p-day # 14

dear family. :) and esteemed fans... who read these on my blog. haha.

Today, we said goodbye to an hermana who lived in my house. :( It's super weird when people leave... I don't really know how, still, I'm supposed to think about the mission. haha. There are days when all I can think about is home and the goals i have for when I get back and what all of you are doing... But thinking that there are missionaries that are leaving here to go back to that is such a strange thought process. I'm super excited for hermana bates though. :) I love her so much!

well, this week... haha. interesting week. it was super rainy, so the work was a little slower in pretty much all areas. plus... way lame. my umbrella broke. I sent it in the package with your birthday presents, because I know it's under warranty. you'll have to look at it when it gets there, but I was mega bummed. luckily, hermana bates loves me and gave me hers cause she didn't want to take it with her. haha. But yeah, one day we were walking around in the rain, trying to contact, and we saw this little family trying to carry this gigantic dog house!! We ran over and offered to help... and so we carried this dog house that probably weighed like 100 lbs all the way to the other sector. And even though she didn't want to listen, it was still an awesome experience. plus, i got a really awesome forearm workout. haha.

We also had a ward talent show this week. my companion and i sang... and you should be so proud of me!! For the first time in my life, I wasn't super nervous to sing in front of people! haha. It went really well. Super fun, and there was this like 14 year old who had the voice of an angel. i told my companion I just want a little mini Bastian so that I can keep him in my pocket and pull him out when I need a little music. haha.

We sang in church too... my ward really likes our voices i guess. haha.

Our lessons this week were super awesome. It makes a difference when you decide to let your lessons be more guided by love than by a checklist. With the Espinosa sosa family, we taught them the plan of salvation. They have had dates to e baptized like 3 times, but they keep falling through because they're not ready to give up their work on sundays. But instead of focusing on what they need to do, we taught them about the blessings they will receive if they decide for themselves to do the things that we've been asking. It was a turning point, I think. I love this family so much, and I know that in time, they will be baptized. :) we just have to give them time.

With pablo, we taught the plan of salvation also. he has a girlfriend in our ward, and we met him at a ward activity one night. he is super prepared to listen to this gospel. and when we talked to him about the spirit worlds, it was like he had already known all about it, he just needed a refresher. He's just so golden!! i love teaching him because it all just makes sense in his head. I feel very lucky to be one of the missionaries that found him. :)

Then there's jessica. She is reading the book of mormon like its harry potter. In our lesson on saturday, she said that she just feels like shes not ready to accept a date to be baptized because she needs more knowledge. I bore a super strong testimony that satan was the one telling her that she should put it off. she accepted the 8 of july after that, and I am so excited for her! she is so ready to get baptized. haha.

then last night, to send hermana bates, we burned a skirt. It was so much fun. haha. I took a bunch of pictures of it, so I'll send them to you on my card when I get my other one. :)

I'm so glad I'm here as a missionary. I love teaching so much!!

I love you so much family!! Thank you so much for your love and support! i'll talk to you next week. :)

hermana spencer.

p-day # 13

dear family. :)

well, another week is already come and gone! haha. It's so crazy how fast time goes here! I still feel like I'm just a greenie of like four days because I have so much more to learn to be a better missionary, but I actually really do know a lot. :) And sometimes I need to admit that to myself. haha.

one of the sisters in my apartment is going home next monday... she's from st. george, so I told her that she needs to add me on facebook and put all of her pictures up. They you'll be able to see how things look a little here. haha. It really is a ton like the states, and I don't feel out of place at all. Minus that everyone speaks spanish, and no one else has blonde hair, i really feel like i could be in another state. :) It's fun. i love chile.

I decided that i want to buy all of the clothes that the people have here.haha. they're so dang cute! everyone wears scarves and leather jackets, and ponchos made of wool and fleece. I love it. I'm going to have to buy some stuff before i come home so that you guys can know what I was seeing while I was here. haha.

