December 19th, 2010 (I think)

estimada familia mia,

TRANFERS! I am officially in my 3rd area! I am now serving in the Saguaro Branch (Spanish), in an enormous area, we have a pickup truck b/c there are lots of dirt roads and washes and things, but we live about 2 minutes from my last pad. I am SO EXCITED to be in a Spanish speaking branch again! I've heard great things about the Saguaro branch, and we meet in the same building we did in the Los Reales branch up by the airport, 15-20 minutes up the 19! Hopefully I will be able to see some people from my first area.

I am in a trio once again, but I really like my companions so far. There is Elder Lovelis, he's pretty green this is his 2nd transfer, I just met him so I'm not quite sure where he's from, I think it's Utah. Then there is Elder Hernandez, from Mexico City!!!!! I've been praying alltransfer that if it be God's will, I would be companions with elder Hernandez because he's a Mexican native, and it WORKED! Elder Hernandez is the DL, he's kind of small and quiet, but hilarious and his English is quite good for being a year old in the mission and knowing basically nothing before he came. It's pretty safe to say I am SO EXCITED for this next transfer.

(Really quick tidbit on the visa situation--- supposedly the elders in Nogales talked to somebody who works for the consulate or something down there and he told the visa waiters there that the offices would be closed til Jan. 20th or so)

oh yeah, and my new address is 19190 S. Alpha

Green Valley, AZ App. #1201

I don't know the zip code

This has been a really busy week! We've been doing lots of service, and I got to ride a zip line! It probably wasn't the safest thing to do as a missionary trying to get out of the country.. but who gets to go ZIP-LINING on their mission?! One of the member families up on the ranch, the Harris', had built it over a wash on their property. I'm going to try to send pictures, I'm at the library again, so we'll see if I can figure the computer out.

A couple sad things happened this week.. Elder Holyoak and I had to do some investigator drop lessons for the first time. I guess it was more like them dropping us. Asi es la vida. The work is still moving along though! We also went to two baptisms of some of the investigators in the areas next to ours that we had gotten to know on splits and exchanges and things.

I love and miss you all : ) and I am really excited to call for Christmas!

please send the rest of the family my love,

Elder Spencer

December 15, 2010

Sorry this email is coming in on Wednesday and not Monday! These past two weeks have been really eventful and interesting and I don't think the excitement is over!
It has been really busy and a little stressful in Sahuarita this past week.
Transfer calls come in sunday night! RIGHT before Christmas which is kind of a bummer, but I'm excited none the less. I have NO idea whether I'm staying or moving back into a Spanish area- both sound great to me:)
Yes I do pretty much live in a house. We live with some really sweet older members, the Todds (sister Todd is a member brother Todd isn't!). Elder Holyoak and I live in a little two room apartment on the side of their house where (I think) their son or nephew used to live.
THANK YOU everyone for the letters and Christmas cards and PRESENTS! It is beginning to feel a lot more like Christmas down here in southern Arizona too believe it or not.

WELL, beginning with the most exciting thing.. WE HAD A BAPTISM ON SATURDAY!!! I completely forgot my camera to send pictures (and I had lots to send too) so I'll have to send them next time. But Sheridan (really cool girl, Mary Ellen's age) was baptized Saturday and confirmed in church on Sunday : ) IT WAS AWESOME. Her whole non-member family was there to support her and they all seemed to have a really great experience. Sheridan is a McGee and lives up on the ranch, so a bunch of the ranchers came down to support too. I can see this big step for Sheridan being a GIANT LEAP in the right direction for the ranch as a whole (there are a lot of really great, but slightly lost or confused people and families up there READY for the gospel), I really think Sheridan could be that needed catalyst.
ALSO up on the ranch... little known fact: I have always wanted to cut down my own Christmas tree. Who knew I would get to do just that on my MISSION in the desert of Arizona?! A really nice family invited us to help them put their Christmas lights up after a lesson, and then drive back into the mountains above the ranch and cut down Christmas trees!! -I have pictures of this to send too-
as you can probably imagine, these pine trees aren't quite as bushy or full as the ones bought/found in more forested parts of the US.. our little bare 5 ft. Charlie Brown tree, now wrapped in a red blanket in our apartment is a sight to behold :) After I cut it down, in a very manly, lumber-jack fashion, wearing my flannel shirt, we strapped our little tree onto the bike rack on the back of our ford fusion for the half-hour drive back down from the ranch.
THEN, to top it all off, (also explaining why I'm emailing on Wednesday) we drove 2.5 hours out to the Gila Valley and went to the Temple yesterday!!! -also, some more pictures I would be sending if I had remembered my camera-
The Gila Valley Temple is brand new and really pretty. It is SUCH a blessing to be on my mission somewhere (here, and in Mexico) where I have the opportunity to attend the temple. Temple work IS missionary work.

