Hello from Minnesota! Sept. 14, 2009
It was another great week here in the Midwest. Acorns are falling, leaves are turning, and people are being baptized. What more could I ask for?! Except maybe for the weather not to turn colder...?
Glorious members: This week we received two bags (pronounce it like "begs" for a true Minnesotan accent) of amazing cookies and goodies. I don't know what it was this week, but just having home made things tatstes so good! Just this morning a member invited us over for breakfast and gave us a homemade loaf of bread. Mmm! I can't wait to go eat it for lunch. So they take care of us here! It is awesome. Now, I will put my thoughts about food away. I don't know why I like food so much...
Stories from the week: We taught a wonderful lady named Patti. She was baptized a few months ago and is the sweetest lady ever. She is really funny too. She has alot of health problems so she lives in an apartment building where they cook for them and they have meals, but she is still on her own. We went over tehre with a member and the members wife is a great cook. Patti was complaining a bit about the food and so the member said whenever his wife cooks a noteworthy meal he would call her and bring it over. She said she would love taht. The next day he called her and wanted to bring a fresh cooked delicious meal over. She said It was ok because the complex was cooking wall-eye which is the best meal they have. She went to the dining hall and they really weren't having wall-eye, they were having ham balls...Yes, ham balls...She was so sad and couldn't eat it becuse it was disgusting. haha, poor Patti! She went back to her room and called a friend and was talkinga botu how she never should have turned down the members food, and she didn't have his number so she couldn't call him back. Then, she heard a knock and who was it? It was the member with the meal in his hand saying his wife insisted that he bring it over anyway. And now Patti tells this story and calls it "How I was saved from the Ham Balls..." Isn't taht great!
-We tracted into a man this week and had a great conversation with him. He is 64 and from Liberia. He was wearing a cut off shirt and I noticed how physically fit he was for being a little older. And he was pretty cut if you can imagine that. We mentioned how fit he looked for being 64 and he said taht he had been an Olympic sprinter for Liberia and ran in the 1972 Olympics in Germany. He also said "Yes, I am a solid man" in thick Liberian accent. It was sweet and I meet an Olympian. :)
More kids stories: A member told a funny story this week about his son. They were playing at the park and his 4 year old was playing with another 4 year old. They were about to leave and one of the parents was saying how they were going to go over to the coffee house. The 4 year old looked at them and in all seriousness said "Oh, you really shouldn't drink coffee!" The other person was a little taken aback. Another one of the members kids who is 6 wanted to explain further what the 4 year old meant so the person would understand so he explained,"What he really means is that we don't drink drugs in our church!" It was pretty funny, and don't worry, the person took it well. And then the member was able to explain a little bit more what the kids were saying. In the end, the other person said it was a good thing that the kids kenw what they believed and that they would actually live by it. haha. Sometimes children are the best example of being a witness at all times and all places, even when they are a little bit blunt!
Baptism: Steve was baptized this week and it was a great experience for him. He was just happy. He was baptized on Saturday and he said that night he woke up in the early morning hours and the Spirit was really strong. he said for about an hour he was up and he didn't know why he was feeling that way but it was one of the most powerful experiences he has had. He said the Holy Ghost even told him things about his life taht were important for him to hear. Wow! Steve had beena member of other churches before so this was a great tmie to explain the difference of the power that ordinances had when they were done by proper priesthood authority. That is one of the hardest things to explain to people because they don't really know what we mean until they feel it themselves. Either way Steve is great, and I am so impressed with the faith of these new members. They have some incredible spiritual experiences!
All in all things are going great here! I am just loving it and I wish I had time to tell you all of the amazing experiences I get to have, because these are just a small part of them! IT was another week with meetings and lessons and busyness. I am having a great time with my companion too. We have tons of fun! Also, with school starting I am impressed at the members and hwo faithful they are and how much time they give to serving, personal studies, callings, and family with all of the many things they have giong on. It reminds me of hearing about all that you are doing. Each of you is a great example to me of having a life full of tasks, trials, and work while still giving time to serve others, be with family and increase your testimonies. Keep it up, you all are wonderful! I am blessed to have such a great family!
