Elder Spencer 8-10-09

Hello family. I had another exciting week full of eventfulness and busy-ness. It flew by and it was great! I love being a missionary.
Weather: It was a crazy week here for this. Tornado warnings, lightning and thunder storms, many inches of rain for flash floods, and high heat and humidity that feels like a sauna. Minnesota is so weird.
The secret to missionary work is work: Things are going really well. We are seeing alot of blessings and it is SO exciting!! Joe was confirmed on Sunday and it went really well. Now he has tons of questions on what is the next step and how he can help out in the church. It is so awesome! It is interesting to see how excited the ward gets about missionary work when they get to see a confirmation too. All the people were congratulating Joe and talking to him. It is fun to be apart of that!We are working with a guy named Rick. he came to church for the first time this week. He is excited to learn and to "try out the Mormon thing." He has had a rough past and is ready for a change in his life. I don't remember if I told you at all about him last time, but he called yesterday (sunday) the beginning of his new life! He is giving up smoking, chewing, drinking, coffee and a lot of "junk" as he calls it in his life that he has been doing for along time and has only brought him down. Nothing good ever came from that stuff he says. Anyway, we are realyl excited for him. he is really funny too. At church he loved all three hours and signed up for helping a family move in Elders quorum and asked our Bishop about an addiction recovery class he saw int he b ulletin. He is a great guy and we are excited for him! It has been a miracle so far to see his progress. The church is true!
Road trip!: This week we spent about three days and 2 nights going to do exchanges with other missionaries. We went to Mankato and Fairmont. It was a lot of fun and there were some highlights of the trip. Mankota is home of Minnesota State University and that is where the Minnesota Vikings are having their training camp! So we drove by and got to see the Vikings practicing. There were tons of people all around just to watch practice! It made me laugh, but I don't judge because if I wasn't on a mission I would be doing the same thing! haha. Fairmont is a tiny little town. I had a good experience there I'll share. We went to see a man who was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting. He has only been a member for two years so it was going to be his first talk. We went over to give him some sources and help him out a little bit. He is an older man and his wife had just passed away a month before. He is working through that and he likes to jsut spend time with people. He invited us to stay for dinner, and we played a game called dice during our dinner time. It was pretty fun! It reminded me of playing chinese chekcers with Grandma! haha. We had sucha good time together and he is a really neat man. It is intersting to think about how even a little tiny town can have such great people with a life full of stories, hardships, and kindness like he has. Sot aht was just a good part of my adventure this week. All it takes is a little time on our part to talk to the wonderful people likethsi man who live in our own neighborhoods, and I promise, you will make someone feel better and feel better yourself by going to visit someone!Also on the trip we got to see Fairmont's really big attraction. A prairie dog exhibit and a water fountain for a horse. The prairie dog exhibit had like 20 prairie dogs with little holes and they just stood around. And the funny thing is taht people would travel all the way from Iowa just to check it out. I love little towns!
More kids stories: This week I will tell you of an encounter I got to see between two boys who were 5 and 8. The eight year old just started tackle football this week so we were talking to him about that.My companion: So did you smash some people this week during practice?Eight year old: Yes.Five yaer old: How do you smash someone?Eight year old: You tackle them!Five year old: Oh. Well what is a tackle?Eight year old: You go like this!**he gets up and straight up tackels the five year old!**Five year old: **Laughing** That is cool!
It was priceless!
Pictures: I can't remember which order these are in...but here are three.1.) The Iowa border. I am doing a quadricep stretch and my companion is showing some affection. Gotta love the border.2.) St. Peter's Pearly Gates are in Mankato. A must see for the person traveling through. I guess it is not my time yet, because I was knocking and no one ever answered.3.) This is Tate and Bennet. The two culprits from my stories last week. They started posing during a lesson just randomly. I don't know what is in the water here in Minnesota.
**Minnesota Word of the Week**Vegetarian: An ancient Indian word meaning Bad Hunter-I saw that on someones shirt this week and it made me laugh, so I thought I would share! :)
Well, I hope you have a wonderful week this week! Summer is almost over?!?! I know I shouldn't say that, but I did :( I love you all and you are always in my thoguths and prayers. Thank you for being the best family in the whole world. Me = blessed. :)Love,Elder Spencer

Pictures of Dean

When I get someone to post his past two week pictures, you'll get the just of his comments on them. Hopefully it will be this week.

Dean 4-11-09

ello Family!4-11-09

Mis-leading title for the email I know, but it's me. And it was a GLORIOUS week here in Minnesota. So I will tell you about it...

Conference: I am sure this glorious week had to do with the big boost from general conference. It has been great getting out on cam pus and it seems to take more meaning when I tell others there REALLy is a prophet today! Also, in a 4 elder apartment it has been good to talk alot about it and what we liked and about the things taht were shared. I think that might be my favorite part about being in an apartment with 2 sets of missionaries...we get to talk alot and ask questions and hear what we are studying and we have some pretty intense conversations. It's the best! But back to conference, basically it was a great boost for me and I hope it was to you as well.

