Transfers are Here! Elder Kochan come on Down!

Dear Family and Friends,

What a crazy week it has been! And even crazier knowing that transfers are here tomorrow instead of Wednesday! This is my last Transfer in the mission and Elder Hooper is heading out to Hurst with Elder Lakey in my old area! His is going to love it! My new companion will be Elder Kochan who I know pretty well and am excited to serve with!!

Also before I forget, I want to wish Skyler, Carolee and Aunt Jackie a Happy Birthday this week!! I love you!!

Here is how my week went!

Week of April 10th - 16th 2017

Monday:

Today was quite the busy day for us! I feel like a lot of the time we make ourselves so busy with things when we should just relax. Some of the things I needed to get done was emails, clean the apartment, My Plan and Also Shopping, but we had a few change of plans! We were asked if we wanted to go Mountain biking on some really pretty trails, and we could not pass up the offer! So we went and Mountain biked many trails and on our way back through I was so very impressed with how gorgeous the trails were. We were all the sudden in a jungle looking area and switched to a forest look and then to a tree filled grassland! I wish I would have take my iPad to be able to take some good pictures! So as we finished there we literally had to go and eat dinner and head out for the night! We got so busy we even went on Splits and I went and taught a lesson after FHE with Theren Boster. We were able to teach the nephew of Hna. Zuniga! He is so awesome and I hope that we can get him back to church soon! And on the way home I loved talking with Theren and learning new teqniques of teaching and having him want to role play with me while driving home! It is amazing how he loves his mission!

Tuesday: 

I have been struggling to know how to best write the experiences that I have had in my everyday missionary life. I don't want to write my schedule and my hour to hour events, but he things that bring back memories and experiences. I hope I can do that in today's thoughts! This area recently has just explored and we have been going like crazy from 11 am to 9:30 pm without being able to even go home for a second! It has been something very good for both of us! However, I want to share how two of our lessons went. We were able to have dinner with Victoria Bernard and her member husband and we had a good visit and then shared a really simple message about faith by watching a video. As we did so Victoria opened up with her "Feelings", something she had never done before! She asked, "do you believe in coincidences?" We said no, and she replied, "Since Sunday I have read 3 chapters and have found every single thing you taught me in my last lesson in those verses and I feel Someone is trying to connect with me."(Last lesson she prayed and Asked God if he would let her know by her feelings that what we are teaching is true. She is receiving an answer, she just has to see that!) It was so amazing to see her feel and to want to keep reading and progressing. As we finished there her husband was so pleased and grateful for us and what we were doing, but It isn't us. We also had a lesson with Aaron Cole, and he is pushing his date back enough to get his parents to be there and his family. He knows he needs to be baptized and that is the blessing. He knows! He is going to be such a powerful member! He makes me super happy to know how much he can become.

Wednesday:

I love so much being able to be with my Zone, and today was a blessing, because we were able to have a Zone Training Meeting together! I was able to give a training on Asking Inspired Questions, and it was a real help for me to study on that and try to learn more. I feel my questions have really been progressing a lot! And today I feel that I was able to put many of those questions to test. Today I wanted to tell of two experiences. The first one was with Emily Walton, an investigator we hadn't seen for 2 weeks. She struggles with some habits and was not super interested at first. Mostly attending to be with her young boy. Until tonight I feel! As we went in she seemed to be different. As we talked with her she said she had been reading and looking at LDS.org and had read about prayer and it scared her thinking we are excited and praying for the second coming. She said she didn't feel ready and that lead to our lesson of preparing using Alma 34 (Don't procrastinate the day of your Repentance). 

She decided from that to completely quit her addictions and it was powerful! However, that is a very hard process! Also this evening I had an amazing experience going with Brother Niell and having a man that we contacted who spoke really well in spanish. We received his info from Salt Lake as he visited the Temple, and he seemed to really like it. So I was able to share everything in Spanish, something I miss a lot! However, I get my fair share of speaking a lot still! I love my mission and that experience just magnified my love and emotions for it!

Thursday:

What is so special to me about Thursday's? Well they have become a sacred time and day where I can focus on those whom I love and how I want and can help them. At the beginning of my mission, planning was hard, tiring and just boring. I never would have said I loved it or hat I wanted to plan after my mission. But now I say, "where would I be without planing weekly, and how did I do it before he mission!?" It was a good last weekly planning for the Transfer and I now only have 6 left..... it is crazy! It was a fun day being able to teach Karly Beel, a non member grand daughter of a returning less active. We taught her he first part of the Restoration and she really loved it! She read the scriptures for us and even prayed! She was super open and a little nervous through the whole thing, but it really seemed to work out well! She is a very happy girl and we know she wants this! She will be to church and she is even going to girls camp this summer and can not wait for that! Soman experience I had after that was going to institute and learning from Brother Richins. We talked about 1 Samuel and my favorite verse in here is in Chapter 15 where it says, "It is better to obey Han to sacrifice." We also talked about families and young single mothers, and then about following he Spirit of the Law when told to. Gabby was there the whole lesson and as we talked afterwards she expressed that the lesson was meant just for her! She had questions answered and even felt more Peace. And best of all is she set up a time to visit with Bishop Kokenes!! She is doing so well! I am grateful for the growth I have seen in his ward and area!