Well, this week was interesting. We had a really awesome zone meeting on wednesday where they taught us the new initiative as a mission. An initiative is like a goal for how to be missionaries for the whole mission, and this month, it's to be better contactors. I didn't really realize how much i dreaded talking to people outside when we left the apartment until they talked to us about it. So this week, I tried really hard to show my love for the gospel in my face as we have been outside. and to talk to every single person that walks by us in the street. and honestly, I feel like I am in a completely new mission. It's just so awesome to hear people say that we have an energy that they've never seen before. haha.

but all of our investigators with baptismal dates didn't come to church. :( So all but one fell through. way lame. It's so hard for me to watch them struggle without the gospel. I've never lived without the gift of the holy ghost, but it just seems as if life is so much heavier. I want them all so badly to have this gift and this family, but i can't do anything other than bear my testimony and pray for them. A family that we've been working with for about 5 months I guess told us last night that it's too hard, and they're not going to be baptized for a while. Viviana, the mom, isn't ready to keep the sabbath day holy, and it just broke my heart to hear those words come out of her mouth. :( I am praying so hard that she will realize that being baptized is so much more important than any of the things she has going on sundays, but only god knows when things will change for her. :(

Liliana and Andres finally found out that she is divorced!! She can get married, and they can be baptized!! haha. We're not sure how it all is going to work out, but I am so excited for them. I hope that it doesn't take forever so that I can be here for their wedding and baptism. I would absolutely love that. haha.

We also had a family home evening with a less active member named yasna this week and watched one of the mormon messages. i want you guys to watch it. it's called my new life about a woman named stephanie. You can find it on mormon.org. It's incredible. I was just thinking about how much this gospel really does bless our lives, and our families. Really, we wouldn't be anywhere without it. And I am so grateful that I know that. I have been thinking a lot lately about how my life was before my mission, and although I knew that this gospel was true, I didn't realize the importance of it. I am coming to that realization now, and i am so grateful that my mission is doing that for me. I love that I have this chance to teach these people what means so much to me. :) it's the best feeling in the world to know that I really am doing something that can change the world. one person at a time. haha.

well, family. I love you so much!! Have a fantastic week, and enjoy fathers day! hopefully you'll eat some delicious steaks or something. haha.

make sure you're reading your scriptures every day and praying morning and night! every day is better when you start it with God, and then get a boost from his words. :)

muah!

dev.

p-day # 12

dearest family,

P-days come so fast! haha. It feels like I just barely wrote you, but I have a ton of stuff from the week to tell you. I'm sure that's how it always is, but the feeling is super crazy strange. haha.

so this week, i have been trying to stop being such a stiff missionary, and actually show me through my spanish. Which is a lot harder than you can even imagine. haha. But as i have tried to just be myself and talk to people the way i would if I could actually speak to them, I have come to see some incredible miracles this week. We have a baptism next Sunday!! His name is Francisco, and he is just incredible. We were teaching him the leftover lessons that he needed before his interview on Saturday night, and we were teaching prophets. My companion extended the commitment to pray about the living prophet to know that he is a man of god. And he stopped her, and told her that he already had. He told us that he knows with all of his heart that this church is true, and that nothing is going to come between him and his baptism. I got really emotional as I was listening to him because I have watched his eyes change over the past few weeks. Going from someone who had hardly any enthusiasm and excitement to someone who just shines is such an incredible thing to witness. :) He was actually supposed to go to his girlfriend's birthday party that same night, but his friends were bugging him about not wanting to drink, so he turned around and went home. He is so strong in his decision, and it is just incredible to see. :) And as I have been trying to get to know him, he is someone so special to me. I am so happy that I have the opportunity to be a part of his baptism. Hermana Krites and I are going to be singing at his baptism, so we are really excited about that.

We had a big multi zone meeting this week as well. And interviews with the president. It was such an awesome meeting. I absolutely love the meetings we have with the president and with the leaders of our mission. I always feel like I get filled up with the knowledge and spirit I am going to need until the next one. And so so many people told me that my spanish is better than anyone's they have ever seen here. Even president. haha. I still feel like I know absolutely nothing, but I am so grateful that i am able to at least use what I know to benefit my work. :) in my interview with the president, he asked me if i'd ever taught piano lessons before... so I said no. haha. he told me that they might be having me teach piano lessons while i am here on my mission. and then yesterday, someone asked me if I would teach her. Hermana Krites said that it's the service we can do every week, and that it's going to be way cool. so i am now a piano teaching missionary along with my other missionary stuff. whew... haha. i don't even know where to start! but i trust that it is a call from the Lord, so we'll see how it goes. haha.

then there is a member in our ward who has been less active for a little while, but as we have been visiting her, she has started to come back to church. :) Her name is Yasna and I love her so much! This week, when we went to visit her, she had her scriptures out and when we sat down, she told us that she had been reading the book of mormon and came across the word ¨fast¨. so she looked it up in the gee, which is kind of the index for the spanish scriptures, and it says something about how fasting will help you to have more of the spirit of the lord and that you will be guided in the things that you need to do. She looked us straight in the eyes, and said ¨what is this, because I want that!¨ so we taught her about fasting, and it was such a beautiful lesson. :) She's incredible.