Family, I love you all so much. There are things I miss about Christmas at home, but honestly, there isn't anywhere I would rather be, or anything I would rather be doing, than the work of the Lord, here in Sahuarita AZ.

I'm running out of time because we came to try out the computers at the public library today instead of using the Family History center at the church like we normally do, so I have a time limit again! but I just wanted to let you all know how much I love and appreciate each and every one of you. You are all in my daily thoughts and prayers,
love,
Elder Spencer

Pictures!

Elder Spencer finally sent us some pictures from the MTC and Tucson!

Elder Spencer and our cousin, Sister Eccles

P Day!

Outside the Provo Temple

Elder Spencer and Elder Watkins (Best friends/neighbors since 1998) at the Provo Temple

November 28, 2010

Estimada Familia,

Thanksgiving was GREAT: )

THANK YOU everyone for the letters:) It was so nice to finally get those pictures of the family from my farewell and I can't wait to get more of the Big Sur trip. Things have been really good (yet a little slow on the tracting side) here in Sahuarita over the holiday week. But we did manage to find a new investigator! I am really growing to love this area. Southern Arizona seems to get prettier by the day-- maybe I'm just getting used to it. It's getting COLD though which was a surprise to me! It rained a little after church yesterday, and it's been getting below freezing at night! Supposedly it might snow up at the ranch this year! We had dinner with a family that said they are going to take Elder Holyoak and I "Jeep-ing" up in the mountains on our next free PDAY, we are really excited! Another member said he wanted to show us all of his guns and take us to the shooting range. Sadly, handling firearms is against the rules.. but we might go and watch anyway.

TODAY was the Sahuarita Zone (from us, down to Nogales) vs. Tucson Zone (my old zone) TURKEY BOWL! It was really fun to see Elders Burns and Barlow and Edmunds and Kinsey and all my buddies form Tucson this morning! They said Daniella was baptized this weekend!!!! Finally!!! I wasn't there for it, but it feels pretty cool to have someone I actually taught get baptized. I am so happy for her. The football game was really intense.. there are a lot of athletes in these two zones.. including Elder Edmunds who will be playing football for BYU, Elder Strong who plays rugby for U of U, and Elder McBride (from Canada) who was an Olympic Luge and Skeleton athlete. It was a pretty rough game. You'd think missionaries would be pretty cautious, we used socks as flags, but we still didn't stop until Elder Blake got his nose split open(he's in my district), another Elder split his eyebrow, and Elder Kinsey got a pretty bad bloody nose when Elder Nordyke (who plays football for Southern Virginia) stiff armed him in the face! The only one stitch worthy was Elder Blake's injury, but luckily he knew someone in his ward who is an EMT or a fireman or something so we went over there and got him glued back together after the game.

It was fun to see all the guys from the Tucson zone, and it felt good to be able to speak a little bit of Spanish with them and Elder Hernandez from Mexico, but I am really happy here in Sahuarita. I am especially grateful for my companion Elder Holyoak. There hasn't been a day so far that I haven't learned something important about life or missionary work from Elder Holyoak. He is such a diligent missionary, even in a really hard area, and is ALWAYS really positive and uplifting. He also happens to be one of the most humble people I have ever met. I am so blessed and I can only hope I am doing SOMETHING for him in return. He keeps on telling me that I'm not going to Mexico til he's done with me, because he needs me here--I don't deserve this kind of praise from him, but I can't make him stop!

