Thanksgiving Week Post

Dear Familia! 

This week has been pretty good.I got a new companion this week. Sister Stone went home. In my trio, there is me, Sister Wynn, and Sister Liebing. Sister Liebing has a lot of migraines so that keeps her from doing some of the work. I think it is easy for her to get discouraged because of that. I really want to work hard here, but I am finding for me that I have to find that balance of working hard and being sensitive to her needs as well. It is a bit of a struggle for me, but this will be good!

As a companionship we've been doing quite a bit of walking this week because we are really worried about our miles. Poor Sister Liebing thinks that all we do is walk. It really hasn't been that bad though. I quite enjoy walking and really would not mind being in a walking area at all!

 We have one investigator named Renee and she is literally golden! She is super into the gospel and is so excited about learning more. When we first showed up, she had her scriptures out with a notepad and pencil to take notes on what we said. We had a return appointment and when we went back there, she was disappointed in herself that she only read the first 15 chapters of 1st Nephi... she was trying to finish all of 1st Nephi. I feel like she is progressing quite well and am super excited to see where things will go from here. We are planning on hard committing her for baptism this week. I think it should be great! 

Another lady that I met this week was named Carol. Carol is a less-active member in the ward and she really has had a ton of difficulties in life. When I think of her, I think of the talk from General Conference entitled "A Broken Vessel." She suffers from extreme depression and is probably one of the most humble people that I have ever met. My heart really goes out to her. We have a few things that we are going to invite her to and I think that it really will be super good for her!

We had district meeting this week and it was really good. Our district leader talked about how we are only in an area for a specific amount of time and that time is limited. He more said it because he thinks that some people might get transferred this next transfer, but it really hit home with me. I do not know when my VISA will get here. I try not to think about it too much, but sometimes, I find myself getting anxious about going to Brasil. This was such a great reminder for me that I really want to make a difference wherever I am at, whether it is here or in Brasil. I am very grateful to be here in Tennessee!!

I feel like I am learning a ton from Sister Wynn. She is a super hard worker and is very focused on the work. When I have my hour of language study, she is very diligent about mapping out Less-active members, finding out where they live and who would be good to see that is most efficient with miles. I feel a little guilty not helping out, then I remind myself that I need to do language study as well.

I've been studying my notes from President Corbridge this past week. A few of the things that stuck out to me is that we don't need to perform miracles for people to believe in us. We simply just need to teach the doctrine. Also, by teaching people the doctrine, it will answer their questions of "why?". We have been trying to focus our lessons more on that this week. One other thing that I wrote down which we have tons of room for improvement on is doing role plays during companionship study. Sometimes we don't always get time, so by planning out our time better, that will help out. 

For Thanksgiving this week we have a few different people's houses that we are going to.... I think 3 or 4. I'm not sure how it is all going to work out, but I think it might just be eating at one house, then going to the next house and eating, and so forth. With one lady, she is a vegetarian and is going to try to make some turkey for us. I am so very grateful for her willingness to make us some meat!! I'm not sure if it will be quite like home, but something is better than nothing! 

Love you all tons!

Sister Spencer

Letter from Monday Nov. 18th

Hey there Family!! 

How is everyone doing? It's so wonderful to hear from all of you. This week has not been the easiest week, but I've definitely seen the Lord's hand in my life. 

I've talked a little bit about our one investigator, Jennifer, the one who had the baptismal date. Well, she has literally dropped off the face of the Earth. She won't answer her phone, when we go over there to see her and just drop by, she is never there. We have no idea what has happened to her. She no longer has a baptismal date now because we haven't been able to teach her and she hasn't stopped smoking. It's a little bit discouraging, but we are still hopeful that things will work out. Funny side story for ya'll though. We went over there on Friday to see if she was there. She wasn't there, but her mom and her mom's fiance were there so we started talking to them. We started to share a quick message with them and then after we had finished, things just got weird. The mom started talking about how the apocalypse has started to happen in other states, not Tennessee, mind you, but just other states. And then the fiance chimed in and started talking about how stars were falling to the Earth. Now, I don't know everything, but something tells me that I would know if stars were falling to the Earth. It was a pretty funny conversation from our end. Anyways, I sure hope all ya'll are doing alright with the apocalypse and falling stars. ;)

This week has been Sister Stone's last week, she goes home on Wednesday. A lot of the members here have told her that when she gets off her mission, it will be one of the hardest things ever and she will feel like she is in a dark hole. I am worried that this has made her extremely nervous about going home. This morning, she was working on packing a little bit and had a pretty good freak out about going home. I have been keeping her in my prayers and have been trying to do my best to comfort her, but man, she is sure scared to go home. 