Campus occurences:
**We had a missionary booth set up in the student union building this week and my companion and I went to replace the other elders who were working at it. They were excited because they had meet a really awesome guy from Germany and they wanted him to meet my companion who speaks german. So my companion was excited to hear about that, and we just set up as usual tot alk to people. Then a member of the ward who had served his mission in Germany came to help us out at the booth a bit. And then, this man who the other missionaries had contacted showed up again, so there were two German speakers to talk to him! They talked in German for a while and they were all pretty excited about it, and they ended up talking for an hour! It was really neat to see how that had all lined up and all those Germans got to be together!
**We are teaching a student named Brandon and he is awesome. He is really interested in learning and he is really intellectual so our lessons are always really fun and deep. This week we were talking and HE got up to the white board and started explaining and writing things so he could understand them better. And he was showing what he beleived too to explain it to us and he got pretty into it. So it was like he was teaching us! It was great because he really enjoyed it and it was such a good discussion. When we said bye at the end of the lesson he was talking about how good that was and how much he is learning! We are very excited to continue teaching him.
**There is a big Christian student campus group on campus called Cru. This week they put on an activity with the slogan "I will listen." It was an activity where they set up couches on campus and wanted to promote students just having someone to talk to and speak their mind. They were especially aiming to break downt he stereotype that Christians are forceful and preachy when talking about religion. So when I was out talking to people on campus and one of the Cru students approached me and invited my companion and I to sit on the couch and talk. We accepted. It turned out to be a really good conversation and we talked about God and our lives and how he fit in. They also asked about our church and our beliefs so we got to teach soem good principles. It was a great idea that they had to reach out to the campus. And, I liked it because we got to teach some of them! It also was pleasant to be 50 degrees and sunny outside. :)

Transfers this week: Once again it is transfers coming up this week. And once again I have no idea what will happen. So, it is possible that my Pday will change back to Thursday if I get transferred. Just to let you know. If I don't email Thursday, then you will know that I stayed in Dinkytown!

Pictures:
-Elder Gillespie (middle) and Elder Glenn (right) and I modeling our sweaters that we wore for "Sweater Monday!" Thank you to those who provided the wonderful sweaters for this winter :)
-A day on campus. The interesting questions of evolution vs. creationsim. A popular topic discussed on a campus like UofM that is very devoted to this kind of research...as you can tell...
-Me outside of the molecular science building. They have a really cool structure of atoms there and its huge! They have so many neat things on campus.

Well family, I hope you have a great week! I love you all and think of you often. You are in my t houghts and prayers. Best of luck with all of your activities, work and service this week. Love you!
Forever,
Elder Spencer

Elder Spencer

Hello once again!
This will have to be a shorter email...because with Conference being today we were rushed and the library is closing soon! But, I will try to fit in as much as I can. It was another great week here in the Midwest!
Conference: Isn't it great?! The sessions were great and conference takes on such a new excitement since I am on a mission. We were really blessed with the two sessions that have just happened today we had three investigators come. Some weeks it is hit and miss and this week it is great to see them come. It's so excitiing to hear these men and women speak about life. Life isn't easy, but with boosts like these we can see that trials are about of life and we can get through them with eachother and the support of our Heavenly Father. He is always there!
The work: It was a great week with some great lessons. It's exciting because I am starting to see my growth in how I can go out and talk to people on campus. One of the days we went out and I had some great conversations with people. They came from very different ways of life and had their own personalities, but we always found soemthing in common or were able to spend tmie talking about life or faith or anything adn then they would listen to things about the gospel. Of course not all of them accepted to learn more or even agreed with what I was saying, but I was excited to see how I got to talk with them and ahve good conversations. And it is fun to see how much I've grown int he 2 months or so I've been on campus.We are still teaching some great people. One of them brought a friend along to meet us and nwo we are teaching both of them. We had some good lessons. One guy is progressing well and he reads alot of the Book of Mormon and is really intellectual. I love seeing how he grasps some of the principles of the gospel and hwo they just make sense. The spirit is a big part of it and that is his next big step. To move from intellectual to spiritual learning. It's coming great!We are still teaching some great Chinese people too. Had a funny experience with one. We asked him if he missed China. He said yes, and he misses his girlfriends. We weren't sure how to react to that and my companion just straight up asked, well how many do you have? he quickly responded I only have one! and we explained what he had said and he laughed at his mistake. It made me appreciate serving state side and not having those funny little language mistakes. I was also glad that our investigator was not a player.
Institute: We have been trying lately to make the institute a good resource for members and students to feel welcome. We have decided to make better use of the ping pong table and make some standings for the institute. So during our lunch and dinner hour we eat as fast as we can and try to get competition going and help the institute seem like a fun place to be. It is modeled after what the institute at UW had and it has been working well. Alot of people are getting fired up about ping pong. Some are alos getting overly competitive, which is normal I suppose. It makes me think of Neil when I see people getting so into something like table tennis. I guess some people just have a competitve nature. But it is a fun way of working and interacting with members and students.
Pictures:-I have made it a tradition to make a dessert for the apartment every friday night. A couple weeks ago I made a banana cream pie and a chocolate pudding pie. I'm surprised at how much missionaries are willing to do dishes if you bribe them with dessert. So if you have any ideas of easy desserts that are tasty...I would love hearing about them!-Me and my companion ate jolly ranchers-The weather is slowly getting out of winter. And just when I think we are all the way out...it snows again. yay for the 11th day of spring...
I love you all very much and hope you have a wonderful week!Until next time...Love,Elder Spencer

