but the words from President Eyring came to mind: "Trust in God, then go and do." We went out and checked again at the appointment that had fallen through on us and it turned out that the lady we had set the appointment with the night before (after knocking doors) was so excited to meet with us that she called her sister (who was home) to see if we had come yet, and if we had, to tell us that she was running a little late and still wanted to meet with us. Animated by the response that someone was actually expecting us and anxious to meet us (that almost never happens), we went off into the rain and knocked doors until she got home. As we were knocking doors, we met a man who had talked with missionaries years ago and was excited to see us and wanted us to return when his wife was home so we could talk all together. We went back to the first lady and had a wonderful appointment with her, her husband, and sister. That was probably one of the most successful days I’ve had here since I got here 2 months ago. Every single bit of success we get is a blessing from the Lord. It all comes as we trust in God, then go and do.
This week, trust in God, then go and do. Here’s a gem I read from Elder Scott this morning: "Material things do not of themselves produce happiness and satisfaction and the joy of attainment on earth. Nor do they lead us to exaltation. It is nobility of character, that fabric of inner strength and conviction woven from countless righteous decisions, that gives life its direction. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. Your faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to His commandments will strengthen your character. Your character is a measure of what you are becoming. It is the evidence of how well you are using your time on earth in this period of mortal probation."
I love you all so much. Have a wonderful week!
-Elder Spencer
A great week. First of all, we did another "lawn mowing" job with machetes and this time I didn’t chop my thumb off, so I feel like that went successfully.
The weather down here is pretty crazy. Right now it is the dead of summer, but apparently we’re going through the tropical storm "la niña," (For those of you that don’t habla español, "la niña" is Spanish for... "the niña". Laugh, those of you who got it. Google it, those of you who didn’t.) which translates to lots and lots of rain. When it rains, it *rains*. However, it’s summer, so it rains one day and then it’s super hot the next day, so it gets so humid that you can get about a gallon of water by wringing out your shirt. Anyway, on Thursday night, we were pretty worn out from having cut the grass for about 4 hours in the morning and it started to rain. Our schedule had opened up because some of our appointments were no-shows, and so we stood under an awning wondering what to do. We said a quick prayer and then started thinking of ideas. It would have been pretty tempting to do anything but go out there under the rain, but the words from President Eyring came to mind: "Trust in God, then go and do." We went out and checked again at the appointment that had fallen through on us and it turned out that the lady we had set the appointment with the night before (after knocking doors) was so excited to meet with us that she called her sister (who was home) to see if we had come yet, and if we had, to tell us that she was running a little late and still wanted to meet with us. Animated by the response that someone was actually expecting us and anxious to meet us (that almost never happens), we went off into the rain and knocked doors until she got home. As we were knocking doors, we met a man who had talked with missionaries years ago and was excited to see us and wanted us to return when his wife was home so we could talk all together. We went back to the first lady and had a wonderful appointment with her, her husband, and sister. That was probably one of the most successful days I’ve had here since I got here 2 months ago. Every single bit of success we get is a blessing from the Lord. It all comes as we trust in God, then go and do.
This week, trust in God, then go and do. Here’s a gem I read from Elder Scott this morning: "Material things do not of themselves produce happiness and satisfaction and the joy of attainment on earth. Nor do they lead us to exaltation. It is nobility of character, that fabric of inner strength and conviction woven from countless righteous decisions, that gives life its direction. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. Your faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to His commandments will strengthen your character. Your character is a measure of what you are becoming. It is the evidence of how well you are using your time on earth in this period of mortal probation."
I love you all so much. Have a wonderful week!
-Elder Spencer
Monday, February 21, 2011
February 21, 2011
Dear Family,
Well this was a pretty busy week. So, big news is that the Branch President here was released and they made my companion the new branch president. The last president had been so for the last 10 years and in the last 2 months that I’ve been here, he came to church 3 times. The branch here needs lots of work to get things up to date, so Elder Mayhoffer and I have been working like crazy trying to track down addresses of people that haven’t been to church in 15 years and have moved twice. The Mission President announced that he was coming down this weekend to do the audit of the branch, so we also spent lots of time organizing things and preparing for that. As it turns out, his counselor called him at the last minute telling him that he wouldn’t be able to, which was good for us, because now we have a few more weeks to get everything ready.
In the February Ensign, there is a big theme of seeking out the lost souls, so when we got that and read it, I felt like it was written just for us. I really like the story of the prodigal son because of the reaction of the father. The father gave his son whatever he wanted, even when he knew that it might not be for his good. He respected his agency, and watched sorrowfully as his son discovered for himself that wickedness never was happiness. When the son returned, the father seeing him afar off ran to meet him and shared a tearful embrace. That father was anxiously watching for any sign of his son’s return. Our Father in Heaven does the same. The worth of souls is so great to Him and he loves each of his children so much and anxiously waits his return. When we had first started this project of tracking down all the old members, I had a kinda bad attitude. I just saw each one as another name that had broken a covenant with the Lord to stay active in the church. Studying that story helped me see how much Heavenly Father cares about every one of his children and no matter how far they have strayed, he waits anxiously for their return. A beautiful hymn that I recently discovered for the first time describes that love he has and our duty to help love his lost sheep back. - "Dear to the heart of the shepherd".
Anyway, that’s about all the time. I love you all! Happy Valentines day! We made the traditional heart shaped pizza, but since we’re missionaries it got broken really quick. :)
-Elder Spencer
Well this was a pretty busy week. So, big news is that the Branch President here was released and they made my companion the new branch president. The last president had been so for the last 10 years and in the last 2 months that I’ve been here, he came to church 3 times. The branch here needs lots of work to get things up to date, so Elder Mayhoffer and I have been working like crazy trying to track down addresses of people that haven’t been to church in 15 years and have moved twice. The Mission President announced that he was coming down this weekend to do the audit of the branch, so we also spent lots of time organizing things and preparing for that. As it turns out, his counselor called him at the last minute telling him that he wouldn’t be able to, which was good for us, because now we have a few more weeks to get everything ready.
In the February Ensign, there is a big theme of seeking out the lost souls, so when we got that and read it, I felt like it was written just for us. I really like the story of the prodigal son because of the reaction of the father. The father gave his son whatever he wanted, even when he knew that it might not be for his good. He respected his agency, and watched sorrowfully as his son discovered for himself that wickedness never was happiness. When the son returned, the father seeing him afar off ran to meet him and shared a tearful embrace. That father was anxiously watching for any sign of his son’s return. Our Father in Heaven does the same. The worth of souls is so great to Him and he loves each of his children so much and anxiously waits his return. When we had first started this project of tracking down all the old members, I had a kinda bad attitude. I just saw each one as another name that had broken a covenant with the Lord to stay active in the church. Studying that story helped me see how much Heavenly Father cares about every one of his children and no matter how far they have strayed, he waits anxiously for their return. A beautiful hymn that I recently discovered for the first time describes that love he has and our duty to help love his lost sheep back. - "Dear to the heart of the shepherd".
Anyway, that’s about all the time. I love you all! Happy Valentines day! We made the traditional heart shaped pizza, but since we’re missionaries it got broken really quick. :)
-Elder Spencer
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