I find it frustrating here when a member has us over for dinner and then expects us to stay at their house for two hours. Sister Wynn, Stone, and I talked about this and we have a game plan to change it! Pretty excited to put this into action! It should be great!  

Our investigators are okay. A lot of them seem to be pretty stand-off-ish about us. We are still continuing to love them and to try our best to serve them. I am so grateful to be a missionary, even with the days that are hard. On the happier side though, the Moore family is doing great. I made some pumpkin muffins yesterday so today we are hoping to drop in on them and teach them a super quick lesson. They leave this week to go to Arkansas for 5 weeks. 

Our one investigator Paul is... well he's Paul. He's what we call an eternigator. (eternal investigator). As missionaries we have decided that he wants to know all of the "meat" of our religion without first knowing the "milk." We have taught him the restoration, and missionaries in the past have taught him the restoration lesson. In the past, he has prayed about Joseph Smith to know if he was a prophet, and he said he got an answer and that was to stay baptist. We have asked him to pray about Joseph Smith again and read the Book of Mormon. He won't pray about Joseph Smith and when he reads the Book of Mormon he doesn't do so wanting to know whether or not it is the word of God. Ugh, frustrating. We sent him a text the other day inviting him to church. The text said: "Hey we'd love to have you at church on Sunday if you can make it!" He then responded back with "No more Pressure!!!..." Yeesh. 

This week we had to travel up to Farragut to get our car tires changed and get the engine looked at. It should have taken about an hour total, but people were slow and so it took 5 hours. It felt like a bit of a wasted day so it was frustrating, but on the plus side, we had a wonderful weekly planning session!

Random highlights of the week: I met a person named Michael Jackson! (Pretty sure he was lying, but whatever.) I got nicknamed Sister Monster by a two year old. (The two year old is adorable and loves to play with me while my companion sings in the choir on Tuesday nights.) 

We went to visit one of our potential investigators and she didn't speak very good English (native language was Spanish). They had some trouble understanding us and they had some trouble using the right words to express themselves in English so we couldn't understand them all the way. We were about to leave but we asked to say a prayer with them first. The dad says that we could. He says that we can pray in English and that he will pray in Spanish. It was super unclear about what he wanted done, but anyways, his wife and him both start shouting their prayers in Spanish and me and my companions were just there awkwardly. It was pretty funny after we got out of there, but man, it was sure awkward in there. We just ended up standing there until both of them were finished.

Love ya'll!

Sister Spencer

Letter from Tues, Nov. 12

Hey Family!!

Sorry I wasn't able to email yesterday. It was Veteran's Day and the library was close so we had no way to get on. Hopefully you don't mind my email one day late though! :) 

This week has been pretty good. My companions and I had a pretty cool experience. We were going through the ward roster researching part families and we came across the Moore family. The husband is a member and the wife is a non-member. They are an elderly couple and very nice. After looking at the list of names we had a strong impression to give them a call to meet with them. We called them up and then went over and got to know them a little bit. After talking to her for a bit we asked her if she had been taught the lessons by other missionaries in the past. She said no and that missionaries would just come over and share a scripture or two. So, we shared the first lesson with her. It was a really awesome experience. The wife reads the ensign, believes in prophets, was very accepting of everything we said, mentioned that she was thinking about getting baptized and came to church on Sunday. At church she mentioned how she thought it would be cool to go to the temple. She is absolutely golden and ready!!!.... the only small hang-up is that she is going to be going out of town for 5 weeks on vacation with her husband. I am not sure if I will be here when she gets back, but if I am, it would be so awesome to see her get baptized!! And if not, we have recorded her information so that if we are not in the area when she gets back, she won't be forgotten.

