Dear Familia y Amigos,
What a wonderful week it has really been! I have been in awe by how powerful our Heavenly Father truly is, and how much he loves us! This morning I was studying,(my favorite part of the day) and I found a scripture that has so much meaning to it if you really take some time to ponder it!
1 John 4:19
"19 We love him, because he first loved us."
This scripture is so powerful. The love which we have for God is as we obey his commandments is very strong, but why do we love God? Because we see his hand in our lives. We see him working miracles, blessings and promises in our life which make us happy, joyful, and eternal! All of those blessings he gives us are because he loved us first. He gave us life. He taught us his plan before we came to this earth, and he set up a way for us to return before we came! I would say that is true love! As you go through this week truly think about all that God has given you, even before you came to this earth, and I promise not only your love for him will grow, but your desire to follow him will as well!
Here is how my week went!
Week July 18-24 2016
Monday:
So I am really beginning to enjoy Monday's, not only to relieve some needed energy from all my study time, but also God has really been leading us to the people that are ready and I have seen that Monday's are when we have found a lot of people. So today we were able to go and trade our mission Toyota Corolla car in for a new 2016 Nissan Frontier that only had 20 miles on it! It was a blessing to get, because there has need many times where we have needed a truck, and now we have it to be able to give some good service!! So today we went to get Elder Langis hair cut at a barber shop, and this barber had so many questions about he Book of Mormon and so much more, so we had to go and get money to pay the barber, and it was a perfect opportunity that I have passed up way to much not to give him a Book of Mormon, so we gave him one, and he was super excited! He said, " would write your number in it so I can call when I have questions!" Then as we finished there we ate lunch and played each other in some different basketball games and just enjoyed each other, and it was a blast, because we both were competing, and because we are both guys and trying to be the best. The games went on forever and we really did get tired! So after our wonderful pday we had a few lessons cancel, but the amazing thing was that as we began to think of who we should visit, names popped into our head, and we were able to go by and they opened the door to us, and we were able to talk to them! I hink my favorite part of tonight was the lesson we had with the Beltran family that is struggling to come to church. We read 3 Nephi 13 and while reading it they began to receive answers to help them and a thought popped into my head that I shared, which goes like this. "Do we really understand the importance of the Sacrament? It is more than renewing your covenant you made at baptism, it is also renewing the covenants that you made in the temple. And why is that, because when you go back to he temple, you are making covenants for behalf of someone who has past away! Thus the Sacrament is so sacred and necessary!" As I shared that with them they began to understand completely why they needed to come to church, and even I had my testimony strengthened through it!
Then we had about half and hour left and felt a prompting to go and pass by a less active returning member and as we knocked the door a 40 year old guy walked out and we created conversation. Come to find out he is a member, just less active and has a lot of bad habits, but as he talked I felt full of energy and was able to bare my testimony of the blessing of the Word of Wisdom and that God can help him quite!!He said he would start, but the part that effected me most is that we didn't go there to visit with the less active Hna. But God sent us there for that man Jaime to hear what God wants him to do! I say it everyday, but God really knows us and loves us. We are his children and we know that as we feel the spirit! Let us always be able to feel that. I invite all who read this to pray tonight and let God tell them what they need to improve on and then in this week begin to work on that! As you do this I promise that you will have more light in you life, more joy in your journey and that God will become an important part of your life just as a father or mother should be!
Tuesday:
Service has always been a favorite of mine, but I am now a witness of how service can really help someone in need and soften there heart even more to who we are. So today to start of the day we were able to go to Hno. Carias' shop to teach one of his employees more about the gospel, and he let us pull him into an office and teach a small lesson about the importance of the gospel, and Daniel, the worker, loved it so much and it made a lot of sense to him! So he set a date to meet us at the church this Friday for another lesson, and he said he was planning to come to church this Sunday to not only sit through sacrament meeting, but to also stay to hear about the teachings to see if this is the church that really is true! The part that caught my attention was how he said, "God expects us to feel the spirit in these churches, and if I can't feel it, I know the church isn't true!" God does expect us to feel at home, but more that anything he expects us to feel at peace with the spirit! So today we are able to go and give service at ye food bank again, and like always it is a huge blast! It is different every day and today we boxed ice cream and also cans and had a blast. However, the service that I felt the best about and the service that I saw someone effected by most was the one as we got back to our apartments! We saw the maintenance man trying to pull a stove up the stairs and he was really struggling, and it was super hot, so we went and gave him a hand and when we got to the top we realized he was planning to also bring another up and go down with a fridge all on his own, and we offered to help, and him being Hispanic we just kind of took over so he couldn't say no. As we finished, he looked at us, shook our hands and thanked us for being such a help. And I have learned from that that he will be more willing to help us, and we are more than just other people living in the complex, but we are friends! So today we did have a lot of good lessons, but one of the really cool things that happened to us was getting to know the dad of a member who plays music for churches and he played us a few fun songs! Today was so tiring, but so very worth it!
