Loving the New Area!!

Dear Family and Friends! 

It has been such a great week! I hope that it has been a great week for y'all as well! So here was how my week went!

Week February 22-28 2015

Monday:

I feel like sometimes my Monday's can be very as they say, Mondaying, meaning that I say the same things over and over again every week and I need to repent of doing that and share the more amazing experiences that happen! So today was the first p-day in the last 3 months that I had real and good studies before P- Day started, and it made a huge difference in the whole day, and I definitely learned from my companion as we prepared to teach the family home evening tonight on Prayer and Scripture Study! So as we began P-Day we went and picked up Elder Escobar and Lakey and went to do some emailing so we could focusing on shopping and letting out some energy, and it was a huge success! As we went shopping, Elder Wardle and I were able to get everything that we really were in need of and even a little more, in a great budget price! We had a great time shopping and working together and were able to get to the church in time to have our zone activity!

So our zone activity we played a full gym game of Sorry that the sisters made, and it was so much fun!! After playing sorry we played some good games of basketball and strike out or speed that was really fun! And then we ended the night by an amazing family home evening where Elder Wardle and I taught a great lesson on Prayer and Scripture Study and how it can change their lives, and the kids loved it! For the snack afterwards the adults brought Tamales that were to die for and gave us the leftovers! What a great day it was, and I loved being able, to spend it with Elder Wardle and the Zone and district!

Tuesday:

I used to say only some days flew past fast, but now I am thinking I was all wrong! Everyday out here in the mission is just flying by faster than I really want it too! So this morning I was thinking a lot about my parents as I remembered it was there Anniversary and I am so grateful to have them as my parents! They have been together for 31 years now and I am just amazed at how loving they are to each other! Something that hit me as I asked my mom how she felt about being together for so long and just about working through even the hardest times together, and she told me, "when life is hard, that is the best time to work together, because then you build that love even stronger between one another." She also told me, "I still get that butterfly feeling in my stomach when I see your dad pull up out front from work and I feel so happy to be with him forever." My parents are a great example of how I would like my marriage to be one day and I am so grateful for them! So today we had the privilege of having Zone Conference with our Mission President and his wife, President And Sister Ames, all day. As I sat there I learned so many things to bless my life that I pretty much ran out of ink in my pen! A lot of questions I had been praying about were answered in the craziest ways of the scriptures mixed with other thoughts that came to my mind, and I am just so grateful for the Holy Ghost who can testify of the things that I can change! I would say that the focus of our Conference Today was Improving Teaching Skills and Helping others Keep Commitments, and here are a few things I learned!

"When you have Agency, you have a great Responsibility."

"Realize that asking Questions is used for Gauging your investigator, not to probe their life!"

"The Restoration only began with Joseph Smith, but really entails all of the teaching of Jesus Christ!"

These were just some of he many experiences that I had in this meeting and many things were simple feelings I felt that I need to change, and I expect fully to change them and see how I can be better! Today was a wonderful day and I can't wait to make the rest of the week just as good! 

Wednesday:

Wow today was a day that was very draining, but so worth it! So today we had the opportunity to go and give service at our daily bread again, and our job today was to clean out the Walk-in Fridge and Freezer that they have, and I can say I now feel sick from being in the cold weather for such a long period of time, but man do those ice boxes look clean! To go in an clean, the chef Liz, gave us some of her jackets to stay warm, but sadly they were not the warmest, but sure made us look funny! After our fun service project we headed home to change so that we could go and study while we got our Oil Changed in the Sears auto center! Usually we are supposed to change oil and rotate times on a Monday, but we are planning a trip to Gainesville on Friday night and Saturday morning and needed to have the car ready for that trip, so we made it happened, and then we did our language study and 12 Week Study during our wait in the food cafeteria. So today our car got finished just in time for us to go over to the church to eat with a sweet older sister in our ward at the family history center and it was such a good time getting to talk about family history and even teach her a lesson and studying the scriptures with her neighbors in mind, and also testifying in every moment that she gets. She is always open to do the will of the lord, and that is what makes Hna. Evans so powerful! So after dinner we went over to a trailer park on Stuart Road that we now cover and we knocked a few potentials and had quite the mixed of emotions! As we knocked the first door we didn't find the person we were looking for, but as we talked we shared a quick 5 minute message about our Heavenly Father, and Saul was open to learn. We set a return appointment with him and even gave him a Book of Mormon! As the door closed and we walked away, both of us were so happy that we just walked all the way back to the car hugging each other like we were best friends! I just love the Energy that Elder Wardle has for the Work! This work is not easy, but every time a new missionary comes in they have energy, because they have faith, not because they don't know it is hard! All we need is more faith! I testify that members are the way to have success this work! When Gordon B. Hinkley said, "Every member a missionary", he meant it and I know that God blesses us as we follow the prophets guidance and commandments as they are now! 