One of our other investigators is Paul Wootten. I guess that I am a little bit worried about him. I am not quite so sure why he is interested in the church. He has had multiple missionaries in the past. To me it seems as if he wants to understand the deep doctrine before he is willing to understand some of the basic doctrine. I don't know how open he is to listening to our message, but he does have a ton of deep questions for us. Also, his wife, Amy, is a less active member. Because of some mistakes that Amy has made in the past, she does not want to come to church. She feels as if people will be judging her (In reality, no one even remembers her.) So, Paul won't come to church because of her. We want to go over there and strengthen Amy and her daughter and teach Paul at the same time, but I am not quite so sure how open Paul is to listening to what we have to say and how open Amy is to us asking her to come to church. I'm not sure what will happen with them, but I guess that we'll find out in the next week or two. 

We had zone conference this week. It was pretty good. They talked a lot about the importance of planning and how busy does not always mean effective. One thing in particular that was said that I really enjoyed was: "write something worth reading or go and do something worth writing." Even outside of missionary work, I feel like that can be useful. President Irion came to the meeting and he really stressed how the first two hours of your day can really break or make your mission. (First two hours of the day are companion and personal study.) I have been trying to apply these principles more and have been feeling the difference already. 

My companions are doing pretty well. Sister Wynn is a great example of hard-work and Sister Stone is a wonderful example of loving the people that we are teaching. I think Sister Stone is dealing with a lot of different emotions with going home... She goes home in 9 days. It's very crazy, but I'm glad that I have learned the things from her that I have. 

This week we went to go and visit a less-active named Tracey Rice. Her mother passed away two months ago and she is taking her death very hard. When we went over there, she asked us if we could help her clean her room. I immediately got assigned to organize her closet. Thank goodness her clothes were all clean! I actually really enjoyed being able to organize it though. It was a nice break for me and I think it really helped her out. As we were leaving though, she went and grabbed some shirts that she had gotten. They still had the tag on them and everything, but she didn't want them. She looked at me and said "Here, I think these will fit you." .... The shirts were an XL and I wear a small. I didn't know what to say and sort of hesitated taking them. She then asked me "Do you think those are going to be too small for you?" ....-_-.... 

I love you all so much! Thank you for your emails, prayers, and support! 

Love, 

Sister Spencer

My Mission in Knoxville Continued

Dear Family! 

Thank you so much for all of your letters this week! It has been awesome!

This week has definitely been full of ups and downs. Few highlights from the week: 

This week we went and visited a recent convert who doesn't have a car. His name is Michael DeLane. We discussed with him how to have faith and understand that the church is perfect and the people aren't with an emphasis on forgiveness. I made a comment to him about how living the gospel can be hard at times but it is definitely rewarding and that living the gospel this way is a lot easier than living in sin. After I said this, he started clapping and gave me a thumbs-up. Man, if everyone does that after I finish speaking, I should consider being a motivational speaker!!! ... JK, I'm really not that great, I just thought it was funny how after I talk, people always feel the need to tell me that my comment was good. haha! :)

This week we went to visit a lady in our ward named Sister Larson. She broke her right hip and strained her left hip so she is pretty much immovable. We went over there and had a really awesome gospel lesson with her. Right as we were leaving we asked her if she knew of anyone who would enjoy to hear an uplifting message or who was going through a hard time. She thought for a minute and then told us that her neighbor had been asking about the church. So, tomorrow we are going over there to teach her! I feel like this is such an answer to prayers! I am so excited!!! We've been asking for referrals from everyone but most people just tell us that oh, you know, we are too busy to talk to people... I don't know my neighbor. I guess I just thought it was interesting who a lady who can't go out of her house or even off of her couch has someone for us. Well, we are still working on gaining the trust of the members. I feel that as we do this that we will be able to get more referrals and people to teach!

Olga and Jennifer dropped us... they were two of what we considered "golden investigators." I think they got a hold of some anti-Mormon material and then that was the end for them.... too sad. She sent us a text the other day saying that she didn't want to know anymore of that "Mormon stuff" and that she was firm in her decision. We politely responded that there were a lot of misconceptions about our religion and that we would invite her to read the Book of Mormon and find out the truth for herself from the very source but that we would respect her decision.  It's sort of discouraging, but my companions and I are doing our best to work hard and not get discouraged. 