I hope you all have a wonderful week. I love you very much!
With love,
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Hello dearest family! August 24, 2009
Wow, this week has been jam packed full of things. I don't even know where to start! So I guess I'll just jump in.
One Year: So yes, this week I will hit my one year mark. It's pretty weird. It's kind of the same as when I left where you feel a lot of different emotions. Why do missions always make me feel like that?! But I love being able to look back and see how much I have grown and how much I have learned. In fact, Today last year, at even about this time, I was just being set apart as a full-time missionary by President McCombs. Wow! So I am excited about it, but even more excited about still having a full year to do even more things for the kingdom of God.
Transfers: So this has a lot to do with the crazy week this week...I got transferred. I was really really surprised, pretty disappointed too, but I've been dealing with it. I was only in my last area for 2 transfers, this is my 5th area in a year. So I wasn't too excited to leave. So I'll be honest it has been tough to maintain a good attitude through all of this and understand that I am in my new area for a reason. I loved my last area so much, it was amazing. That is probably why it was hard to leave. I loved my companion too and we were even going to celebrate our one year marks together with a massive ice cream cake! haha. Anyways, my new area is still good so I'll tell you about that next.
New Area: It is the Crystal Ward. It is barely north of Minneapolis and so it is still considered in "the cities." There are alot of great things about it here. The ward is much smaller, but the members are still great and very involved in things. The work has been really good here lately. I am replacing an Elder who served here for 10 1/2 months, so it is tought to step in and fill his shoes and the relationships he had with the ward, but I am trying my best. The area is much more diverse from my last one. There are some areas like North Minneapolis that are a little rough around the edges and you won't see a white person for a while. It makes it pretty fun! I love seeing junky cars with realyl huge and expensive rims. My companion and I laugh everytime we see one and we point it out to each other. I am still a Zone Leader in the Anoka Zone so we have been busy with learning all the ropes in our area and zone. My companion has only been in the area for one transfer when I got here.
Members: We live with some wonderful members named the Cooks. They are so fun and it is awesome living with them. Also, they lived in Lakewood for about twelve years! They were so excited that I was from Puyallup. We talk all the time about Washington, and guess what Mom, they were good friends with the Browers too! Their kids all sang in the choirs at Lakes High School which has a really good singing program like Rogers. But anyway. They are tons of fun and they are the nicest people ever. One of the hardest things about transfers is packing all of your stuff, and leaving a place where you had just lived and loved and knew the people and going to a completely new place, not knowing you companion, anyone in the ward, or anyone else in the entire city. So ti was cool having a connection right away with this family.
My new companion: I am now with Elder Green. He is a great missionary and we have had a lot of fun already. He has been out about a year and a half. He is from Sacramento California. He even has a blackbelt. He is what I would call a poster child of hard work and missionary diligence and being organized. So it is great to be with him, I will learn alot! he is humble too and keeps telling me what he is learning by watching me, but I don't believe him. Either way it will be good and I am blessed to have another great companion! (YES!)
The work: The work is so good. Back in Lakeville it was really booming. Rick is still progressing amazingly and has a date set for Saturday, August 29th. He still needs to get through an interview, so we hope it will still happen that day. I will be going back to be at his baptism if it happens that day! He is still doing really well and I can't believe how genuine and excited he is about the gospel.
The work here is also booming. They just had two baptisms the last two weeks before I got here! Unfortunately those people are moving to different wards, so I won't get to work with them at all. We have another man we are working with who is preparing to be baptized in September. I will tell you more about his story next week because it is amazing! And we have some families we are working with in the ward. The people are alot more open and humble here in this area, so that is kind of nice. We went knocking the first night here and got like 5 people to say we could come back. That rarely happened in my last area because everyone had a chruch and was content with their "American dream" life. So every area has its pro's and con's! So I am excited to see things continue to take off. I pray I won't mess things up here! :)
ALERT: Pday next week will happen on Thursday. That will be September 3rd. Next week we have our Zone Conference one Monday so we are changin our Pday to Thursday and I will write then. I don't care if you still want to write Monday morning, the emails will still be watigin for me. I just wanted to let you know I will be writing all of you on a different day.