Wednesday:
What a wonderful day! So to start off the day we had interviews with President Whitney, and they were so wonderful! I learned so much from him and also being able to visit with Sister Whitney. They are both so humble and ask so many questions and they are so cute! I want to be like them one day! I love my mission president and wife!, So today we had planned to got and teach all less active members, and funny thing is that God again changed our schedule so that we would be able to meet new people! All of our less active appointments punched, but as we went by a few apartment complexes we actually met a few people! One of the ladies that we met named Esmerelda was vey into her religion wearing some kind of cap on her head similar to that of a Jew. So the amazing part about it was that she was so impressed with us out so young, and so we asked her why she thought we were out, and she just said to teach about Jesus Christ, and so we went even further and said, "we are out here to tell everyone that we have found even more evidence that Jesus Christ loves us and that he taught the people in the Americas." As we taught her that she had so many questions and we were able to teach her and give her a book and she was so excited to read it!! She could be a solid investigator!! Also all of this happened with Jairo Tapia, the young man getting ready for his mission! And he was super pumped the whole time! The other lady we talked to was a little out of it, but willing to learn, and we just had a wonderful evening! So today was a simple day, but the simple days are the ones that really make a difference for the crazy ones!
Thursday:
So today I was called by my district leader, Elder Adams, to teach a point in our coming up district meeting about Hope, and as I began to really study this point I began really wonder if I understood completely the word Hope. As I study I got more and more confused until I found something simple to judge it by. Hope is a trust in the Promises of God. And our hope grows as we have faith and act through our faith! Then through the day I began to understand hope even more.
So today we were talking with a member at dinner and he was telling us all the bad things in the world and the whole political levels and just the whole running of presidents stuff, and it just made me sick! There is so much wicked, and I just want to stay a missionary forever where I don't have to worry about it or how it will effect me by a lot, but I also want to have a say where I can try to make the life my family will live spin as good as I can!
So today we had a wonderful weekly planning that went by super fast, and then we had a wonderful evening where we even had a chance to go out and ride our bikes to find a few people in the hot heat just to get out of our truck, and even tho it was hot it was very worth it! So our lesson that we had tonight was with Luis, Chris and Luis Vargas, the family that is re activating and the boys who are going to be baptized!
We taught them about the importance of 3 pillars in he Gospel. Reading, Praying, and Attending Church. These3 things are key to revelation and a testimony, and we were able to help the understand by having the dad teach mostly the whole lesson, we just sat there and kept the lesson going and backed him up and it was wonderful! So on the way home we were listening to a CD about our savior Jesus Christ, and it talked about Hope, and gave me a good understanding of hope. It said, "As we go to the temple and participate in the ordinances therein we learn and receive a hope of the plan of salvation and really we receive a hope of one day returning to the presence of our Heavenly Father! I know that the temple gives us more trust and that we will one day be able to return to our Heavenly Father as we learn about so simply it can be hard to understand in the House of the Lord! God loves us and we are his children, and that is why he gave us such a simple gospel that even a child can understand!