ABOUT the Mexican visa

At the MTC they said that I would get my visa in 7 weeks or less. I learned not to trust the people at the travel office in the MTC long ago, but just for kicks, this past weekend was the end of my 7th week here in the ATM. I got a letter from Brittany saying John might be going down to Mexico soon? Does anyone know if that's true? Is John in WA still or back in Utah? or MEXICO? I haven't talked to John since the MTC, but I hope he made it down there!

One of the Border Patrol guys in the ward told me he could go to a lady in Tucson and get me a Mexican Visa TOMORROW if I wanted ha ha. All I know is there is a reason I am in the Arizona Tucson Mission, so I'll stay here til there's a reason for me to be in Mexico.

I love and miss you all so much and appreciate all the letters, emails, and prayers--they are truly answered and felt, I can promise you that. I feel so incredibly blessed and grateful every day for this opportunity I have to be a missionary and have such a great family back home. You are in my prayers.

Scripture of the week: D&C section 78: 17-19

ELDER SPENCER

November 20, 2010

Estimada Familia Mia,

lesson learned:------ don't get too comfortable where you are, because everything can change SO fast.
For whatever reason there was an ET (emergency transfer) in the Gila Valley, SO I, being in a threesome in south Tucson, got a call late (1045-late for a missionary) Wednesday night telling me to get my bags packed, I was moving south to Sahuarita! I threw all my stuff in my bags and by 1 the next day I was down here in my second area. I am serving in a place called green valley, in two English speaking wards here in Sahuarita and I like it a lot more than I thought I would.
When the news came that I was going to an English speaking area I was pretty bummed. My Spanish is probably the thing I am most worried about, so I wasn't excited to go serve somewhere where I wouldn't be using any! But Heavenly father had a lesson to teach me - and that is that the work is the same everywhere, and that for some reason, some really old retired white people need Elder Spencer to bring them the gospel.
My new companion Elder Holyoak is a REALLY nice guy from Pocatello Idaho and we get along really well. He's pretty green still, been out 6 months, but knows the area really well which AMAZES me because I am so lost here in the suburbs. Our area is actually kind of split up, we live in a pretty open rural-esque area between our two tracting areas -- Green Valley, a community of really old people, mostly "snow birds" who come down for the nice weather (you have to be over 55 years old to live there) and Rancho Sahuarita which basically looks like Rancho Cucamunga. There is one more little branch of out area called the McGee Ranch which I can tell is going to be my favorite place to go. We ride our bikes about 20-25 miles a day back and forth from home, to Green Valley and Rancho, Mostly knocking doors(white people are so mean) but we have to drive about half an hour up into the desert to McGee Ranch.
From what I've gathered so far, McGee Ranch is a HUGE plot of land where about 75 families are spread out. You have to be somehow related to the McGee family to live up there, they all work together for what they call "the company" (construction I think) and most all of them go to "the company church" except for the few Mormons who live up there and investigating family that we go and visit. --from what I can tell, the company church seems to be kind of a branch off of Mormonism ha ha they supposedly believe in the book of Mormon, but not that you have to be baptized and they don't live the word of wisdom--. They kind of live the law of consecration too... the company makes money, and gives it out to all the families evenly.
I still know very little, but this place seems CRAZY and I'm really excited to learn more. Oh yeah and they are a bunch of red necks and hunt every weekend. The couple houses that I've been to up there so far have had enormous elk and deer heads and antlers and even bobcat and mountain lion pelts hanging up all over the house . This place is awesome.
All the people who live down at the bottom here in Sahuarita in the suburbs do one of two things: young families, nerdy dad working for Ratheon, OR super HUGE scary dad who works for Border Patrol. One of the members told me 85-90% of the population here fall into those two categories.