Friday:

Today was just a full and packed day for me! I was blessed with the opportunity to be on exchange with Elder Turley, a younger missionary who I watched come into he field, and it is amazing to just see his progress and see where he is at now! He is a very good missionary, but struggles a bit with his obedience and a few other things, but I don't judge him for that, but we had a full day to work through the different things and to try and be the best representatives of God that we could be! It was a very successful day being able to go and teach a few different people. As I have pondered over how the day went, I thought I would share a few simple thoughts from today. I have found that literally every question can be answered by just reading and understanding the Book of Mormon. When we understand we can receive promptings. So today we had a lesson with a less active lady named Katrina, and her father who is not a member. He has read the Book of Mormon and didn't think it was true. However, as he read with us and we gave me background he began to see where and why everything happened the way it did! He had so many questions we couldn't answer, but as we read he understood and decided to come to church with us Sunday! We are so excited for him! We also had a wonderful chance to have dinner with two college girls from China! Wendy Li, and Shuman Shang. We had Ethan Starkweather there with us and they made us some really good Chinease food where we then share a message about Jesus Christ. What truly caught my attention is that Shuman literally has no knowledge nor belief in Jesus. Not because she doesn't want one, but because they is the way things are in China. She is very open and we are now going to begin teaching her! You teach when you find and you must find when you teach!(Preach My Gospel). As President Whitney has taught, "as we become Escalator missionaries, we will have success continually!" I know that to be true! God blesses us when we try to teach every person that we can! Elder Turley really is a good teacher and has great questions! I am grateful I have been able to serve along side him!

Saturday:

Today was quite the day! We were so exhausted from having such a wonderful day yesterday on exchange, and we were trying all day to just keep our eyes open! How blessed we are in this area! We today were able to have a wonderful coordination meeting with Brother JD Saxon, whom I have come to love dearly. He is kind, caring and always willing to sacrifice to help us! He is a huge help for me! However, he is used to so much change that he rarely gets to know missionaries well! I a, grateful he has chosen to become a Friend and truly get to know us! Our meeting went well, and then we had a fun Service with Matt Clark, a member in our ward who hasn't been to church for a long time. We are really trying to get to know him and then begin to slowly talk to him about the Gospel and see what really happened. He doesn't make sense. He would do anything for us, yet he won't come to church and even talk to us much about it. So for our service today we were cleaning up some piles of branches, and he found a copper head snake, which are pretty deadly. You have about 45 minutes to get medical attention! He luckily killed it and another one pretty quickly. You can imagine I was pretty grossed and creeped out and was really checking where I stepped and everything for the rest of the service. If there is anything I truly can not do, it would be snakes! The creep me out! So tonight we were able to visit Jesus Rubio's cousin who referred him to us, and got to share a message! Jose (Paco) is pretty cool and really helped us understand life more. We are all human and we all sin, we all need to stop judging and love and lastly, be joyous! Also, what do we do after we pray? These things really helped me! Also he has crazy energy! The night was coming to an end when God placed us in the path of a man named Jery who is 27 and looking for a church. He called out to us and so we got to know him and shared a message. It was really quite amazing and we even set a return appointment! God is so amazing how he works and shows his love!

Sunday:

"And the Angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is Risen, as he said."(Matt 28:5-6) Today was such a wonderful day! And I am so very grateful for the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ that also gives us the opportunity to rise again! Today was such a wonderful experience to be able to attend church and see those show up that I wasn't really expecting. I was blessed to attend the 6th Ward where Katrina Morgan, a recent move in from California, came with her dad who is not a member, and he really enjoyed it! He even gave us a shout out in Elder Quorum when he said how we had been coming over a lot to help him in his yard and to read with him. He was very grateful! So today we had a wonderful lesson with Victoria and Jared Bernard, and Victoria is doing amazing! She is studying ahead and is always saying she knows what we are teaching is true now. She is so close, but just takes those baby steps for the moment! We also were surprised when we showed up for dinner at the Stewart- Johnson home to find that they had invited their grandma over, Sister Wynn, so we had dinner with them and it was a wonderful Easter Dinner! 

As the evening went on we had a few other people we visited, but tonight we got Transfer Doctrine, and come to find out, I Will Be Staying!!! This is my last area!! However, they are taking away our 6th ward along with all our amazing investigators!! Victoria, Emily, Karly and Cindy. That makes me so very sad, but I know that the YSA is starting to pick up and it will be very successful as we just focus on them! So Elder Hooper is heading out to my old area in Hurst!!! I am so excited for him and his new experiences he will have with all of my recent converts and people I taught, and he is going to be companions with Elder Lakey!! Also my new companions name is Elder Kochan! He is a very solid missionary who I watched start his mission as I was a Zone Leader in Fort Worth, and I am so pumped to be able to work with him!! He is a huge example to me! I am going to miss Elder Hooper so much tho! He really has become my best friend and hero as I have learned to love him and learn from him!

I love all of you and am grateful for you and pray for you daily. Please have a safe week and never forget who gives you the strength to keep Going! Read, Pray and Attend Church!
Con Amor,

Elder Spendlove

De la Misión de Texas Fort Worth