Email from March 11, 2013

Hello Everyone,

   I'm going to start with the big news first. So the email rule has now changed... As of last night we are now allowed to email friends and family! So I'm going to need you to give my email address to my friends please! So I'm in my new area, Fairmont. The town has about 10,000 people in it. The surrounding towns that we cover have between 200-400 people. So to answer your question, yes it is very small and there is a ton of farm lands. The branch is about 90 people big, but if we could get a bunch of the in-actives out we could be a full sized ward. My companion is from Utah and this is his last transfer. He's pretty cool. Just like my last companion he is the district leader. The district is super small though; its just us and one other set of missionaries, which means we don't do a bunch of exchanges like we did in Oakdale. We are teaching a few people but most of them aren't progressing. We have one lady, Brenda, who knows everything is true but for some reason she won't come to church. She claims that her husband wont let her. We went over to her house on Saturday and when we got there she had invited her daughter and two granddaughters to sit in for the lesson. So we taught the restoration to her daughter and one of their granddaughters, so we got two new investigators! And the daughter and granddaughter and the daughters husband even came to church! That was really good! They only stayed for the first hour though because of work. When we went over to teach Brenda on Saturday, right at the end of the lesson her husband came down and started talking with us. I guess it's super rare for her husband to come down stairs. He told us how he used to live in Utah and knew one of the top recruiters for BYU and how he would play basketball with the team. He said one of his two favorite teams was BYU. He also told us how he was in the military and how he was special forces over in Vietnam. We were able to connect with him really well and he told us that he liked us and that we weren't allowed to leave until he said so. Did you know that the salivation army has a church?!? I didn't know that! Kristi that's funny to hear about that Elder. I did my first exchange on my 6th day also. I stayed in the area while my companion went to Cottage Grove, So I don't feel bad for him. That's super cool to hear that you have started practice for the Roadeo mom! And dad, I'm not sure how far Fairmont is from Oakdale. I do know it takes about 2 hours to get here from Bloomington though! On the way down from the Mission home the member that drove us had to stop at Cabelas to get some ammo and a new .22. So that added about another hour to our trip. Tanner, any cool new games out? Danielle, it sounds like you are doing good on your mission so far! Cool fact about the Fairmont area, its the only area in the mission to cover Iowa! So that's pretty fun. My last companion gave me some balloons to give to kids. They work really well because you make the kids like you and then the parents almost have to let you back. So that's pretty cool. So the first picture is of my first baptism and his wife. the Second picture of is the Sheffields, the members that we stayed with in our last area, my companion and I. Oh and Dad, we stay in a house by our self  We rent it from one of the members in the branch. Its got an upstairs and downstairs and everything. I have heard that it is the biggest apartment in the mission. It's pretty cool! Anyways I love you all! Have a good day!

Email from March 4, 2013

So this past week was pretty good. We taught about 11 lessons, of which about 6 were with members. We had a baptism interview for one brother. He passed so now his baptism is on Saturday. That's pretty exciting. The sister, our other date set, is still scheduled to be baptized on the 16 of March. Since my companion is the district leader, the zone leaders had to come and do the baptism interview for him, and since we had zone training the next morning, the zone leaders decided that they were just going to work in our area for the rest of the night on Thursday. So we gave them some former investigators to go see and they ended up setting a baptismal date for sometime in April. So we are looking forward to that also. Transfer calls were today. My companion is staying in Oakdale and I'm going to Fairmont. So that's pretty exciting! We transfer this Wednesday, which means I won't be here for the two baptisms. So I've been packing pretty much all day today. Other then that we have mostly just been stopping by and seeing less actives this past week. It's been good cause now we know who has moved, who not the visit, and who to visit. So it sounds like Elder Green is still in Marysville? That's pretty cool. Who is his companion? March is apparently the snowiest month. Its because it does warm up (30 degrees today) which means it can actually snow. between December and March its to cold to snow! So yes, we are coming out of the deep freeze but that also means we are getting more snow. In fact, we are supposed to get between 6 inches to a foot of new snow! So what class did you go to Dad? That's too bad that you have to walk 6 blocks everyday! That's really cool that you're doing track and field Tanner! What made you want to do that? We also had Stake Conference this past weekend. Ours was a broadcast from Salt Lake. Elder Oaks spoke to us. That's cool to hear that Taylor and Derik are leaving this week! Do you know what their MTC address is? So that's pretty much everything that has been happening in my life. Thank you for the gifts Danielle. That's too bad that Brandon is super busy with school Kristi. Grandpa do you know a Doctor Skousen? He was in charge of the Religious department at BYU a while ago. Doctor Skousen is from California. He served his mission in England. I love you all. Take care!

