Family! Week 1 in the Field!

Dear Familia!!!

I am in Knoxville Tennessee and absolutely loving it! I have a lot I want to tell you so hopefully I can fit it all in! First off, it was SO nice to talk to everyone! Definitely gave me a nice little booster before I came out in the field!

My mission president, President Irion, met me at the airport with his wife. He is a nice man, but honestly I have not had that much contact with him. After he picked me up, he drove me straight to my apartment, dropped me off, and then said goodbye. I didn't have an interview or anything with him, so can't say that I know him all that well.

I have two companions. My companions names are Sister Horkley and Sister Stone. They are both very nice! (Side note, I counted up, and they are the 13th companions that I have had so far. Kind of crazy!). Sister Stone really enjoys cooking a ton. She said that she got a minor in culinary. It has been fun getting to know her a little bit and what not. She has done some cake decorating in the past, so she showed me pictures of what she has done, and I showed her a picture of Tara's wedding cake. It was pretty fun. My other companion is Sister Horkley. She is a very nice person as well. We all have been getting along pretty well. On my third day here, both of my companions pretty much had a blow-up at each other.... talk about awkward. Anyways, everything is figured out now and I feel a LOT more unified with both of them!

My first few days here were a little hard. The missionary work here is going VERY slow. When I came out, I don't think we had one progressing investigator. With the first lesson that we taught, my companions basically talked to the person for a good hour and a half and then gave a 5 minute spiritual thought. That was my second day here so I was kind of disappointed with that. With all of the work that we were doing, I didn't feel that great about it and honestly like I wasn't able to give my all... or even enough to make me tired at night... A little discouraging. Things have been getting much better though. I have learned that just because I am the "new missionary" does not mean that I have to be quiet. lol. Ever since my companions and I had the talk about things that were bugging us, things have been getting better little by little. It's definitely interesting to see how different people have different meanings for the words "hard-work."

Well I have had a TON of tender mercies this week! Let me share some of them with you! On my first day here, we decided to do a little bit of tracting. We went to a few houses, but on the third house that we went to, a lady answered the door. We weren't able to give her a lesson, but we were able to share a quick spiritual message and leave her with a prayer. She mentioned how her bosses brother had taken his life and how it was a divine mercy that we had showed up to giver her some more peace in her life.

A few days ago my companions and I needed to get lunch but we didn't have enough time to stop back at our apartment to get food so we just dropped by subway. When we were at subway, I started talking to this girl named Beth (:D). Anyways, at the very end of the conversation I asked her if she would feel comfortable giving me her name and number and if we could come visit her sometime. I don't know if it will turn out to be anything, but it sure was nice to go up and talk to someone and actually get a name and number out of it!

The other day we were going to visit a less-active member named Trish. When we were going there, we saw a person walking his dog so we stopped and talked to him. His name was Brandon and we set up an appointment to go and teach him the next day (Sunday). Trish wasn't there, but we did get an appointment with Brandon so we felt successful! The next day when we went to visit Brandon, his very grumpy dad answered the door. He went to go and get Brandon so we could teach him, but he decided that he didn't want to meet with us, so we got BONKED. Thank goodness we make back-up plans because then we decided to go and visit another less-active member of the ward! The timing that we got there was absolutely perfect. It could not have been any better. This LA name was Sarah. Sarah had her roommate just barely move out unexpectedly that day meaning she had to come up with double the money to pay all the rent herself, and she was super stressed with her two year old child (who she had just put to bed because he had thrown food ALL over), and she had just gotten off the phone with her boyfriend so she could clean up the mess. She was honestly about ready to have an emotional break-down. We came in, helped her clean up just a little bit and we shared a spiritual message with her. The spirit was so strong! It was wonderful. We invited her to start praying and just the timing with everything, we could definitely see the Lord's hand working through us. It was wonderful!

This week we packed up a lady named Patsy and helped her move. She lives right next to us. It was honestly SUPER frustrating. When we came over to just move all of the big things, she had not packed one thing. She expected us to do all of it. I don't know the full background on this lady, but she does have a history of using the missionaries and I definitely felt used. :P Anyways, thanks for teaching me to do things on my own before I ask for help!!

I saw my first firefly this week. It was pretty cool! I am in a driving mission. Hopefully I will get transferred to a biking mission sometime or something. I think I would really enjoy that. My foot is doing well. I personally think that I will be here until my foot fully heals. Oh, all of the meals that I have had here have been lasagna. I guess everyone here REALLY loves lasagna....

Mission life is good!

All of you are in my prayers. I love you VERY much!! Church is true!!! 

Love,

Sister Spencer :)