What a great day!

Thursday:

Wow today was quite the day for us! So today we started out by having some really good studies with each other and then heading over to the house of Hna. Chavez where we helped her for about 6 hours to move her house to an apartment across town. The moving was very tiring and was not the easiest thing to do, but it was a great opportunity to get to know Hna. Chavez better and to gain her trust in us as missionaries! To start out we only planned on being there for about 3 hours, but when we got there we pretty much had to pack and then stick the stuff we packed into the moving van, so it was quite the project! As we finished the project she made us street tacos and they were to die for!! As we got home we were a little late for an exchange that we set up, and we had to go and change super fast so that we could run to the front of our apartment complex to meet up with our amazing member, Hno. Tryon! We had plans to both teach Hno. Cajilema and Daniel Rodriguez, but both of them had plans come up last second making us go from a lot of things to completely nothing! So we decided to go and contact some different potentials that we had in a trailer park close by, and we were able mostly set return appointments for these people, and then we decided to go home a little early to be able to call some people to go to Gainesville this weekend! So we had out comp planning super fast and got straight to work at calling people, however, after calling around 40 people all we received was either rejection or bad phone numbers, and it was super hard for me. I keep thinking I am doing something wrong to not have people want to have lessons or have people who don't want us to ever call back. I feel so sad that they feel that they are okay in their sins, but I know that there agency is what is necessary to teach them! So for me, yes today was a very hard day and a bit of a struggling day for me towards the end, but everything that happened I know is for my profit and learning, and I am so glad I am a missionary of he true Church of Jesus Christ on the Earth today!

 

Friday:

Wow today was quite the day for us today!! We started out and had such a great time with our weekly planning and for the first time in a long time I really enjoyed my weekly planning! We took the full 3 hours and had such a spiritual time planning and asking all the right questions! So after our great time planning we headed over to the house of Hna. Baltazar in Pilot Point which is in the Dallas Mission and we taught one of her really good friends who wants to be baptized and had such a great lesson! As we finished the lesson we figured out he wants us to come back next week, so we are planning to go back to teach him! So we left Pilot Point and headed for Gainesville around an hour away, and it was such a beautiful ride through just reaches and fields of grass and trees! We plan on driving back and just videoing as much as we can. It was such a great time with Elder Wardle, and it was a lot better having him because we are so similar to each other!! So we arrived in Gainesville at about 6 and tried contacting some members with no luck, so we just began to plan for tomorrow! So this evening while we were planning I called over 40 people again with no success on having lessons, so tomorrow we will be going and contacting a lot of people to see if there is potential here in Gainesville! What a crazy day, and I hope that we can find some good people to teach tomorrow!! I know God will bless us!!

Saturday:

