A Week to Remember, July 19, 2021

Well Hello everyone!! Hope you have all had a great week! 

This week was super amazing! Probably one of my favourite weeks on my mission. We saw so many miracles this week it was wonderful! So we had a pretty good start to the week, we did service and had a few pretty good lessons. The week was pretty normal. 

Thursday was great! We had a mission wide conference over Zoom and we did something I've never done before. Usually during these conferences we sit for 3-5 hours and receive instruction and training but this time around President Bell had something else in mind. Instead of receiving instruction he told us we were going to "get to work". 

The morning of the conference he asked the whole mission to fast (to go without food and water for 24 hours). So I began my fast. We had 1 hour of instruction and a small training and then our President told everyone that we would spend the next 4 hours (1pm-5pm) just finding people to teach. Usually in any given day we do about 3-5 hours of finding and rarely do we do it all straight. 

Elder Storment and I prayed and talked about where we should go and we felt guided to go to a park about 15 mins away. So we did, no success. We again talked about where to go, we tried another park, again no luck. We tried again at one more park, nobody was there. We decided to look at our areabook to see if there was anyone who lived nearby this last park we were at and there were a couple potentials, we stopped by only to find out that one of the address didn't exist and the other person wasn't home. At this point it is 3pm. We have spent the last two hours biking around in 90 degree heat with a ton of humidity and I am tired, sweaty and so stinking thirsty. I was kinda upset at that we hadn't been able to find anyone to talk to. 

We decided to head back to our apartment and do another form of finding, Facebook. When we got home I was still tired and not having it. I just wanted to be done. But I knew that we need to keep going until 5. Elder Storment suggested that we say a prayer, and let me tell you this is where I had a change of mind and heart. I offered the prayer and wow it was powerful. I poured out frustration, telling Heavenly Father that we were exhausted and tired and that we wanted to give up. But then I prayed trying to muster some faith I prayed and told Heavenly Father that I knew there were people we needed to find and that I wanted to find these people. As I prayed that I was filled with peace and love, my Spirit felt renewed, I received more energy and was able to re-focus. 

After that prayer we grinded on Facebook and we had some success! We were able to get in contact with some people in our teaching pool we hadn't talked to in awhile. We posted a service ad that got some responses. God directly blessed us for trying to be diligent even when we were tired and ready to give up. 

The miracles didn't end there, Friday and Saturday were awesome. We brought a Bible to a lady who requested one and when she found out what church we were from she asked if she could have a Book of Mormon and she said she was MORE EXCITED to read the Book of Mormon than the Bible that we had brought her!!

Then on Saturday we were able to have ice cream and a little lesson with Michelle, a lady we've been trying to meet with for over a month now! It was just such a good week! I want to include a quick spiritual thought, I promise this email is almost over! :)

Comes from more talks from President Nelson. One I reference last week "What we are learning and will never forget" and "We can do better and be better" 

Basically the just of my thought is I was reading in that first talk and this quote stood out.   

"As faith and holiness decrease in this fallen world, your need for holy places will increase."

It got me thinking about holy places and how I can create those in my own life. 

An answer came later in the talk that we need to create time and space to be quiet and hear the still, small voice. I then looked at my life and the things I am doing to try and create more Holy places. One answer came to mind to do my best to put off the "natural man" more in my life. This is where the second talk comes in. 

This quote struck me: 

"Thus, when Jesus asks you and me to “repent,” He is inviting us to change our mind, our knowledge, our spirit—even the way we breathe. He is asking us to change the way we love, think, serve, spend our time, treat our wives, teach our children, and even care for our bodies."

So I decided to pick some things to go without, or to do less so I could focus more on the Spirit. It really helped! It made me realize that there is always something to improve, and picking some small things to sacrifice at a time end up making a huge difference. It helped me to stay more diligent and focused on my purpose. 

Sorry for this long talk but basically, sacrificing "simple pleasures" things that we can go without help me to better hear the spirit. 

I challenge you all to pick one thing to go without and try to not do it for one week, you will be blessed!! 

Anyways gotta go! Love, Elder Spencer 

Lightning Storms, July 12, 2021

Hi everyone! This week went by pretty quick! 

On Monday after P-Day we had a lesson with a lady named Brenda over the phone. It was our first lesson with her and it went pretty well! She had met with some missionaries in the past but then dropped out of contact for awhile and it was no one could get in contact with her. Then we were able to set up a lesson with her and begin to teach her more! What was really cool was that she wanted to meet everyone Monday night, she said "I'll set that time aside for me, you two and the Lord." It was great!! So we are getting ready for a lesson tonight with her! 

We had a few other lessons this week along with some service, same stuff as in the past but it was still pretty fun. Elder Storment and I are getting more and more united as we are learning more about each other each day. I'm getting more and more comfortable with this new ward as well. Sunday was pretty good, greeting the members as they came in and being able to laugh and smile with them is pretty fun. 

