March 14th + Pictures!

The move went great! FINALLY, we have a house, well, an apartment. I don´t know if you´ve had a chance to look it up on google street view.... it´s really ugly from the outside, but I promise it´s super awesome inside! well, awesome for our standards haha.

The owners are super nice, they own a little business downstairs where they fix washing machines. They are SUPER catholic but we found out they have member family! We think this is the reason they are renting us the house, because they actually lowered the rent for us and we know for sure at least one other person was offering more.

more and more blessing around every corner:)

We are preparing two baptisms for this saturday! and one more for the following!

Sagid (the SMARTEST 9 yr old kid I have ever met) and Rosario (reallly reallllly sweet lady who finally found what she has been looking for for yearssss- the truth:) mom, you would really like her)

Next saturday is Mayra, 15 yrs old, super awesome, making me a list of sweet Mexican Bands for when I get home haha you know, real soon.

On the 11th I turned 7 months old in the mission! weird.

fun thing happened last week! I guess the office made a mistake or something with our visas(all of us who came down here together on the plane) and we all had to go back to immigration and sign some paper. Sucks for the mission/church... because they had to buy a lot of bus tickets.. but pretty sweet for us because I saw all my friends from the MTC and JOHN again!

John and I took a picture, he looks good, I look really bad-- I´ll probably send it anyway.

The answer is yes.. it is starting to get a little hot here haha. Hot for me, REALLY hot for Elder Cirne, and absolutely nothing for the people here in Hermosillo. Since our new pad is upstairs--(every day at certain hours the city cuts ff the water, so every house has a tinaco, or a big black water tank)--, all the members are telling us that in a month or two when the real heat comes, we need to fill two buckets of water with ice every day to shower, because we´ll burn ourselves if we shower from the tank ha ha.

Don´t worry. I put my sunscreen bu the front door so I remember to put some on every time we leave the house:)

Esta todo bien aqui en la nuevo:) estamos muy felices y ¡LISTOS para trabajar!

Tell me everything about whats going on:) you should be getting letters soon! actually I am giving some to the same hermana this week so her sister can send them from AZ

Miss you, Love you,

JACK

more pictures!

February 21st, 2011

alriiiiiiiiiiighht family :)

VERY little time today, Elder Cirne and I have to leave in a few minutes to deliver a big box of folletos, tarjetas, dvds, libritos, missionary stuff to our district leader in his area. so I apologize! but I have to be brief.

Elder Cirne is hilarious haha he speaks a little english kind of! everyone learns a little bit in high school here-- like 'what's your name?' 'Where you from?' and 'Gi me fi!' (give me five) 'I speak englis so so'

and thats pretty much it. My comp however knows a lot more than that and we practice his english when we are in the appartment.

We have been working reallllllllllllllly hard this week and are kindof seeing results!!! we have a million names and references from members and everything, now it just comes down to finding the time to do everything.

Game day was a downer:/ no one came to church, even though we did EVERYTHING possible haha like practically knocking down their doors before church, and asking them for rides so they would have to go... we ended up having to take a taxi:/ by ourselves.

The good part is heavenly father always has a way of showing us that we are doing the right thing, even when we feel like nothing is coming of it. Last night we kncocked ONE LAST door before going back to our house, and the man invited us in before we could say a word. We taught the first lesson and set baptismal dates!!!

We also have an AWESOME investigator named jorge who reads the bom every night, understands everyyything we teach him, wants to get baptized, and rides a motorcycle.

LOVE you all, ad cant wait to read your letters tonight,

JACK

February 13th, 2011

Estimada familia mia,

¡¡¡Everythings changed again!!! well, not everything. CAMBIOS (transfers) yesterday and today! I am staying here in Nuevo Hermosillo, but Elder Florence se va! Upgraded to zone leader, Elder florence is catching a bus to Agua Prieta(about 4ish hours away, justtt across the border from Douglas Arizona) tomorrow morning!

