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
Sunday, August 30, 2009
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
Monday, April 13, 2009
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
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
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