Love, Elder Spencer
Wow, this week has been jam packed full of things. I don't even know where to start! So I guess I'll just jump in.
One Year: So yes, this week I will hit my one year mark. It's pretty weird. It's kind of the same as when I left where you feel a lot of different emotions. Why do missions always make me feel like that?! But I love being able to look back and see how much I have grown and how much I have learned. In fact, Today last year, at even about this time, I was just being set apart as a full-time missionary by President McCombs. Wow! So I am excited about it, but even more excited about still having a full year to do even more things for the kingdom of God.
Transfers: So this has a lot to do with the crazy week this week...I got transferred. I was really really surprised, pretty disappointed too, but I've been dealing with it. I was only in my last area for 2 transfers, this is my 5th area in a year. So I wasn't too excited to leave. So I'll be honest it has been tough to maintain a good attitude through all of this and understand that I am in my new area for a reason. I loved my last area so much, it was amazing. That is probably why it was hard to leave. I loved my companion too and we were even going to celebrate our one year marks together with a massive ice cream cake! haha. Anyways, my new area is still good so I'll tell you about that next.
New Area: It is the Crystal Ward. It is barely north of Minneapolis and so it is still considered in "the cities." There are alot of great things about it here. The ward is much smaller, but the members are still great and very involved in things. The work has been really good here lately. I am replacing an Elder who served here for 10 1/2 months, so it is tought to step in and fill his shoes and the relationships he had with the ward, but I am trying my best. The area is much more diverse from my last one. There are some areas like North Minneapolis that are a little rough around the edges and you won't see a white person for a while. It makes it pretty fun! I love seeing junky cars with realyl huge and expensive rims. My companion and I laugh everytime we see one and we point it out to each other. I am still a Zone Leader in the Anoka Zone so we have been busy with learning all the ropes in our area and zone. My companion has only been in the area for one transfer when I got here.
Members: We live with some wonderful members named the Cooks. They are so fun and it is awesome living with them. Also, they lived in Lakewood for about twelve years! They were so excited that I was from Puyallup. We talk all the time about Washington, and guess what Mom, they were good friends with the Browers too! Their kids all sang in the choirs at Lakes High School which has a really good singing program like Rogers. But anyway. They are tons of fun and they are the nicest people ever. One of the hardest things about transfers is packing all of your stuff, and leaving a place where you had just lived and loved and knew the people and going to a completely new place, not knowing you companion, anyone in the ward, or anyone else in the entire city. So ti was cool having a connection right away with this family.
My new companion: I am now with Elder Green. He is a great missionary and we have had a lot of fun already. He has been out about a year and a half. He is from Sacramento California. He even has a blackbelt. He is what I would call a poster child of hard work and missionary diligence and being organized. So it is great to be with him, I will learn alot! he is humble too and keeps telling me what he is learning by watching me, but I don't believe him. Either way it will be good and I am blessed to have another great companion! (YES!)
The work: The work is so good. Back in Lakeville it was really booming. Rick is still progressing amazingly and has a date set for Saturday, August 29th. He still needs to get through an interview, so we hope it will still happen that day. I will be going back to be at his baptism if it happens that day! He is still doing really well and I can't believe how genuine and excited he is about the gospel.
The work here is also booming. They just had two baptisms the last two weeks before I got here! Unfortunately those people are moving to different wards, so I won't get to work with them at all. We have another man we are working with who is preparing to be baptized in September. I will tell you more about his story next week because it is amazing! And we have some families we are working with in the ward. The people are alot more open and humble here in this area, so that is kind of nice. We went knocking the first night here and got like 5 people to say we could come back. That rarely happened in my last area because everyone had a chruch and was content with their "American dream" life. So every area has its pro's and con's! So I am excited to see things continue to take off. I pray I won't mess things up here! :)
ALERT: Pday next week will happen on Thursday. That will be September 3rd. Next week we have our Zone Conference one Monday so we are changin our Pday to Thursday and I will write then. I don't care if you still want to write Monday morning, the emails will still be watigin for me. I just wanted to let you know I will be writing all of you on a different day.