Feb. 25, 2013

Hello Everyone! So not much happened last week due to the fact that we were sick. We were able to go and see a few families on Saturday and Sunday but that was it. Nothing too exciting. Yeah, both baptisms are still on for march, one of them is next week with the second one the following week! So we're pretty excited about that. That's way cool to hear that you invited someone to be baptized Dani! Since we were sick last week, we spent most of our time inside just watching movies or reading scriptures. It was really boring. So yeah, no one really got hurt in that car accident. It was maybe a broken arm but that was about it. That's way cool to hear about the high adventure Dad and Tanner! I'm super jealous! What's the young ambassadors? And what was your field trip down in Olympia? Jerry's son is doing fine. Nothing to bad. He's still a little sore from what I understand. On p-days we usually do our shopping, email, and play games. We have some big construction paper that we made into a grid so we play D&D using that. It's actually pretty fun. We also play a game called Munchkin. That's also a lot of fun. Some times we go over to this less active members house and play games with him. That's where we are going today at 3. So yeah, that's pretty much it for this week! That's way awesome to hear Taylor is leaving! When does she enter the MTC? I love you all! Have a good week!

Feb. 21, 2013...

Hello everyone!

   Sorry this letter is so late. On Monday I got super sick. I started throwing up every hour, on the hour from about 3:30 - 7:30 at night. The next day I felt pretty good, besides the massive headache that I had. We had zone conference on Tuesday and that lasted from about 8 am - 6:45 pm. After zone conference we had do run to Eagan, which is about a 35-40 minute drive, to do a baptism interview. So that took up the entire day on Tuesday. Apparently, even though I felt better, I was still pretty contagious on Tuesday, because on Tuesday night, my companion started throwing up really bad. So because of that, we decided that we shouldn't go and do anything on Wednesday. So that gets us to today, Thursday. We're doing pretty good today though. So last Sunday we were driving home from a dinner appointment and we were stopped at a light waiting to turn left onto the highway when all of sudden this white car from the other side of the street decided to do an illegal left turn onto the highway. He cut this little yellow car off. The yellow car had to turn left really fast to avoided hitting the white car, which in turn caused the yellow car to get T-boned at 55 mph. It was a pretty bad crash. We got to call the police. Luckily there was only minor injuries. No one got the license plate of the white car though. Anyways, other then that not much has happened this week. That's too bad to hear about Alfredo getting kicked in the head. Thank you for the candy Mom! It was really good. And thank you for the sweater Kristi! It's a little big, but its pretty warm. Tell Taylor that I say hello and to have fun on her mission! I love you! Bye.

Email from Feb. 11, 2013

Hello again everyone!