Friday:
For some reason God seems to be playing some games with us, or just trying to help us learn to be strong in trials, because today was a rough day! So today we were able to go and give service with Hno. Carias at his shop. He is a goof ball and literally speaks very little English, but he was talking to us about how nice it,would be for us to pass away on a mission instead of after or before, because now we are closest to God, and I told him, "I am not ready to die and I haven't had a chance to have a family of see my family!" And he looked at me and smiled saying, "I can kill you!!" He is a goof, and makes me smile in every situation! Also, I learned a lot from our investigator Daniel, as he did some body work on a car, and completely redid a bumper taking parts from a completely different bumper and glueing them on and just refinishing them, and it looked like they were just part! So we had a great time, and as we left there and had our studies everything went south! Our lesson with Daniel had to be pushed to Sunday after church because he was going to be fixing a car and busy this evening, and then after dinner we waited for around 45 minutes for a less active lady and her daughters that confirmed they were going to come to the church for a lesson, and wouldn't answer, or anything. But this I can say, God was mindful of us all day. He gave us the people and the success that we needed and we were just excited to take what we had! So we had a few experiences happen to us today, one being a guy we were looking for, and we arrived at a house with 2 doors and no apartment letter, so we decided to just knock both doors, and as a sweet lady opened the door she at first didn't want to talk until she saw our plaques and then she said. "What ward are y'all from?" And we told her, and she told us she was a less active member that wants to come back named Blanca, and so we set a time to go back and visit, and it was wonderful! I Think the real blessing was being able to give her another Book of Mormon, because hers she left at her other house where she lived before, and she seemed so excited and grateful to be able to read from the Book of Mormon again. As I have been studying the Book of Mormon I can testify to her gratefulness and I invite everyone who reads this to act for themselves and not be acted upon, and read the Book of Mormon, and then Ponder it in your heart. Pray to God and ask him specifically so he can answer you specifically, and I know that you will feel feelings of peace and joy. And when you feel these feelings I would ask, What is it that God wants you to do!? Go to church, read more, and pray often. If you are not a member it is time to find the missionaries, because this message blesses families for time and all eternity! So we know God had us here for a reason! Then we knocked on another door to a guy and asked him for his mom, (whom we could see through a side window) and he told us she was not home right now and wasn't sure she would get home for a while, and so we didn't argue, just left. However, as we walked away all we could say is, "la Vida de un misionero!" (The life of a missionary)
And the wonderful experience was running into a Hispanic guy named Adan, who was interested in our message and knew a little about the Book of Mormon! It was a cool experience!
Saturday:
So today was actually a really fun day! We started off the day going to play basketball at a park for exercise and then we went to the church after studies to help set up for the baby shower of Bianca Trujillo! As we helped set up we got to meet a lot of her friends and come to find out the baby showers here they do as coed, so guys are there too, and I felt very awkward, because back at home that never happens! For some reason ladies think they need their own time! Haha however, it was a good time and they had a great turn out! Sadly, we had to leave early and missed out on all of the Hispanic food that was prepared to teach Sunny Moreno! However, Sunny needed a good visit and I had so much fun getting to visit with him and read Mosiah 30 with him about Korahor! The as we finished there we had some left overs from the baby shower for dinner and headed off to the southern most part of our area to get a hold of some people and one of the ladies we were going to teach let us into her home long enough to ask us to reschedule because she was so busy and crazy trying to help her son get ready to leave town! So we rescheduled and the rest of the evening we were out contacting people! We found a sweet lady named Maria and gave her a Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment, and I just get excited every time an appointment gets set up! Like I have been saying, God is teaching us, and I am so glad that I am able to grow through my trials!
Sunday:
Sunday's are such a blessing to all of us, and even though they can be the most occupied days of the week, they are also the most amazing and spiritual days!
So today as we were sitting in church the Vargas Family came in and just sat down like they were apart of the ward, and it was so wonderful to see how the ward just loved them and how well they are doing! Chris and Luis are learning a lot and even the dad is so excited about being able to baptize them! And even tho their mom has no interest in joining the church she is still very supportive in them and she even comes to church to support them! So that was a wonderful way to start off the morning. So as church started I had a bitter kind of attitude for translating for the Sike family, because really I feel like I miss the whole meeting trying to help them understand fully, until I actually started to translate. I believe God chastised me a bit and then after struggling for a bit on translating he helped me see what a blessing it is to translate and work on a talent. I now feel so blessed to be able to work on my translation abilities and really help them feel apart of my ward! I feel like I am so blessed to know two languages and really be able to use them to help the work of God progress in this part of his very green vineyard! So today in gospel principles I was blessed to be able to even see one of my converts, Guadalupe Gonzalez, progress and take part in the lesson today by sharing an experience that happened to her. And when I say progress, I mean that before she felt so scared and shy and would never ever talk, but now is seeing the blessings of really participating and being apart! It brings so much Joy to me! God is so great!
Also a really cool experience is that we went to a less active members house today and visited with the less active wife and her non member husband, Mckenzie and Manuel, and really just decided to get to know them. As we got about 45 minutes in Manuel asked us if we were going to teach him something, so at that point we knew he was ready to listen and learn and at that point we knew his doubts and struggles, and we taught him a simple lesson that God is our Heavenly Father and that he loves us, and then I shared that sometimes we have to look past the history of the world and let God tell us the truth, because they were telling us all these things about history proving things wrong. And then we invited them to pray after reading the Book of Mormon, and to pray with real intent, and they paused and both said, WE WILL TRY! That was more than we expected, and we know that the Spirit touched their hearts! I a, so grateful for a Holy Spirit that testifies of truths! Today was a wonderful day!,
I love all of you so much and am so grateful for the examples that you have set for me and still are for me! Know that I pray for y'all and hope for your success! Have a wonderful week, and I can't wait till next week!
Con Amor,
Elder Spendlove
