Sweat! June 20, 2022

Hello everyone! I want to tell you something. You are loved. There is someone that cares about you. There is someone that is helping you. There is someone that is pulling with you. There is someone that is crying with you. There is someone that is suffering with you. There is someone that is rejocing with you. If you don't know that, believe it. Belief brings hope ❤🙂

This week was amazing! We worked hard and saw miracles. We prayed for specific blessings and recieved them. We exerted every effort to invite all to come unto Jesus. Here is a small story of a big blessing: 

On an exchange with Elder Bingham we had about 15 minutes before our next appointment. So we decided to walk 5 minutes down the road. That is when we met Joel. He was spraying his weeds and we started talking with him. He and his family haven't been to church for a year since they moved to the area so we invited them! As we were walking away I felt to invite them for a church tour. As we were talking his wife came out! She knew who we were and knew about General Conference! We gave them a Restoration Pamplet and a Book of Mormon! They said they would read and have questions! We are going back tomorrow! It was incredible. What a special blessing. 

We have been walking around a lot this week to try to talk to more people and I saw three miracles from this:

1) We were able to talk to at least 10 people each day!

2) My shins stopped hurting! What a tender mercy!!

3) So many people offered us cold water. People here are so kind. God truly does watch over His servants. We sometimes had so much water we couldn't drink it all 😮

I love you all!! God bless! Elder Spencer 

Elder Holland, June 13, 2022

Hello everyone! What an amazing this week was. 

Elder Matthew Holland came to our mission for a mission tour. He is just wonderful. He is very kind and teaches with power. He explains doctrine simply and he is bold. Most importantly he teaches with the Spirit. Elder Thomas and I were very blessed and honored to spend a lot of time with him! We probably spent the most time with him out of all the missionaries in the entire mission. We spent 11 1/2 hours with him. On Tuesday he came to our Mission Leadership Council. That was wonderful. He talked about setting stretching and reachable goals to become an escalator mission instead of an elevator mission. I liked the analogy and learned about gaining positive momentum. After that meeting Elder Holland and President Collins came into our apartment to plan with us! (We definitely didn't rush home to clean before they came in haha) That was really cool. We role played a daily planning session and he encouraged us to use the format of weekly planning to plan each day. Very insightful. He asked us how we were each doing and that was touching. He really does care and wants us to be happy.

It gets better. We drove him in our car to a teaching appointment that night. I was driving and he sat in the front seat. Talk about pressure. I did my very best to not have Tiwi (a device in our car which gives us driving tips) coach me. I only got one "check your speed!" It was very honoring to be in the car with him and just talk with him. He is just a normal man like everyone else. The lesson with the Levins was great! We talked about the Great Apostasy and the Book of Mormon. Elder Holland taught powerfully and Sister Levin felt the Spirit. He left a wonderful blessing and prayer on their home afterwards and the whole family was touched by his words. It was a beautiful experience.

After we walked out of the lesson he just put his arm around me and told me how proud he was of me. I just felt so loved.

I love you all! Elder Spencer 

Elder Thomas and I in our Apartment with Elder Holland

     MLC with Elder Holland

                                                   Gaint 4 zone, Zone Conference 

A Full and Tiring Week, June 6, 2022

Hey y'all! This week went by fast and honestly it is sort of a blur.

Our entire mission has less missionaries and less cars so our miles are getting cut down again. Elder Thomas and I only have 716 miles to use for all of June so we biked a bit this week to say the least. Our apartment is 6 miles outside our area so even to get to our area we have to use 12 miles. We've been making it work and the Lord is blessing us. I am so grateful for my healthy body that allows me to bike and a bike that I can use to get around.

We had two lessons with our friend Lisa this week and we also did some service for her! She has come to church three times in a row! In our lessons we talked about the Book of Mormon and the talk Why 1820 by Hyrum Smith. It's a BYUI devotional. Very good. I highly recommend it.  She really liked the part that talked about George Washington and the war of 1812. That is what enabled America to have religious freedom and the church to be restored. She committed to read the Book of Mormon for at least 15 seconds each day! When we followed up with her she said she had been reading for a minute and she had done that three times!  It is wonderful to hear her doing that. 

Elder Matthew Holland of the Seventy is coming to our mission tomorrow! It's going to be amazing. He is going to do an MLC with us tomorrow morning and than in the afternoon he selected some companionships to plan with in their apartment. Well he picked Elder Thomas and I! (I also think it's because we are the closest to the church.) So he will plan with us and than come to a lesson with us that night! Should be a very special experience. 

I have been learning a lot about how to have the Spirit with me and what deception looks like. Anything that is good comes from God. Moroni 7: 16-17 reads:

"...for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil;..."