My new comp, Elder Cirne, is very young in the mission, he has about 3 months and was serving in Guaymas! Elder Cirne is from Puebla, Mexico... I can tell I am going to learn a LOT this transfer haha a lot of spanish and a lot about missionary work too. with 6 months under my belt now I am senior comp, taking over the area! Im not going to lie, Im a little nervous.. as senior comp I have a lot more responsibility, I have to make all the phone calls, and pass all the dats, AND i am supposed to teach my companion about missionary work?.. what? I dont even speak his language!!!

Needless to say.. IM PUMPED! sometimes theres no better way to learn than just jumping in :)

Ends up we are not changing houses.. not for another two weeks at least. We still dont have any water.. we found out the reason though! The Elder who lived in our appartment before Elder Florence and I forgot topay the water bill 3 months in a row.. so the city took our water away!and isnt going to give it back for three months ha ha

right now we have a tinaco in our back yard that we filled with water.. so every night and every morning we fill buckets to wash the dishes and bathe and stuff.

And to give a litttttle bit of an idea whats going on, I will summarize a typical day for the missionaries here in Nuevo Hermosillo.

6:15 am, we wake up, hit our knees, personal prayers, comp prayer-- oh and fill the bucket w water

6:30 (Elder Florence and I) leave to go running

7:00 return, shower, get dressed

7:30, eat breakfast while listening to conference talks in spanish

breakfast-- Yogurt, cereal, sometimes eggs and toast! and lately Ive been buying grapefruit

8-9 personal study!

9-10 comp study!

10-11 language study!(if we donçt have appointments)

11:00 leave the house, grab an apple or a mandarine on the way

tracting... knocking... following the spirit... usually we have atleast one or two set appointments

2:00-3 pm la comida 'lunch' with a member family, share a spiritual message, ask for referrals, knock around their street, talk to their neighbors

back to work! tracting, teaching appointments, etc. we try really hard to have a set app. at 7 and 8

9-9:30, return to the house,PLAN, make calls, update area book and teaching records, grab a piece of bread, maybe some more yogurt, write in journal, get ready for bed and the next day

10:30 hit our knees, comp and personal prayer, go to bed

I've learned a lot this week about the imprtance of obedience... and always remembering the big picture. Why do we do the things we do? to what end? what can we do better? what can I learn form this? How can we improve?

OH and really quick, the bishop told us sat night at 9 that the next morning, at 8, we would each be giving 20 min talks in church! I also learned to stay on my toes and be ready for anything haha I hink it went okay:) I spoke first, we did a musical number, E florence played the piano, I sang, then he spoke.

muccchho amor,

ELDER SPENCER

Picture at the Temple

February 2nd, 2011

Alriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighttt..
WHAT A WEEK. Sorry I didn`t get to email on monday! Pday was switched to today, wednesday, because we were awarded a special trip to the TEMPLE! (I`m not really sure why... from what I can tell and have heard, it is a verry rare priviledge) So today we had a zone temple trip with Pres. y Hermana Velez--everything was awwwesome except for the fact that we had to get up at 5:30 to take the hour bus ride to la colonia Pitic where the temple and the mission offices are. In a regular car it would probably only take 20 min I think.. Going to the temple in Spanish was very different ha ha but pretty much the coolest thing I've ever done. We took a zone picture outside of the temple, so I forwarded it to you guys - let me know if it comes through!
The photo of the Mexican flag flying outside our house DID come through :) I just showed it to Elder Florence, and he laughed. All he could say was,
``Mire! Mire! Verde! Vegitacion!`` <-- I think thats how you spell it
A lot happened this week, missionary work wise.. this week was 'bien pesada'... ``quite heavy`` in english ha ha
We had to drop one of the families we are teaching:/ and pretty much everything else just seemed to be really hard this week ha ha. Numbers were low.. people were mean... no one wanted to listen in the first place, let alone form two gringos.. and Elder Florence and I have really bad colds from showering in freezing cold water every morning ha ha. There is mold growing in our house from a leak in the appartment upstairs.. there was a party saturday night in front of, and behind our house haha they had a live band! and they played til about 4 in the morning!
Justtt about when Elder Florence and I were starting to think about being discouraged, Heavenly Father taught us a lesson. These past two days have been answers to our prayers. Monday morning after district meeting we decided to do something fun and different-- so we bought some chalk, borrowed a guitar from a member in Elder Church and Elder Garcia's area, then we brought some chairs from the church out onto the sidewalk by the bus stop infront of the church. While Elder Flroence and I played/sang 'jazzed up' hymns on the guitar, Elder Church and Elder Garcia drew a humungous chalk MASTERPIECE of el plan de salvacion. We talked to everyone who passed by, gave them church literature, invited them to church, and we got like a million referencias y direcciones y numeros y todo. Yesterday all of our set appointments fell, but we were still feeling pretty good from the day before so we went to follow up with some of the referrals--which turned into 4 new investigators, one of which, Sumla, told us she's excited to get BAPTIZED haha. When we got home last night all we could talk about was that it is ALWAYS worth it to keep working hard, and never give up or get frustrated when things get slow or difficult. This whole life, and the gospel, everything is about perseverencia, getting up when you fall, trying again when you fail, and never, ever, ever giving up or getting sad. This is the most important work in the world. This is the happiest message we could possibly be sharing with people, and Heavenly father always has our back.