This week in my scripture reading I read a lot about Nephi. One thing that I thought was super interesting is that no matter where Nephi is, he is able to keep an eternal perspective about what things truly matter and turning his will over to the Lords. For example, when Nephi was commanded to build a boat. I'm sure that wasn't his #1 priority, but he did it nonetheless and he didn't complain about it. Also, with that, something that I noticed is that he didn't doubt that he couldn't do it. He just trusted in the Lord that he could do it. I have been trying my hardest to do the same thing. I know that as I put my trust in the Lord that he will lead me to success!

One of the families that we are teaching is the Woottens. They are a Less active/part member family. From working with them a little bit, one of the things that I am concerned about is that both of them have a very limited perspective. The wife, the Less-active one, has mentioned to us multiple times that she needs to start going back to church but she just won't go because she is afraid that people will judge her. With her, I think it is so sad that she is letting someone else affect her eternal salvation. It's SO worth it. Yeesh. With the husband, he's had missionaries many times before. He said he has prayed about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and the answer that he got was that he needed to remain a Baptist. So now, when we are trying to teach him, he immediately says to us that he has already gotten his answer. It's sort of frustrating, but we are doing our best to be patient and explain the importance of everything. 

There is an Elderly couple that we try to go and visit. I've talked about them in the past... the Amoses. They are super nice. We went up and saw them this week. She asked us to sing the song Amazing Grace for her. We did and then she gave us another one to learn. We told her that we would work on learning it for her. After that, she told us that she wanted all of us to sing at her funeral. None of us really knew what to say since we wouldn't really be here when she died. It was sort of awkward but we told her that if we could be there, we would be. Oh also, good news though, Sister Amos is feeling much better. The doctors have switched around her medication so now she can sit through a full lesson! We are very happy about that! 

I love you all very much and you are in my prayers! Keep the faith, stay strong, tell everyone about the gospel!! 

Much love, 

Sister Spencer

Weekly Letter - 2 in 1!

Heeeeyyyy Family, 

Yeah, um so sorry about last week. I did forget to send it and then somehow it got deleted...-_-. I don't really know what happened on the computer so I am trying to piece parts of it back together now. 

Here's what I could salvage out of my email from last week: 

Funny story that you might enjoy. A few days ago, I woke up both of my companions in my sleep. I was sleep talking really loud. Apparently I said: "So! We are all wearing pajama bottoms and you are wearing jeans. Why?" Sister Stone "shhhh-ed" me and that woke me up. Sister Stone was pretty annoyed that I had woken her up though while I was still peacefully asleep. But after that, because I had woken Sister Wynn up, she decided to get up and go to the bathroom, so she turned on the hall light and that shined right in Sister Stone's eye. She thought it was me getting up in my sleep turning on lights, so she let out this big long noise of "Whhhhyyyyyyy!?!?!?" It was pretty funny from my point of view considering that at this point I was awake. As far as I know I was silent for the rest of the night, but who knows. We all got a good laugh out of it in the morning though. :)

I am super excited for the rest of today. We are going over to this place called a berry patch. they have some fried pies [see picture to the left] there, smoothies, and pumpkins we get to carve. Fantastic, right!? Yeah, I'm pretty stoked. For the past few p-days we haven't done a ton of fun things so this will be a nice change for me!! :D So excited for this!!! :D 

We were driving in the car the other day and my companions were kind of joking back and forth that the other was better than them. I was in the back seat not really in the conversation. I decided to join in so I meant to say "Well both of you are better than me." ... And I ended up saying "You are better than both of me." I have been having a lot of bright moments... :P

This week has been pretty good! We got an investigator with a baptismal date. We met her when we were going to try and contact some old potential investigators. She was going out to get her dogs so we stopped and talked to her. We set up a time to come back and visit later. When we went back, we taught her about the restoration and at the end of the lesson we committed her to be baptized! It was wonderful! I do have a few concerns about how much she is actually understanding about what we are teaching her though. After we shared Joseph Smith's experience in the grove, we asked her what she thought about it and her response did not really make sense with what we had asked. We'll just have to go slowly, ask questions to make sure she understands and then take it from there.

My companions are awesome. I feel like I am learning so much from them. At times, I guess I feel a little bit inadequate compared to them. I am doing my best not to compare myself to them and just put forth my whole effort. Sister Wynn has been such a great example to me of working hard and getting this area moving. And then Sister Stone has been such a great example of having true love for those we teach. I am grateful for both of their examples.  