That scripture stood out to me. As I have lived the gospel I have felt good. I have been invited to do good. I have been persuaded to believe in Jesus. I haven't felt miserable or down trodden. I haven't been confused. It has been laid out simply before me and as I have made choices that are good I have been able to feel the Spirit. My dad taught me that "when I keep the commandments I will have the Spirit to be with me, and that is prospering in the land." (Alma 36:30, Moroni 4:3) I invite to you practice gratitude this week. That is a way to remember Christ, to know Christ and to have the Spirit with you. 

Love you all and God bless!

Elder Spencer 

The Best Exchange of My Entire Mission! May 30, 2022

Hello everyone! I love you all and hope you are well. 

I would love to tell you about the best exchange I have ever had. It was with my dear friend Elder Case. He was my Zone Leader in Springfield and is now the AP. I look up to him as an excellent example of boldness and powerful spiritual teaching. He truly does everyone can to have the Spirit with him. I hope I can be like that one day. Side note. Speaking of having the Spirit with you, my dad taught me something cool about that. Read Alma 36:30 and than Moroni 4:3. Than ask "What does it mean to prosper in the land?"

Anyway the exchange. The entire time we were together Elder Case and I were just building each other up. We were expressing pure and genuine gratitude to each other and that was very healing and energizing. I strongly encourage you to express gratitude. Elder Case was bold with a few people we met including Tony. He was making fun of us at first for not drinking coffee or smoking but as we talked with him he literally had a change of heart right before our eyes. He went from poking fun to sharing struggles he was having to giving us his phone number so we could invite him to church! 

Then we went to a member's home and Elder Case invited them to pick a specific date they would invite a friend to learn from the missionaries! They accepted. Very powerful.

Finally, we went to visit a member and I knocked on the door but there was no answer. I heard voices and I thought it was coming from inside but Elder Case turned around and saw a couple walking down the street with their dogs. We thought it was the member. But it wasn't. Their names are Zach and Micah and she has relatives who are members! They gave us their address and said we could come back anytime!!

I love you all! God bless 

Elder Spencer 

Walmart Headquarters, thousands of miles of biking trails and the temple distribution center! May 23, 2022

Hello everyone! What a week! 

I transferred out of Mena this week. I will miss the members, friends and my companion a ton! Mena was such a wonderful area and I am grateful I was able to serve there for a few months! I said goodbye to many members my final days there and I was sad to leave. Mena will always have a place in my heart.

My new area is in Bella Vista Arkansas! I live in Bentonville Arkansas about 5 minutes away from the temple that is being built! This week the distribution center opened! It was very exciting and the temple is coming along nicely. 

Bentonville is the headquarters of Walmart and the mountain biking capital of the world! There are bikers everywhere! So if you want to come down and bike you should also pay me a visit 🙂😁❤

My companion is Elder Thomas and I love him! We do everything we can to have the Spirit with us so we can help and serve others. I love feeling the Spirit! Joy, happiness and peace are some of the attributes of the Spirit.

A miracle that happened this week was we were getting our groceries today and a lady offered to pay for them! How kind! Love you all! Elder Spencer 

My turtle friend

The Temple

Elder Thomas and I

A huge Torta

The Cardston Temple! A 3D version a member made here in Metfield!

                                                                        Taking a nap

Moving From Mena, May 16, 2022

Hello everybody! I hope you have had a great week! This week I have felt so much of God's love for the members, friends and other missionaries. That is such a special feeling. It lifted me and helped me so much.

The Wagners had a tithing miracle this week. They found an apartment but it required a large security deposit they had to pay in two weeks if they wanted to get the apartment. We started praying for them and Sister Wagner starting reaching out to friends and the VA. Before we left their house we invited them to pay tithing, promising them they would be blessed. Two days later Sister Wagner texted us telling us the deposit was payed! Here is the miracle. She was contacting the parties mentioned above and than she remembered she could pay her tithing online. So she went to do it but she couldn't because she doesn't have a bank account. So she set aside the money she would pay for tithing to pay it in person on Sunday. Than, not even 10 minutes later the VA called saying the entire sum was payed for the deposit. Than a friend also sent them more money so they can equip their new place. The Lord saw their obedience and blessed them with more than they could receive. What a miracle.

Transfer news: I am being transferred to Metfield to be a Zone Leader with my old district leader Elder Thomas! I am super pumped! It is gonna be a great experience to learn, grow and serve. Metfield is the name of the ward. I think it is somewhere near Bentonville, or Bella Vista Arkansas. 

I am so grateful for my time in Mena. It has been wonderful. I love Elder Rivera and will miss him. 

Love you all!! Elder Spencer 

Baptism and Member Work, May 9, 2022

Hello everyone! This is gonna be short. Sorry about that. I have had a great pday! Elder Rivera and I threw water balloons at each other. 

Our friend Alaina was baptized this week! Her great grandpa baptized her. That was very special. I am so happy for Alaina! 

We had an awesome member missionary devotional a few weeks ago and the members here are getting really excited about doing missionary work!! I know more people will be invited to come unto Christ because of members serving and inviting.

Love you all!

Elder Spencer