Alright--I'm totally out of time! but really quick here is the mission office address and some of the answers to your questions--

Elder John David Spencer
Av. García Conde (number)301
Col. Pitic
Hermosillo, Sonora
C.P. 83150
MEXICO

January 24th, 2011

estimada familia mia,

WOW what a week!!! And an exciting email to read too! Bangkok THAILAND?! Cameron has to be going to the coolest misison in the worlddddd-- second to la Mision Mexico Hermosillo, ofcourse. And Mary!!! You are going to AFRICA?! What do I even say to that? haha when do you leave?? this summer?

Things are still moving really fast here! Never a dull or boring moment. Living in Mexico this past week has really made me realize how much I still have to learn ha ha in Spanish and being a missionary. That´s funny that the blog you foudn was Elder Forence´s! You´re pressumptions are correct, he is a GREAT misisonary. It is definitely an adventure, getting to know our area, learning spanish, navigating the bus system and everything together, two gringos.. and it is SO FUN. Ends up Elder Florence and I have even another connection! He got a letter from a girl named Kristen Gardner yesterday form the Zone Lords. This name sounded wayyyy too familiar to me.. I knew this girl.. but who?So i forgot about it. Later last night while he was reading the letter in the bathroom, he suddenly yelled, ´´Elder Spencer! is your first name Jack?!´´ I´m like, yeah! haha He read the letter out loud to me and it said, ´´Elder Florence, I just found out one of my good friends, Jack Spencer, from scout camp out on catalina island is in your mission! If you know him or meet him please say hi! You guys are really similar and will get along really well! etc etc etc´´ Soooo basically I spent some of the best summers of my life with Elder Florence´s best friend ha ha. So we told stories, and related experiences, and built our companionship unity HARD CORE last night ha ha. I love Elder Florence. We work really hard, we are REALLY obedient, we are as diligent as we know how, and we are starting to see the difference in the area! While walking mile after mile we talk about our favorite bands, and fun things we used to do before the mission--which all seem to be the same haha.

We have great investigators ( I talked about them last week) who are progressing, and we spend a LOT of time looking for new ones.

Just some fun, different stuff about the city in Mexico for those who didnt know already..

-there are lots of dirt roads

-the cities/towns are divided into little barrios/neighborhoods called colonias

-there are few driving/street laws... few obeyed anyway. but that isn´t for lack of police, because there are policia everyyywhere. Oh and ped.s def. do not have the rght of way.

-on pretty much every single corner there is either a little tienda(store) (ampm status, but just someone´s personal business, they usually live in the appartment above or behind the store) or an OXXO where everyone buys their cerveza

-alfombra (carpet) doesn´t seem to exist here

-there are dogs and cats running around everywhere

-there is alwayyyys music playing all day, all night, either from someones house, car, or who knows where

-on just about every otherrr corner, there is a tortilleria:) with the best tortillas de harina in the worldddd

-the food is beyond the best in the world

anddd I´m running low on time so I´ll stop there. Things are going GREAT here:) I love my area,and my companion, and our investigators, and th ward. We are having sonora´s famous carne asada a la casa del obisbo manana! then we are havign a carne asada with th elders quorum saturday, and we were just invited to another carne asada on sunday ha ha

I´m learning A LOT, little by little(just like isometrics dad), in spanish, and just plain A LOT when it comes t the gospel. Reading adn studying in spanish is like reading the scriptures all over again! with different words, and different descriptions, I feel like the stories and teahcings and lessons are completely new-and its awesome.