I came to the realization this week, as I was studying and thinking about prayer, that we really have a relationship with our heavenly father. And that he does listen to us. and that really, being here on earth is kind of like our ¨mission¨, because we left his presence to come to this earth to gain experiences and go back. It's like how i've left you guys to be here to grow and become a better person. heavenly father really does know each of us so so profoundly. He is my daddy, and when i pray to him, its like I am talking to my dad. So i have been trying to make my prayers with him more like conversations that I would have with one of you. I have felt him so close to me here on my mission so far. I am taking this time away from everything I know at home to strengthen my relationship with my heavenly father. I am so grateful for this mission, because it is revealing things to me that I never thought about before. I love being here so much! and my testimony is strengthened every single day of just how important this gospel really is to each of us.

dev.

p-day # 11

dear family, :)

Hi everyone! how are you all doing? Thank you so much for your emails to me today. It's so nice to hear about how things are going at home. I really am so focused on this work that I forget there's another world sometimes. haha. So thank you for reminding me that there is and that you are going about life just like you were before. I have definitely been thinking a lot lately about my life before the mission and how much i wish that I would have realized just how important this gospel is in our lives. I am excited to use the things I am learning here in my life at home, because I have learned so much about what this gospel really means, and what it really means to devote your life to God. I am so grateful to be serving this mission, and I wouldn't be doing anything else right now. I love this work so much. :)

This week we saw so many miracles. :) Our president asked us to double our contacts, and the week previous, our goal had been 50. we only got 27. So when the president asked us to double our numbers, we realized that we really needed to work on this. We set a goal to contact 100 people this week. and guess what. 103!!! I was so exhausted last night when we came in from our last meeting, but I was so happy. Because being exhausted means that I worked my little tush off all week long. and that is exactly how it should be. :) I have such a strong testimony that when we work hard, the lord blesses us and we see the fruits of our labors in great clarity.

Now to tell you about my investigators:

Maureen is 20 years old, and has been investigating the church for about three or so months. she is such an incredible girl. Her best friend is serving his mission in Argentina right now, and she wanted to understand why he's giving up these 2 years of his life. this week, her mom came out of rehab and started coming to the lessons with us. :) And seriously, mom and dad, I cannot even explain the excitement in my body. This week, I decided to abandon all embarrassment and start speaking the words that i had in my head, even if they were wrong. haha. They both have accepted the invitation to be baptized, and we're shooting for the 25 of June. :) I actually feel like I have taken a part in this too, so I am so excited for this family to continue progressing and be baptized. I just love them. :)

Mauricio is living solo, and he is working in a little corner store. Since he works all the time, he told us that he wants us to teach him at night time in his store. And even though it's a little strange to teach over a cash register and pray in a store, hoping that no one comes in to break the spirit, he is just incredible. We left him with a chapter to read this week, and when we stopped by again 2 nights later, he was BOUNDING up his stairs to find his book of mormon to talk with us. He just has this hunger in his eyes that I have never seen before, and it makes me want to yell with joy because that is exactly how it should be. :) I hope that he can figure out a way to find someone to work for him on sundays, because he told us that he would love to come to church if he can. :)


Liliana and Andres are a couple that are not married that have been investigating the church for 4 years. she has been waiting for the divorce of her previous marriage to go through the courts for this entire time. And they just found out this week that they should be officially divorced on the 1st of june! We have been praying so hard for them that it will happen, because they have such incredible faith! when we went to their lesson with them, they both had all of their books ready with notebooks and we taking notes while we were teaching. It was such a wonderful lesson, and i know i'm probably not supposed to do this... but they are my favorite investigators by far. haha. they have the cutest little boy named mateo, and he's 4. he is so smart! he asked me why i had long hair when i was there. haha. and then he asked his mom why we have bodies. she answered because god gave them to us. and he responded, que fome! or how lame. haha. so dang cute.

this week, i woke up to words coming out of my mouth... spanish words. haha. i taught the first lesson to the other hermanas in our room in my dreams. haha. I totally thought it was real, and i was so confused when i opened my eyes and we were all laying down and it was dark. hermana tripainou said that my spanish was perfect, and that if she were an investigator, she would have been baptized on the spot. haha. I had heard of that happening, but I didn't think that it would happen so soon. So funny. haha.