Overall, I thought I wouldn't like it here, but I'm actually LOVING it. We have a couple AWESOME investigators and I actually end up using my Spanish about once a day. I miss South Tucson and Elder Burns and Elder Barlow and my tiny Mexican branch, but !asi es la vida! (lit. trans.--> "like this is the life")

I'm pretty excited for thanksgiving, and I'm pretty stoked to be in a gringo English speaking area for the holidays too! I think we got at least 3 or 4 thanksgiving dinner invitations at church yesterday, but I think we're only going to go to two. Church was AWESOME. It's weird to be in two, Glendora 5th size wards after a little struggling branch, but I got a little more out of church -it being in English. I've been thinking a lot about thanksgiving and what a cool holiday it is and I just wanted to say that I'm thankful for my family. I love you all so much and I'm so proud to be a Spencer. I think of all the GREAT memories I have of growing up and I am so grateful for my childhood. How cool is it that I have family on both coasts and a rich history on both sides. I think back to all the cool things we did as a family growing up, driving to new Mexico, flying out to the east coast, getting to see Indian reservations, white sand dunes all the way to civil war battle fields and Washington DC. We've been lucky enough to go to Hawaii, NYC, and that is just vacations! We live in Southern California of all places! Emily has gotten to study in the Mountains and snow and I study by the bay, where I can see the golden gate bridge and San Francisco. We are all healthy, and happy, and together. Thank you Mom and Dad for everything that you've sacrificed and done for this family. I love you all so much and I love the Lord for putting us together. It is no wonder to me that God LOVES and works through families, and I see that every single day, doing his work.

Love and miss you all!

ELDER SPENCER

11/15/2010

Estimada familia mia,

Another week! The first week of this transfer is over already -- crazy. I had my "third birthday" this past week which means I've been out for 3 months! Not bad if you asked me, but Elder burns (16 months) likes to make fun of me. Last night we were riding our bikes on our way home when an airplane flew over head. He yells over to me, "Elder Spender! (a nickname, spawned from a note in which a lady we're teaching misspelled my name) How far away do you think that plane is?" I thought about it... looked at the plane.. tried to figure some elementary geometry, and answered that it had to be less than a mile. He responded. "WRONG! FOREVER! You're never going home!" (ha ha)

This week has been AWESOME. Honestly, nothing very exciting to the ordinary person has happened, but from a missionary point of view, this week ROCKED! We have been SO busy, in missionary lingo, this area is "blowing up." We hardly have enough time during the day to ride our bikes (our "hogs" or "bicas"--pronounced "beekas" or bicis pronounced "beesees" short for bicycleta (not really sure how to spell anything right now)) all over creation to see everyone we need to see, and our nights are even busier (the car is a great asset when we have at least 4 lessons a night!)

tenemos muchos investigadores nuevos como Nick and his mom Lucia who I mentioned last week, and a 16 year old kid named Alex who we met trying to get a hold of his mom (a referral). We ended up running into him twice here at the library, and gave him the first lesson, and now he's reading and praying about the Book of Mormon!

Nick and Lucia are the best investigators I have ever heard of. Nick hasn't smoked meth (you smoke meth right?..) or pot since our first lesson, and has broken it off with his married girlfriend! He told her, "I'm a Mormon now, if you still love me in a few years lets get married." ha ha! He's GREAT and so incredibly willing to change. He is feeling some withdrawals from the drugs:/ but calls us when they get really bad, and is still giving his call to quit drinking coffee and tea! I can't imagine how hard this is for him, but still he is so willing. Everytime we teach his something new, he prays about it, and just does it!

We gave Lucia the infamous "Jehovah" lesson because she asked us about God's name... we shared a couple scriptures with her, talked about the Godhead, the Father(heavenly father), the son (Jesus Christ,nuestro salvador y redentor, aka Jehovah in the scriptures) and the Holy Ghost/Spirit. She was pretty distressed that she had been "praying to the wrong person" for so long!So we assured her that she had been praying to the right person all along! That he hears her prayers and has answered them still, she's just been calling him a different name. Like calling me Steve. She liked that and felt a lot better:) oh and gave us a dozen more tamales, WOOHOO!

