I love to see the Temple!

Dear family and friends,

What an amazing week it has been! It has flown by and today has been crazy! That is why it took so long to email!

Here is how it went!

Last week next week!:) CRAZY

Week May 15th - 21st 2017

Monday:

Well today was an amazing day to be able to again communicate with my family! Two days in a row is my record and I love it! So today to start off our Pday we decided it has almost been two full weeks without a real Pday and that we needed to get out and enjoy the morning, so at 9 am we went and picked up the Spanish Elders, Elder Ardnt and Elder Bolduc, and headed straight to Veterans Park where we played 18 Holes of Frisbee Golf by running to the next tee and finishing in roughly 2 hours! It was a blast and not a single person was playing ahead of us, so we were able to play through pretty fast! We always start off with a struggle, but as we kept going I was amazed by how good we got! I have come to really enjoy Frisbee Golf! So the rest of the day may seem pretty boring for everyone else, but Elder Kochan was emailing for a while, so when I finished my emails I got busy getting everything that I don't need packed up and weighed! Then as we got done with that I had to clean off my iPad and that was a trick in itself! So by the time we got done with that we were in perfect time for the FHE Activity that they had at the church playing dodge ball! There were a few less active members that showed up and even a non member, so we really enjoyed being with them and are hoping to begin teaching the man named William Cortez shortly! To end the evening off we went and planned for my last training in the mission field and also headed over and began an exchange with The Spanish Elders! What a great day!

Tuesday:

What a crazy day as It was my last full Exchange in my mission.... It was a wonderful way to end for exchanges as I was able to go with Elder Arndt into the Spanish Area to be able to feel back at home! The work, I realized, was very different, but there are many people who are opened up more to the message right now in Spanish! So most of the morning we had the wonderful studies,of a Spanish missionary where we even had time to study Spanish! That for me was what I was missing! I was able to make a Spanish Study plan for coming home and it made me feel even more calm realizing I can do it as I come home! Then most of the afternoon was spent biking long distances with little response from those we looked for. We talked to a few, but not a person had super good interest in our contacts. However, we didn't let hat get us down. We went to their Ward mission leaders house for dinner and then he decided to accompany us to the two lessons we had set for the evening. So we had two amazing lessons this evening where I was able to meet a 15 year old girl named Stacy who also wanted to be baptized and her mom was okay with it being a member herself, but her dad said she would not bare able to until she turned 18 and could choose for herself!

Wednesday:

Today for me seemed like a very busy and hectic day for a few reasons! We had interviews today and a training that we were in charge of. Even though it was a stressful day we were very happy about the amazing things we had learned from both President and Sister Whitney! They are literally the greatest people in the whole world and make me so happy with every little thing that they say! Sister Whitney shared an inspiring story/Eye Opening Story of how when we don't do what is right somehow satan traps us and drags us where we truly don't desire to be.  She shared, "When I was a little girl at the age of 2 living in Virgin Utah I had a crazy traumatic experience happen to me! I was told never to play in the front yard by my mom, because of a fast moving ditch of irrigation water that lead swiftly past the old white school to the fast moving virgin river down the street. One day I disobeyed and thought it would be okay and fun to go and play along the banks of the ditch and throw stuff in it! It was fun until I fell in an was swept down stream. My brother ran in the house crying and screaming and my mother, who was pregnant, began running down the street after me also screaming. While chasing me I had gone under a few underpasses where the roads go over and had been knocked unconscious. And there was a man that saw my mom running and saw me floating and bent down and got me out and got me awake and breathing again. That man was Eugene Spendlove, a relative of Elder Spendlove. I am so grateful for that man and for the lesson I learned." For me I was grateful for my Ancestor, but even more grateful for the insight I received. I learned that Sin, no matter how simple, gets us in a trap we can't get out of by ourselves. Our parents (God) are always running after us trying to help us. And we many times are spiritually drowning... finally if we choose to let, there is a man(the Savior) who can and will swoop down and pick us out of the water and bring us back to our awareness. What i realized is he was ready all along and we just never even realized it! It was a wonderful story! I also got a final interview set up for next week and I bore my final testimony today in our mini zone conference.... it was a crazy feeling!  