Today was such an eventful and successful day for us! So today we had the great opportunity to wake up and after some studies, go to the Gainesville Zoo, where we actually worked on the habitats of different animals and were able to really make a huge difference for the animals and save some time so the workers wouldn't have to do it later! Our main job today was working outside of the Sockey Monkey, Israel's cage, where there was some major flooding from all the rain. So to make it drain we made a French drain and ran it all the way around the exhibit to a storm drain in the ver back, and it was quite the project for the 4 of us! As we worked the monkey seemed to watch us so carefully like he was trying to learn, and we got to go in the back of this zoo and see all the animals from the side of a zoo keeper! We saw Giraffes, flexing Kangaroos, Pink Flamingos, Monkeys, Snakes, Birds, a Jeffries Cat and Leopards! It was pretty amazing and fun to get to be around the workers! As we finished our service the main worker told us that we had free admission anytime for all the hours we always put in, and she gave us awesome old fashion Zoo Hats! After our service we went and ate at the famous Texas fast food joint called, Brams. The Food there is pretty good, but nothing like a good old burger from Triple TJ's or a good sandwich from Dairy Queen! So as we got contacting we said a prayer and set down to knock some doors in some Spanish neighborhoods, we were not expecting what hit us tho! The first few houses were duds, but as we knocked the next houses they all answered and wanted to hear a message! We taught them and set return appointments and had such a great time! So we were getting closer to the end of our contacting and had about 10 minutes before we had to leave, so we decided to go and knock on 2 more houses to see if we could get something. As we knocked on e first house the people we not interested, and the second house we almost didn't contact. As we were getting ready to walk by it I said out loud, "everyone needs the gospel, what if they listen?" So we decided that we are going to go to this kind of creepy house and knock it. As we did, a Hispanic man opened the door with a huge grin on his face and welcomed us warmly. We did our whole "we are missionaries" spill and he immediately asked us some questions about our beliefs. We should him a video called Earthly Father, Heavenly Father, and then we asked him how he felt, and this part is what blew me away! He said, "It shows how God loves us. You know, I was praying this past week and a lot today, asking God if he really did love me or even hear me, and then I told him, "if you hear me let me know somehow and I will try to follow it," and you two just knocked my door asking if I needed Christ more in my life. I know this is my answer!" We testified to him that God did love him and have a plan for him, and we were able to set a return appointment and we are both just so happy for it! Going to Gainesville was a huge success, and I can't wait to go back!! Also the drive home with Elder Warlde was a super enjoyable time! We will be friends way past the mission from these amazing experiences!

Sunday:

Oh how I love my Sunday's! Today was such a good Sunday where we were able to learn from the Denton Stake Presidency and Stake Leaders! So for our ward council it was done a little differently where we had the help from the Stake Presidency to teach us how to better plan our meetings and our weeks so that we could really help other people instead of just talking about topics and never getting anything done! Also something that made the meetings weird for me was speaking English in all of our meetings and having translation into Spanish! I am starting to feel that my head begins to hurt when I hear to much of the gospel in English! However, the message I received today that hit me the most was something we as missionaries read every week in our weekly planning, but it hit me super hard today as I read these words and then pondered them! 

          "Elder D. Todd Christofferson has taught that, “the purpose of councils is to ask all the right questions and receive revelations and align our actions to it.” The perfect planning model is described in the creation of the earth. God created all things spiritually and then he created them temporally. Our planning should model this pattern. Before we set realistic goals that God will bless and sanction, we need to study it out in our minds and then ask God if it is right: “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right. But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall  cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.” (Doctrine and Covenants 9:7-9) "

I know that planning is so important and that is why we plan everything we do so that God can bless us! So this evening we had the chance to go on an exchange with Hno. Arias who went on a mission in The DF Mexico and is from Mexico! He married the woman he met from BYUI and loves the gospel! So we went by some houses of people we have contacted earlier on in the week, but the first 2 no one answered, but the last one we knocked was a huge success! We knocked the door of Filemon Sanbrono and his wife answered and seemed super sweet. However, something shocked me! Hno. Arias started the contact and next thing we knew we were in the house talking with their whole family! They have 5 kids and the oldest is 15 and the youngest is 2. They love there family and the wife during the lesson began to cry because her love of her family and her desire to have her husband go to church. The words she said were very powerful! She said, "I will go to any church my husband will go to, as long as he goes. I know that God is in every church, but so,e churches are better than others! Our member testified powerfully and helped us set a return appointment where he will bring his family to meet the Sanbrono family and we will have another lesson on Wednesday! Wow what a wonderful day where I know the God was helping us!

Well I hope that you enjoyed how my week went and know that I love y'all so much!!!! Thanks for all your support in everything that is going on!! 

I pray for y'all daily and am so grateful for this time I can just focus on the Lord and nothing else!!

Con Amor,

Elder Spendlove