Before I start, I just wanted to apologize really quickly about the content of my last email. I realized this past week that some of the stories I was telling were not the most uplifting or appropriate for younger audiences, so I've decided to make sure I only include good, wholesome stories. I promise my emails will still be entertaining, they'll just be more uplifting. If you want to talk about the crazy people or hear wacky stories, shoot me a personal email and I'll tell you all kinds of wild stories.
With that being said, let's get to the juicy part of my email. This week was amazing! I finally got to teach some lessons! The first was a guy named Cody that we found by tracting, however his lesson wasn't great. He wasn't really willing to learn or change and was just being really combative the whole time, so unfortunately we won't be teaching him anymore. But it's okay, hopefully he'll remember the things we taught and someday down the road have a desire to change. The real miracle was with a girl named Ilanka. Let me give the full story. So on Friday, Elder Marcum and I decided to meet with some of the sister missionaries and look through their area books to see if they had any YSA age people that had talked to missionaries before. (YSA means Young Single Adult and its ages 18-30). So we met with some sisters at a library in their area and just talked to them and got some people we could try and teach. As we were walking out, this girl holding a 4 year old walked up to us and said, "Your name tags say Jesus Christ, what church do you go to?" We talked about our church briefly and then she asked how old we were. We said "18 and 20" and she told us she was 19, so perfect for a YSA ward. She then told us that she was from South Africa, that she had moved here only 2 months ago and was working as a nanny, and that she was looking for more friends her age. She also speaks Afrikaans and that's why the subject of my email looks like it isn't English. It's Afrikaans. But yeah, we were talking with Ilanka and she just said, "here let me give you my number so we can meet sometime this weekend and talk about Jesus and about your church, your young adult congregation sounds awesome." ISN'T THAT SO COOL?!! Stuff like that never happens out here, so it was so so awesome. We set up an appointment for the next day and we were super excited. A few hours later, she texted us and said "something came up, can we meet tonight instead?" Marcum and I cleared our hour of tracting on our schedule and went and met with her. We just got to know her and talked about South Africa and what she liked to do; she is honestly one of the coolest people I've met. We talked about her beliefs and she has a super strong testimony of God and Jesus Christ and their love for us, it was such a good conversation. When we finished, we asked her if we could meet again and share a prepared message about our religion and she said yes! We asked what day and she said "Fridays work best, but I don't want to wait that long." That made me so happy! We have a lesson with her on Wednesday and I am so so excited. I saw several other miracles this week, and I wish had time to write them all, but unfortunately I do not.
I want to share a brief experience I had during my personal scripture study yesterday morning. I was reading in Mosiah 23 and found a passage of scripture I found to be really applicable. This chapter is talking about the people of Alma, a righteous people who trusted God and kept all the commandments. Verses 21-23 say, 21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith. 22 Nevertheless—whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people. 23 For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into bondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God, yea, even the God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob. I love these verses because they're proof that even if we're doing everything right, the Lord is still going to give us trials and experiences that will test our faith. And the only way that we can overcome those things is by putting our trust in God and letting him take over. He is the only one that can help us overcome those trials and difficulties, no matter how good we think we may be. We have to trust in the Lord in all we do, and he will help us get through our trials.
SURPRISE ADDITION TO THE VOLLEYBALL CHRONICLES OF ELDER SPANGLER!!!! Last P-day, we played volleyball as a district and it was so much fun. There's a sister in our distric named Lexi Davies and she played for 4 years at UVU so she is super good at volleyball. The games we played weren't too great because not everyone knew how to play and I was super rusty, but it was still super fun. Hopefully I'll get to play more while I'm out here but we'll see.
Well, that's all I have time for this week. Thanks to everyone who has been writing me emails, I really appreciate it and love hearing from people. I hope all of you have a great week and can see miracles, because they're always there, we just have to look for them.
Love and miss you all!!
Elder Spangler
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