Thursday:

Weekly plannings always seem to go very well, and today was my last full weekly planning of my mission, and that was a weird feeling for me! Yes, I do have one more, but I will be planning for days I wont even be apart of! So today as we finished planning we were able to find out that our plans of the day were going to be a little different than what we had planned for and I am grateful for hourly planning which has helped me to always have something important to do every hour of every day! So we had the chance to sit Down with Aaron Cole and have a small message with him at the stake center where we were able to finish talking about the restoration for the first time after baptism and also help him feel comfortable for the temple trip with him tomorrow! As we went out searching for a referral we had received it was super random that when we called the number it was a Romanian guy that answered the phone. We tried to communicate with him in English with little understanding on both sides, and so I just tried to ask if they Spoke Spanish for fun, and turns out they do speak a good amount. I began speaking to them in spanish and they were not interested in the church for the doctrine, but for money to help support them right now. They were very kind, but all we could do was refer them to our bishop to take care of and fill up their gas tank with gas and get on our way. That even took us more than an hour to sort through! Haha. Then we went and were able to search out a few different less active members from our ward and we also had a cool experience to end the night with. We called Maurice and he was in the area and wanted to meet up, so we were able to meet up and visit with him at a McDonalds and he is doing tons better and planning on coming to church soon!

Friday:

What an amazing Temple Day! Who would have ever thought that Aaron and Gabby would be found in the temple of God only 2 weeks after their Baptisms! So today in total we have had many miracles happen and I hope to be able to express myself openly and well with each thing that has happened! So this morning we met up at 8 am to carpool to the temple with Bishop as our driver. There was a total of 7 of us. Elder Kochan and I, Aaron Cole, Gabby McIntosh and Ethan Starkweather, Bishop Kokenes along with Meagan Fairchild. It was a wonderful trip there where Aaron and Gabby were both a tad nervous an the temple is so pretty this time of year with all the flowers! As we got there we entered and they were so amazed by the spirit and the beautiful details on the inside. We also were able to be witnesses while they were baptized and even be the recorder, and then Elder Kochan was able to baptize me after which we did a font side confirmation for a few names. It was a very special experience.  Also I was able to baptize Ethan for a few names, and that was my first time ever!!! It was amazing! Then as we finished the Baptism we were able to be in charge of confirmations as well! It was a very sacred memory that i never want to forget! Having the chance to go to the temple with Recent Converts is so special! As we left the temple we were al hungry, but had no time to stop and eat at a fancy place, so we stopped at McDonalds. As we ordered the lady taking our orders was super kind and said, "What are y'all coming from?" We explained the temple and she asked how to learn more, so it was a neat experience to share with Aaron and Gabby as they saw missionary work in action! As we got home the day kept improving! We taught an investigator that was kind of burnt out and this time she had a complete different love and desire to learn. She set that she wanted to come to church and it was amazing to see her say that she felt peace every time she read in the Book of Mormon. As the lesson finished our member, Roman, said his friend texted who was not a member and wanted to come to church with him, and we then received a new person to teach! The whole day just went so well as we finished by teaching both Olivia and Shuman again and they are progressing so well!! I love this ara and a My investigators and members!

Saturday:

Today was a trial of our faith for sure! We had a lot of plans that seemed to fall through and when things like that happen we truly seem to get a little grumpy with each other. It is very sad because all afternoon was just finding and not a soul was interested and or they didnt answer their doors. Also Tracking is a super hard thing to do as a YSA missionary, because YSA aged people seem to hide from us! However, today was a wonderful day because we both learned that through hard trials comes the great blessings! Today was proof of that! We set a baptismal date with Shuman Zhang for the 24th of June! We asked her to be baptized on a date in July and she surprised us by saying, "no.... I think that I will be ready by June 24th!" She is awesome! That was a huge blessing for us today!

Sunday:

Today I learned so much in church as we had the Stake Patriarch speak on what exactly he does and the importance of Patriarcal blessings. It was a very powerful talk and make me want to read my blessing over and over again to see what I can pull out of it! We also had Jason, Shuman and a new guy named Jordan show up! They seemed to love it and Jordan was a really surprised man when we went through our whole service without asking for Tithes. His old church he went focused on collecting tithes like crazy and that is one of the major reasons he wanted to come with his friend Roman to church today! Our evening was a very special one as well, because we went and talked with a less active and returned missionary. He has been going through a lot and come to find out he is not just working and that is the reason he is not attending church, but as we just became his friends and asked simple questions, we came to find out that he has been addicted to a few things for over 9 years and every time he goes for help he doesn't really get the help he needs and he is just a very soft sweet 30 year old because of the different things going on in his life.... we were able to just be loving to him and it was a good way to end the evening trying to tell him he is needed in church!

Con Amor,

Elder Spendlove

De la Misión de Texas Fort Worth