    This week has been pretty good. We taught another lesson to a sister and she accepted the invite to be baptized! The date set for baptism is currently March 2. We will see if we can follow through with that because unfortunate she is pretty sick right now, like to the point where she has now had to go to the doctor. But that makes two baptisms for March! We are pretty excited! Yes, I still love the snow. We got another 8 inches or so yesterday. And again we got grounded yesterday so we couldn't drive, which was  awful because when we got  the text at 6:30 in the morning, we were already at church! So we had to get a ride home. So last Saturday I attended my very first Catholic Mass! We went with an investigator! It was pretty cool! My companion and I got a bunch of looks. It was kinda funny. They do a lot of singing and standing in their services. After words we got to meet Father Mike. When we got introduced the Father was like "Yes! Don't leave! I wanted to talk to you!" He knew who we were and he saw us long before the service had started. I thought that he was going to start bible bashing with us but it ended up that he was just like "I'm glad that you came. You are always welcome here. I am happy that you are going and preaching the word for you faith. That is just wonderful!" So he was a pretty nice guy. Mass was pretty liberal though. They had alter girls and things. We even got to see an infant baptism. So we just found out like 2 minutes ago that our ward mission leader just had his first child three hours ago! So that's pretty exciting. But yeah, for the most part, mass was pretty good. There was only a few incorrect doctrines. The main message though was that when God calls you, he hasn't made a mistake. He didn't mistake you for someone else. So it was pretty good. So last week I went to Hudson for a day. Their landlord is the CFO for a $500 million company! It's kinda funny though because his family lives in California but he lives in Minnesota himself so he only has a big tv and two couches in his house, nothing else. Anyways, I have to go. Love you, bye!

Here's his email from Feb. 5, 2013....

Hello Everyone.

   So last week was transfers. My companion and I are still together... Kind of. I don't think that I ever told you, he is the district leader and so he has to go on exchanges with everyone in the district, which means that I also have to go on exchanges with everyone in the district. So that's pretty cool. How did Tanner do in the tournament?!? And yeah, it's pretty cold here still. We got a few more inches of snow, probably about 6 new inches since last week. So since last Wednesday was the beginning of my second transfer, I got my driving privaleges! And with all the snow and ice that we have, I have been getting pretty good at driving in the snow. So Jerry's son is doing good. He got discharged from the hospital the same night he got shot. I guess they have so many shootings that if you're not dead or dying, they don't keep you for very long. That's so exciting that Danielle is about to fly out! So we have been teaching the lady, her name is Patricia. Shes probably going to be baptized. She knows everything that we are teaching her is true just by reading the bible! She knew the entire plan of salvation, the God Head, everything just from reading the bible. She knows the Book of Mormon is true because she compares everything to the bible and hasn't found anything wrong with it. We invited her to be baptized and she told us that she wanted to check out church first. She came to church last Sunday and now we are seeing her tonight. We are going to set a baptism date when we see her. As of lately, the ward here has been on fire! We have gone with a member almost everyday last week to appointments! When I first got here, we had to text who we went and saw everyday to the bishop and ward mission leader. A few weeks ago though the Elders Quorum and High Priest Group have asked us to text them too! We keep being invited to Elders Quorum presidency meetings every month. The ward really loves us. The reason is because every week we have been able to get in and see people that no one else has been able to see for years! So that's pretty awesome! Sadly though, our investigator who has been meeting with missionaries for years dropped us last Sunday. He had some dream where he was in Sacrament meeting and he saw the word "Genocide" written on the bottom of the Sacrament cup. I guess he's afraid that we are going to try and kill a bunch of people. We tried to tell him that we would never do something like that but he didn't want to meet with us any longer. He was offended also though because we told him that the doctrine on gay marriage and the church would never change. He didn't like that too much. We tried to be as loving as we could with saying that but ultimately there was no other way. He said that he knew the church was true but that he was just waiting on revelation to come. So we had to tell him the truth. But we had 6 investigators at church last Sunday! It was crazy! Apparently 1 out of every 7 investigators who attend church will be baptized, so from a statistical standpoint, we should be having a baptism soon. Anyways, sorry that this email is a day late. On Mondays the libraries are closed and so we normally email from the clerks office in the church but when we went to go email yesterday, the internet was down! So we had to wait until today, Tuesday, to email. Sorry Danielle that I haven't written you yet, but I don't know what your address is. Happy Birthday Tanner! I love you! Have a good day everyone!

Sorry, I haven't been very good about keeping Spencer's blog up to date! I'm going to try to do better at that. So, here goes.....