Now here's this week!! (10/28/2013)

This week has been pretty good.  I went on exchanges this week with Sister Turner, a sister that is currently serving in the Chillhowee area. I felt like I learned a lot from her and was super grateful for the opportunity to learn from her. The first night in that area was actually really fun and not so spiritual. We went over to a member's house and they fed us dinner. After dinner, they decided that us as missionaries don't get to have enough fun so they pulled out light sabers and told us that we had to have a competition before we could leave our message. :D.  

Awesome. I'll attach some pictures so that you can see it. [Added above] That night when we went back to the apartment for planning and sleep, I met Sister Turner's neighbor. His name was Mike. He is super nice, definitely a redneck type of guy. He loves to go fishing and drives trains for a living. He loves to spoil the sister missionaries. I was only there one night and he gave me a duck dynasty cup and a nickname of "Miss Colorado". I definitely approve of the nickname and like it a lot!! It was super fun being on splits, but I'm glad to be back in my own area now. I like it here. :) 

 I've started to read in the Bible in Mark. I am gaining a ton of new insights about Christ's life. Some of it is confusing to me, but as I go slow, I am slowly understanding it.One thing that I find to be super interesting is that the apostles saw the miracles that Christ performed, yet with some of the miracles their hearts were hardened so they did not recognize the things that they saw as miracles. With that, I've been trying to apply that to my own life and identify things in my life that are miracles and influences of the Lord's hand in my life that maybe I would not recognize. It's been super great. One of the things that I noticed was that it is getting to be the end of the month and we are getting super close to going over on our miles. We had a dinner appointment on Sunday so we went up to the lady and told her that we didn't have enough miles to get to her house. She offered to take us because the people she normally takes home were sick. It was sad that they were sick, but such a tender mercy for us!!

 We have a new investigator this week who I think is absolutely golden. Her name is Olga I am super excited to go and see her this week. She is about 50 years old and is seeking for truth. She currently attends a baptist church but told us that she knows that there is more (AND SHE'S RIGHT!!!). We are going to see her this week so hopefully she will be receptive to what we have to teach her. I know that she will be a great addition to the ward here!

With our investigator who has a baptismal date I am a bit worried that she is just interested in the church for what she can get out of it.... aka help with food. Not that that is a bad thing, I am just a bit concerned that she is not interested in the church for the right reasons. I am trying to have more faith in her though. We went with a member to pick for up for church on Sunday. She was in her pajamas so quickly threw on a dress and then came. During the whole time she kept mentioning how she wanted to talk to the Bishop so that she could get food. I don't know what is going to happen. ... Guess we'll see. :P 

On Tuesday we had someone from the 70 come and talk to us. His name was Elder Corbridge. He had some really great information. He talked about how when we teach we need to make sure that people our understanding the doctrine because that answers their question of "why." It was good. I got a good 5 pages of notes. After hearing him speak though, it made me super thankful for speakers with energy though. He was quite monotone and if I wasn't taking notes I would have received a very nice nap... 

Yesterday we did go to a PoW (Prisoner of War) fireside though. This gentlemen served in the Vietnam war and was held a prisoner of war for 8 years. One of the things that really stuck out to me was that he said that when he was in captivity he was with all sorts of people who had different beliefs and that when he was with them, they did not expect him to change because they didn't believe in something he did, rather they just removed themselves from the situation and he did so likewise. I think that is a great lesson to learn from, especially today. So many people want you to change because you don't believe in what they do. It is still possible to respect other people's beliefs and not believe in them. Anyways, he was a very good speaker, energetic, interesting, and I really liked listening to it! 

Sister Stone's birthday was this week! She turned 24 on the 24th! To celebrate it we went out to this restaurant called Cheddars. It is actually a pretty nice place and I like it a lot. Since I am in the south, I figured that I should go out of my comfort zone and try something new... like chicken and waffles!!!! Yeah, sounds interesting, right?! Well it sure is interesting and it was DEFINITELY a one time thing getting it. Never again will I get it. It does not taste good. So, if you are ever in the south, I would recommend trying something else besides chicken and waffles. sister Stone did have a good birthday though, so that was good! 