Love, Elder Spencer
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
" Oh, you go to BYU-Idaho"
I realize it has been a long time since I have written on the family blog. I see that most of the posts are of Dean and his mission, so I felt I needed to put in a line. Today was a great day for me and I wish to share with all the blessing it is to be a student at BYU-Idaho.
I am in my last year at BYU-Idaho. I have had many opportunities to talk to people about the wonderful aspects of this university. I love to share about how the school is growing and changing. I love to share with others about the honor code, the student living model, the Integrated Business Core, the growing alumni network, and the learning model (my personal favorite). These things are impressive to some; however, many people still seem to see BYU-I as the school that gives students a second chance if they didn't get into BYU. I have felt this a number of times while talking to friends and family. After I tell a story of an achievement or accomplishment that happened at BYU-I, it is not uncommon to hear a response like, "Oh, you go to BYU-Idaho." This also happens while trying to network with other members of the church. I tell them that I am interested in their field of work, I ask how they got into the industry, and if they have any pointers for someone that is where they were a few years ago. They ask to hear more about what I'm doing now. I tell them about leadership experiences, internships, and related classes I have taken, but when I say something about BYU-Idaho they react a little different. I just think that people don't understand all that goes on at BYU-Idaho.
I wish everyone would try to understand what President Kim B. Clark (former Dean of Harvard Business School) and other administrators are doing with this school. They are changing the way that learning happens.
Today, Forbes released their rank of universities in the country. BYU-Idaho was ranked #116. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/94/colleges-09_Americas-Best-Colleges_Name_2.html
I know that is not the most important thing, but I feel the school is beginning to receive some more of the recognition it deserves. I hope this starts to change the tone people use when they say, "Oh, you go to BYU-Idaho?" I love this school and know that The Lord wanted me to go here, even though I did have opportunities to go to other schools. It is a blessing to be a part of the building of Zion. We all have different places The Lord wants us to be. The important part is that we are of one heart, mind, and purpose.
I love you all.
I am in my last year at BYU-Idaho. I have had many opportunities to talk to people about the wonderful aspects of this university. I love to share about how the school is growing and changing. I love to share with others about the honor code, the student living model, the Integrated Business Core, the growing alumni network, and the learning model (my personal favorite). These things are impressive to some; however, many people still seem to see BYU-I as the school that gives students a second chance if they didn't get into BYU. I have felt this a number of times while talking to friends and family. After I tell a story of an achievement or accomplishment that happened at BYU-I, it is not uncommon to hear a response like, "Oh, you go to BYU-Idaho." This also happens while trying to network with other members of the church. I tell them that I am interested in their field of work, I ask how they got into the industry, and if they have any pointers for someone that is where they were a few years ago. They ask to hear more about what I'm doing now. I tell them about leadership experiences, internships, and related classes I have taken, but when I say something about BYU-Idaho they react a little different. I just think that people don't understand all that goes on at BYU-Idaho.
I wish everyone would try to understand what President Kim B. Clark (former Dean of Harvard Business School) and other administrators are doing with this school. They are changing the way that learning happens.
Today, Forbes released their rank of universities in the country. BYU-Idaho was ranked #116. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/94/colleges-09_Americas-Best-Colleges_Name_2.html
I know that is not the most important thing, but I feel the school is beginning to receive some more of the recognition it deserves. I hope this starts to change the tone people use when they say, "Oh, you go to BYU-Idaho?" I love this school and know that The Lord wanted me to go here, even though I did have opportunities to go to other schools. It is a blessing to be a part of the building of Zion. We all have different places The Lord wants us to be. The important part is that we are of one heart, mind, and purpose.
I love you all.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
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
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