Funny Things--

--We went to visit a member family with the zone leaders last night to watch a pirated copy of the Joseph Smith(Jose Smit) movie in Spanish ha ha. I guess the movie hasn't been released to the public yet and Elder Kinsey got it from the "underground missionary black market." Leave it to the Spanish speaking missionaries to get a burned copy.

--We accidentally crashed a family birthday party at one of our investigator's houses and stayed for a little while singing along with Enrique Iglesias. Funny fact--every good Mexican party has loud music and a brinca-brinca (jumping castle)

Sad Things--

--Sheila (a really nice Investigator with three kids and a husband in jail)'s house was broken into and torn up pretty bad:/

Scary things--

--we like to take the mission rule "try not to take the same route every day" to the extreme and go on adventures trying to find new ways to our investigators' houses. This past week we were riding on this dirt road behind a wash when we were seriously attacked by at least 5 really angry really big pit bulls. and they were FAST too! all three of us got away without a scratch but there were some pretty close calls

To answer your questions..

What do we do for food?-- We USUALLY eat at members houses-probably about 75 percent of the time which is AWESOME. AHHHH I love the food it's ridiculous. But we cover/make breakfast and lunch and things for ourselves usually. Thanksgiving, there is a branch party this Thursday, and I think we have at least 2 maybe three thanksgiving feasts booked for el dia de accion de gracias:) so I think we'll be pretty stuffed ha ha

Again, miss and love you all so much, I am healthy and happy even though it is starting to get a little chilly at night haha and yes mom I have sufficient blankets and sheets : )

Esta todo MUY bien. I love the Lord, I love the gospel, I love my calling, and I love my life. may Dios les bendiga.

ELDER SPENCER

Estimada Familia,

It's a new transfer! and the only change is that I am now a "District Monkey." Which only means my companion Elder Burns has been assigned to be District leader! I was concerned that Elder Burns would leave Elder Barlow and I (two still very green missionaries with "iffy" spanish) alone since he's been in Los Reales for two transfers already but he's staying! From what I've heard, I am the only visa-waiter who didn't move, and one of the only one's in a triple companionship still! Maybe this means I'll get to go to Mexico sooner (ha ha) but really, I am SO glad I am staying in this area. I have made great friends with a lot of the recent converts, members, and investigators here. I am extremely short on email time today so I just want to say thank you to everyone who wrote me, mail really does make the day brighter.

ALRIGHT quick miracles

first of all, the fact that all 5 of the elders serving in the los reales branch are staying here. I really believe this is meant to be, because the branch is really kindof falling apart and I KNOW that we can do something to help. SOMEHOW we need to help the members feel the spirit of missionary work, and maybe then they will help up find more people, and hopefully unite within themselves and make friends again.

I only have a couple minutes but earlier this week we randomly ran into this big scary mexican man on the street named Nicolas. He told us he had just gotten out of Prison, and had watched general conference there! His mother is a devout JW, but he really likes the mormons so he would love to read some of the Book of mormon, pray about it, and let us come over and ask him how it went.

WHAT?! Thats what we call golden.

Ends up we went to his house, he WASNT there, but his mom was making tamales and we offered to help. We shared the message of the restoration with her, and gave her a Book of Mormon too and she said she wants to come to church with us on sunday!

We're going to baptize a Jehovah's Witness!!!

We met with Nicolas and his mother last night and it was one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had. We had a very powerful, very moving discussion about how we can follow Jesus Christ in this world today through the restored gospel and by being baptized by the authority of the Priesthood. There are some hairy details about Nicolas' baptismal date, and whether he goes back to prison or not in the next few days but I'll have to update y'all on that next week!

I love and appreciate you all so much. It is so good to hear that everything is going well at home.

again, I love and miss you all and I am doing extremely well:)

Love.

JACK