I´m healthy, I´m happy, and I promise I will look into the hep A shot.

You are all in my prayers, I miss you, I love you, I´m thinking of you,

-JACK

Pictures!

January 16th, 2011

Estimada familia,

MEXICO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Where do I start?? (please, forgive me for sounding weird, I am very little time and I´ve been speaking 100% spanish for the past few days and it´s getting harder to switch back and forth! It´s also a little hard to type on this keyboard-some of the keys are in different places!) We took a prop plane down to Hermosillo, got off, got through customs (speaking spanish, which I thought was pretty impressive) and met our Mission Pres. and the APs waiting for us with a big banner, ´´bienvenidos a hermosillo!´´ We drove to the mission home, which is pretty close to the temple and the mission offices in a pretty nice part of the city. We talked and got to know the president and his wife-- they are both extremmmmmely wonderful people, and neither of them really speak english ha ha. Presidente can read english pretty dang well though, because in my interview w him he basically read my whole missionary application and what my bishop and stake president wrote to him in english, but said it in spanish. We stayed the night in the house where the APs live right next to the temple (all 8 of us, and some of the mexican missionaries that were going to be our companions!) the next day, we went and did some more paperwork w the government, took some pictures, signed some papers, etc etc etc, and finalllly we got our assignments. I am serving in colonia Nuevo Hermosillo, the area furthest south in Hermosillo :) it is kind of like my first area in Tucson, the ghetto always seems to be the furthest south! Elder Palfreyman is about a 7ish-maybe8 hour bus ride south in Navajoa!! out of the 8 new missionaries that came with me, I am the only one who got a gringo trainer, but it´s okay b/c he´s AWESOME. my companion is elder Florence, he´s from Ogden Utah, and has about 8 months in the mission. He waited for his visa about 2 months in the Salt Lake City South mission, and has only been here in mexico for about 4 months and his spanish is AWESOME. The area is pretty new to him too, he was just serving in Guaymas, so every day is pretty much an adventure!

AH there is so much to tell you in so little time!

We walk everywhere, except when we have to take the bus up into town for meetings about three times a week, Elder Florence is the DL. Prettymch all the other missionaries in our district and in our zone are Mexicanos, except for my good friend Elder Church, who is serving in the area just north of us. We are assigned to the Nuevo Hermosillo Ward, and the members seem to be awesome too!

Our apartment is a little ghetto. Elder Florence says that we might be moving to a different one sometime this transfer, but maybe not. It is definitely something to get used to, not ever drinking the water, not ever having any warm/hot water, and just simply not having water after 8ish pm haha.

I love it :)

Mexico is very different... very... Mexico.. haha and I am loving every second. We are teaching a few awesome families, one we tracted into, and another that reminds me of Cheaper by the Dozen-- 9 kids, 5 from one prev marriage and 4 from the other-- he´s a member, shes not. Everything just feels right here:) I don´t quite understand everything thats going on around me... somehow spanish seemed to be easier in Arizona haha but I just have the greatest feeling that Iam where I am supposed to be.

I´m safe, and I´m happy, and´we´re working hard.

I do not have the Mission Office address with me right now - we stopped by this little hole in the wall internet cafe - but the answer to your question is that I think it will be easier to send my mail to the mission office. From the looks of it, we don´t really have mailboxes, or really reliable mail services here.. supposedly letters take like a month to get home? I heard that they have to go through Mexico City or something.. We will experiment, and I will get all that information to you next pday. But for now, email is def. the most reliable form of communication.

Alright, we have to go catch the bus! But I love you all SOOOOOO much and I am so happy and excited to finally be here! I´ve already seen so many miracles, and i just have the best feeling that more are on their way. You´re all in my prayers,

Jack