A few days ago, Sister Stone decided to try and cook us some stir fry. She turned on the stove on high, put a pan on there for a good 5 minutes and then put butter in the pan. Well because the pan was so hot, it shot the butter out of the pan and flames a good 6 inches high started coming out of the pan. It was definitely a sight to see.  She minored in culinary at BYU-I, but I guess that for some people the common sense with cooking does not always come naturally.... :P 

Much Love, 

Sister Spencer

Knoxville, TN

Dear Family! 

Thank you all so much for your emails! It was so nice to read them. Well, here's about my week: 

On Wednesday I picked up another companion, Sister Wynn. She is awesome. She is such a hard worker and hasn't been out very long... about 4 months I think. I know that right now I can learn a ton from her. I am very excited for the success that we all are going to have! As a companionship, Sister Stone, Wynn, and I have all made some goals that will hopefully help us to have some more success here. The work is going very slowly. As of right now, I am finding that one of the hardest things is to find people to teach. Most everyone is a set in stone baptist so it can be hard to share our message, but we are still working hard nonetheless. 

The young women's leader is awesome. Every Wednesday night she comes out with us and will go try and contact some of the less-active young women. This past week we were having trouble finding someone to visit. Everyone's house that we went to had either moved or given the church the wrong address. We finally decided to go and visit one of the names at the bottom of the list. When we went there, the lady who answered the door was so surprised to see us. She mentioned that she thought that it was divine intervention that we had come at that time. Apparently these less-active are living at another member's house and were having a hard time right then because the member had asked them to find a new place to live. We were able to go there and to share a quick spiritual message and talk things over. The young woman seemed super interested in some of the church programs, especially the choir, so hopefully she will start showing up to some of the activities and such. 

This past week we went over and visited a part-member/less active couple, the Amos's. They are elderly and cannot attend church because of their health. The wife is not a member and because the husband has not attended church for such a long time, he does not remember much about the gospel. When we went there, we had brought the Elders with us so that they could give them a blessing. So we first gave them a quick lesson and introduced the Book of Mormon and then went on to the blessing. It was such a cool blessing that the Elder gave. He kept mentioning to the husband how heavenly father was so pleased to have a son like him. That really touched me quite a bit. This man is home-bound, but it is so obvious to see the love and dedication that he has for his wife. Even when he can't do a lot, he still has an honest heart and is able to serve the best to his capability. I thought that was a great lesson to be learned. Anyways, when the other Elder gave Sister Amos a blessing, that was also a super cool experience. After the blessing was over, Sister Amos started talking about her daughter who had just barely died three months earlier from a drug-overdose. She pointed to a picture of her daughter in the room, right next to where I was, and I could literally feel her daughter right next to me. The spirit was so strong that entire visit. It was amazing. 

Well funny story that happened during that visit. After the blessings, we started talking to the couple about the plan of salvation. Sister Wynn was being awesome and using some of the "how to begin teaching points" in preach my gospel. She was trying to use the one that says: "We don't know everything but we will do our best to answer your questions." Well, she got ahead of  herself though and instead of saying everything, she said anything. So she ended up saying: "We don't know anything, but we will do our best to answer your questions." I corrected her just to clarify and everyone got a good laugh out of it! It was pretty great. 

I've started to read this book on the Apostasy. I believe it is called "The Great Apostasy"... or something like that. It's pretty cool though. So far as I have been reading, the thing that has really stuck out to me is the fact that even after Christs death and has people were standing strong to the religion, it wasn't all of the persecutions (burned, being fed to ravenous dogs, crucified, etc.) that they were facing that destroyed the church. The more the persecutions came, the more people flocked to the church. But what actually ended up causing the church to go into apostasy was the enemy that came from within. I think that there is a good lesson to be taken from there. 

Okay, funny story time. Last week my companions and I decided to splurge, so we went to McDonalds to go and buy some icecream. When we were there, we saw 3 teenaged-age boys. I didn't think much of it. We quickly got our icecream and left. Later that same night, we wnet and got gas fr our car and went in to buy some milk. When we were walking in to the gas station, those same three boys, called over to me and my companions. We went over, thrilled that someone actually called us over to talk to us. We started talking about the gospel. We gave them a pass along card. (I had almost written our phone number on it, but last minute decided not to), and then as we started to walk away, one of the teenage boys yelled to me and said "Hey, the whole reason why I wanted to talk to you was because I thought you were pretty." I thought about doing the whole "flirt to convert" thing, but decided against it so I just said thanks and went and bought the milk. 