This week, we had a meeting with all of the greenies, so i got to see hermana nielsen. :) her companion's name is Hermana Jones, and they are actually from the same hometown. She seems like she's doing soo good. which makes me really happy. :) My mission president is just awesome, and he told us that he served his mission in bogota, colombia! but i'm pretty sure it was a few years before you got there, dad. but still. way cool connection. haha. We watched a talk by elder holland called Leave Your Nets. I don't think that you will be able to find it, but if you can search google and see if it's on there, i really suggest that you watch it. It is such an incredible talk. I actually felt really overwhelmed after I watched it, but in reality I am so grateful that i have heard it's message. Because it's true. I have been called to serve as a missionary, and I can never turn back. I will be forever changed, and forever a missionary because of this decision and calling. I am a disciple of christ, and that means that i have left all to follow him. And i am so willing to do that! I just love my savior so much, and I am so grateful to be a part of this work because it is helping me to realize how to be that disciple of Christ. :)

I love you family! Thank you for being such a wonderful support system, and for being so loving. I have grown up to be who I am because of my wonderful family.

til next week!
dev.

p-day # 10

hi family. :)

How are you? i just finished reading your emails and i realized that i did not talk to you for long enough on saturday. haha. There's a sister that we're teaching here named Viviana, and she reminds me of mom so much. haha. since the houses here don't have heat, the people are kind of used to it. but we were teaching a lesson, and her son nicolas wasn't wearing a coat at all. so she went upstairs and got one for him because she was worried about him being cold. haha. i laughed because that is definely something you would do. :) i'm finding lots of things about lots of different people that remind me of you, mom. it's fun. haha

my companionn is a great trainer. :) we speak spanish almost all day long, and only in english when i get a headache from listening all day. haha. so it's coming. faster and faster. yesterday, at church, i could hardly understand anything in sacrament meeting because the people speak so fast, but by the end of church, i could understand everything. it's all about training your brain i think. i'm trying to force myself to think in spanish. it's going to take some time, but i'm working on it. haha.

k, to sum up my week... we have so much work. haha. we have 4 investigators on date to be baptized in june. viviana and jose espinoza, who are incredible. she's from argentina and works on sunday selling things from there. so she's having a hard time accepting that she needs to keep the sabbath holy, because that's how she helps support her family. but she has a lot of faith. and such a desire to be baptized. so we're going to continue working with her to improve her faith and help her to take a leap. her husband doesn't have quite as much faith, but he is still an incredible man. so so humble. these people are just kind. we talked to him about faith last night, and he told us that he is going to pray for more. we also have francisco, who is such a sensitive guy. our lesson with him last night was only a hymn and a prayer, but he shared some concerns with us and the spirit was so strong. :)

we eat lunch with a member every day. they have a calendar and they sign up for whatever day they want to feed us. so i haven't encountered a huge meal yet... but the food that i have had is delicious. they eat a lot of chicken and avocado. as far as i've experienced. haha. and all of it is good.

i have a very interesting story to tell you though... so remember how i gag when i eat bananas? remember how i vowed that i would not eat them here? yeah. yesterday, we finished our meal with the del santo family, and guess what was for dessert? a whole banana on a plate. i had to pray that i wouldn't gag, but i ate the whole entire thing. it wasn't very awesome... haha. but i did it. are you proud of me? haha
okay, my house has two other hermanas living in it. and they are awesome. one of them is named hermana tripinau. she's from chile and she speaks real fast, but i can almost always understand her. she's a doll. :) the other is hermana bates, and she is hilarious. absolutely hilarious. she's from st george, and she's going home after this transfer becasue she tore her acl. yuck. it's hard to think that we have like 6 week increments here. i feel like that just makes time fly by faster.

the weather has been cold, but i'm actually adjusting quite well. i think i've come into my mission really healthy, so i'm hoping that by exercising every day, and eating apples and carrotts for breakfast and dinner will keep me that way. it's definitely not as humid as everyone was saying it would be. it was definitely more humid in guatemala, and i barely noticed it there. so i'm doing great with that. :) i have everything that i need, and i definitely have enough money to buy groceries, so don't worry about that. :)

Well, family. I don't have a list of all the things I did this week, so I can't remember anything else that I've done. haha. But I miss you so much and I am so grateful to have such an incredible family. Please take care and please pray for me. I am always praying for you! I love being here, and my mind is completely submerged in the work. I absolutely love it. :)

dev.