Elder Spencer 3-14-09

Mar 14


Dearest Family,

It has been an incredible week and it just keeps being a missionary just keeps getting better!

Weather: Today it is...get this...50 degrees! WHOO HOOOO! It is awesome because earlier this week it was about -25 with wind chill one day. So that is a 75 degree difference. :) Elder Gillespie (one of the other missionaries in our apartment) went running this morning and it was awesome. We ran across the Mississippi River and around the outskirts of Minneapolis. It was still dark when we started, but the sun started to come up during the run. Ahhhh I love being here!

The work: Well, the greatest thing of all my time here in Dinkytown happened today. Sarah was baptized! We had the baptism earlier today and it was glorious. She was so happy! The ward came out in full force to support her too, it was great. Elder Sorenson baptized her and he was way excited to do that. I will confirm her tomorrow on Sunday too! I sang a song from the Primary songbook "When I am baptized" and it was just realyl really good. Yay for Sarah!

Last week: Last week on Pday I did not mention an exciting activity I got to do. We got to go to the UofM basketball game! They played Michigan and it was their last home game of the season. It was so fun! The band was there and there were tons of people, but most excitingly I got to watch sports!!! It was a great game, but at the end Michigan pulled ahead and won. I did wear a pretty good UofM tie to show my support. This was just one of those blessings of being a missionary on the campus :)

Interesting news: So, I just got a phone call from my mission president about 2 hours ago and I have some exciting changes coming this week. My companion Elder Sorenson will no longer be my companion as of Wednesday. Yes, it is an interesting move, but I can assure you it is not considered an "emergency transfer!" haha. This is what I know so far. My new companion (who I will get on Wed.) was serving in Germany, but had some health problems so he had to come home. Now, he has been reassigned to Minnesota and will be coming out Wed. I hope he still remembers english...ha...but seriously that would be weird...Anyway, we were pretty shocked because it's really rare to have this stuff happen. I am sad to lose Elder Sorenson, because he has been great, but I am excited for this new thing. It's times like these that I can define a mission as: happiness and change. So there will be some more updates on this next week!

Eating experiences: I had a funny experience with dinner yesterday taht I have to tell you about. I will begin by saying that when I was called to Minnesota I did not think I would be eating any exotic or interesting foods as a missionary, but now serving in a college campus that thought has been challeneged...Yesterday we had dinner with 3 guys from the ward who live together. Now, kudos to 3 college guys accepting to feed the missionaries on a friday night, but the meal was pretty interesting. One of the guys is from China so he made a chinese dish of pork, peas, and some kind of noodles? One of the other guys brought salad. And the last one made scrambled eggs and potatoes. Also on the table was shredded cheese, tortillas and various condiments. I didn't know what to do...or how to put it all together and neither did anyone else. So, I ended up making a burrito with a chinese dish of meat and peas, with cheese, sour cream, and barbeque sauce on it. I thoguht the barbeque would give it a better flavor adn make it more delicious. But I was wrong. It was pretty funny and we all had a good time. This experience is almost as good as one of our dinners that a guy made us frozen burritos with a slice of kraft cheese on top. And unfortunately the cheese was burnt. haha. I love student wards! And they do a great job being involved and such so it is all good :)

Well I hope you all have a great week! I love you all very much. Also, we have a count down of 3 weeks until general conference!! Whoo hoo!

With love,
Elder Spencer

It's True

Sorry if any of you had to hear it through the grapevine, but it is true... Amber and I are engaged! It has been so wonder to be with her. We find it funny that two people can graduate high school together, go over 4 years without knowing about eachother's lives and then come together and fall in love! It has been a fairy tale like story. We are so excited for the other adventures life has in store for us and even better that we will be able to do it together.

We want you all to know that we are so thankful for your love and support. Sorry that we don't get to post very much. We want everyone to know what is going on, but we are just learning how to balance our lives with everything that's going on. It's a lot harder than I thought. If there is anything you want to know about her or anything else, just ask.

We love you guys!

We love Amber

This last week-end, Neil kind of surprised us (we found out the night before) and he and Amber drove home for the week-end. We went to the temple with her parents Saturday morning and then to lunch. They are great people and more importantly Amber is WONDERFUL and we all love her. She is perfect for Neil! We are excited to see and hear about their amazing life they will create over the years. We'll keep you all posted on the date.