I love you all!!

Sister Spencer

Weekly Letter!

Familia! 

Sounds like it has been an eventful week for all of you. I'm sorry to hear about the events that have happened. I have been keeping everyone in my prayers and will continue to do so! I'll include my remarks for Grandpa in a separate email. 

My companions have been getting much better this week. I still personally think that we are spending too much time at some of the ward member's houses, but it is getting better! My one companion, Sister Stone, went and did exchanges this past week so she was gone for two days so it was just Sister Horkley and I. It was actually pretty fun. I definitely like just having two people better than three, but oh well. When we were together, we did some awesome finding. Earlier in the week,  I had gone and looked through some of the old potential investigators trying to find some people that we could go and teach. One of the people that I thought that we should go and see was Darren Cross. When we went to go and find him, he wasn't there. Only a really scary dog and a neighbor who was high beyond belief and had a lovely plot of weed growing in her house. Lovely. Well, we were going to leave since no one wanted to hear our message when up pulled his other neighbor in the car. She was a super hyper lady. We talked to her and she seemed really interested in going to church.... she mentioned it to us before we even brought it up. I wonder if part of that was because of our name tags and she wanted to seem like a very religious person. Who knows. We are going to go back and teach her this week and I am VERY excited to see what happens! 

The ward members here are very nice and each very different. There is this one family that is all healthy and vegetarian (They won't eat altoids because apparently they have horse hoof in them, but whatever) and then there is this other family who only eats carbs and meats. Interesting. I am still searching for a family who loves to eat fruits and veggies, but unfortunately not a ton of people seem to like that. haha. Cool thing though, this week I tried fried oreos this week. They were okay, tasted a lot like fair food. One of the lady's in the ward said that she was going to make this thing called grits for me. She keeps going on and on about how good they are.... hopefully they are THAT good. 

We had zone conference this past week. It was pretty good. We went to a church building in a different city. It was just a ton of speakers and sitting for a few hours and listening and taking notes to stay awake. I think a lot of being a missionary is sitting and taking notes. By the time I come home, I should be pro at it. Anyways, one of the speakers talked about how in this life we have things that we can hope in... such as the Savior, the gift of the atonement. But in this life, there are things that we can only hope for... such as receiving eternal life. I had not thought of it this way and thought that was interesting. While we were at the zone conference though, I saw some old people from my first district in the MTC. They had arranged to have a Portuguese lesson with one of the lady's in their ward from Brazil. Because I was at the building at that time, I got to sit in! It was awesome!!1 I love Portuguese so much. And, the lady gave me some awesome Brazil candy. I was pretty excited about that. It actually tasted good and wasn't super duper sweet like some of the candy here is. Don't remember what it is called though.

I finished the Book of Mormon for the second time on my mission this week. It was awesome finishing it again. I love that book and how every time you read it, there are different things that you pick up. One of the main things that I picked up this time as I read it was the importance of deciding your attitude, standards, beliefs and sticking to them and also the power of Christ and how he can heal you. That was super nice to hear, especially with my foot! I'm now working on reading the Doctrine and covenants since I have never really read that before. So far it has been great! 

My companions got a kick out of me this week. At night we have the phone on loud volume so that the alarm will wake us up in the morning. Well, apparently one of our investigators decided to text us at 3 in the morning. She sent two texts so it woke me up. When I woke up, I realized that I was super hot, so I went and got a fan, turned it on and went back to bed. I couldn't fall asleep and decided I was super hungry, so I went and got half an apple to eat. I figured everyone was asleep so I just went straight back up to bed and ate it in there.... well apparently the texts had woken them up to because as soon as I started eating my apple, it fully woke both of them up. They were both so surprised that I would eat something at that time... I guess they have never done midnight snacks before. But yeah, they have been giving me quite a bit of grief about it. 

General Conference was awesome. I'll skip summarizing the talks since I assume that you all watched or are going to watch it sometime. We went over to a member's house to watch it and it was definitely different. The first session that we were there, before the conference started, I was talking to one of my companions and we were laughing at something, I don't remember what. She told us to be quite and listen to the prelude music... the next day we went over there, she had assigned seating for us. Yeesh, we're not two. :P

I love you all so much!! I am praying for all of you! 

Sister Spencer