We had some crazy lightning storms this past week, there were thousands of people who went without power for almost 10 hours. Our power went out a couple times, each for about a few seconds so nothing drastic. Apparently these massive rainstorms are a common occurrence out here in the midwest. 

Spiritual Thought For The Week: 

This comes from a talk by President Russell M. Nelson given in April 2021 titled "What We Are Learning and Will Never Forget" 

"I know the Lord has great and marvelous plans for us-individually and collectively. With compassion and patience, He says: "Ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath ... prepared for you; And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along."" 

This quote stood out to me first of all because of the words "compassion and patience". Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are on our team. They reach out to us in a loving manner. I have been kinda pondering the nature of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ lately and it amazes me at how loving They are. They just want us all to be happy and to feel their love. I hope you can all strive to feel Their love for you this week. I know it is there, it just takes some reaching from our end!! 

Love you all! Elder Spencer 

(PS- I'd love to hear how you all are doing!!) 

July 4th and More! July 5, 2021

Hello everyone! 

Happy Independence Day to my American family and friends, Happy Canada Day to my Canadian family and friends! This week went by very quickly! It was a little on the slow side teaching wise but it was still a pretty good week. 

We did some service for one of the friends we are teaching which involved cutting down vines and mowing his lawn. Another one of our friends Ashley invited us to go and get snow cones with her. That was pretty fun! We then had a lesson with her later in the week, the next day actually which went well! We taught her how the Book of Mormon and the Bible go together and teach of the same truths. 

Sunday was a pretty eventful day. We had church which was pretty nice and then went back to our apartment and did some studying and such. We were invited to go to a members home for some 4th of July celebrations. Which turned out to be a giant Roman Candle war! We as missionaries could only watch. It was pretty intense stuff but cool nonetheless! 

After that we had a lesson we went to and as we were biking home, this was around 8:45pm, it sounded like we were in a war zone. There were fireworks going off all over the place, and ever so often a big one would go off in the sky. That was a pretty fun experience.

That's about it! 

Service at Chuck's 

 At the firework battle 

                                                                    Snow Cones with Ashley 

Rain and an Apostle, June 28, 2021

Hello everyone! Hope all is well.

This week was pretty good. I went on an exchange right after P-day ended with one of my Zone-Leaders. We had served around each other in my last zone, so that was kind of cool. It was a good exchange, we had a pretty good lesson with a sweet old lady named Josie. She is kind of forgetful and is trying to give up smoking but we fear that she sometimes may forget that she is trying to give it up! :) 

Elder Storment and I were assigned to be our Facebook pages Admins. Some of our responsibilities include attending a mission wide technology meeting, learning there and then spreading out information to the rest of our zone in a weekly meeting. We are also in charge of running the page, making sure we get enough material (posts, stories and such) out. At first we were not very excited to be Admins, but after the first week and experiencing running our first page meeting it hasn't been too bad! 

We struggled to have lessons this week, most of our friends were busy or cancelled on us, some want a break from us. It is hard when no one really wants to meet or things get cancelled last minute. 

Now for a happier story. So we are on bikes in this area, and this past week was super rainy, we had thunderstorms pretty much on and off for most of the week. Sunday rolls around and the weather is not looking great. We woke up in the morning to it just dumping buckets and we were like "dang, this ride is gonna stink". But as we were leaving to bike the 30mins to church it stopped raining! We enjoyed a dry ride there. Then once we got to church, I kid you not right when we stepped in the building it started raining again! Then it stopped during church, allowing us to get home dry, and once again as soon as we got inside our apartment it started to pour! In our Sunday school lesson we had just talked about miracles, well that was one right there! :) :)

Sunday evening our mission was blessed to have Elder D. Todd Christofferson and his wife speak to us in a Zoom devotional. What a unique opportunity! It was very cool to have such a small audience to be in with an Apostle even if it was over Zoom. He spoke to us for a bit and answered some pre-prepared questions. He then left us with some cool blessings to help us in our missionary work. One thing he said though about those blessings is that they would come IF we desired them. That really stood out to me. Desire and the "why" behind things is something I have been trying to figure out lately and this spoke to me. Our part is to desire to do good, desire to have blessings and to find joy or peace or forgiveness or whatever it may be, IF we desire we can get those things. Of course it will take much more work then just to have a desire but it's a great place to start! 

Alma 32:27 reads: "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." 

I like this verse quite a bit! It has a lot of meaning. Even though I may not know everything, or feel completely at peace with things at times, I know that a desire to do good and to love and serve IF acted upon diligently and patiently over time will lead to a greater faith and desire. I know this can be true for each of you in whatever you may be facing! 

Love you all and hope you are staying safe! 

                                                                                     Rain Storm