I hope most of you had a chance to listen to General Conference. If not, go check it out on ChurchofJesusChrist.org. I loved all the messages about member missionary work! This week we had a zone conference, which is a training we do every 6 weeks, and the whole focus of it was on helping members do missionary work. It was super awesome and I learned a ton. There's a talk given by President Gordon B. Hinckley called "Find the Lambs, Feed the Sheep" and it's all about member missionary work. It's kind of long but I would encourage all of you to read it. He says something that I really liked in the talk. It's "My heart reaches out to you missionaries. You simply cannot do it alone and do it well. You must have the help of others. That power to help lies within each of us." Missionaries cannot do missionary work alone. We need your help! All of you members, reach out to your local missionaries, get to know them, help them find people to teach, practice lessons with them, do something to help them. I know everyone has full schedules and life is crazy, but try to find some time to talk to the missionaries in your ward.
Some cool stories. Last week elder Marcum and I were out in Downtown Portland and saw these two dudes smoking on a park bench. They looked about 20ish and we were like, sweet some YSA. We went and talked with them and talked about God and their beliefs and stuff like that. Then we asked if they wanted to meet with us another time and talk about the gospel. They said yes, coke back right here tomorrow at 1. So we did and they didn't show up. It was kind of a bummer but it was fun to talk with them. We haven't had any opportunities to teach any lessons yet because no one wants to meet with us. We set 4 return appointments, but they all fell through. It's rough, but I'm grateful to have this experience because it'll be very different in Ecuador when I actually get there.
I want to start a new segment. I'm going to call it "The Crazy People Chronicles of Elder Spangler." I miss writing my volleyball chronicles so I figured I could make something new kind of like it. Hopefully I can live up to the quality I set with the volleyball chronicles. Okay first addition: So the other day Elder Marcum and I were trying to find this guy who hasn't been to church in a long time. We knew his apartment complex, just not the number of his apartment. Thankfully, it was a pretty small complex so we decided to just knock all the doors and see if we could find him. We knocked the first door and it wasn't him. Then the second and the third were no answer. We walked to the fourth door and Marcum said " this one is all you" and stood off to the side. So I knock on the door and it takes a bit then it opens. The first thing that hits me is a super strong stench of smoke comes out of the door. The next thing I noticed was this dude was wearing a robe... and only a robe. And it was not tied closed. So I was kind of in shock, but I said "Hi, we're new in the area...." and that's all I got out before he said "Aw shut up and leave me alone" and slammed the door. Gotta say, it was a pretty crazy experience and all the elders I've told have said that that is a very normal occurrence here so that was great news.
Well, I gotta go now because I don't have much time to write so I'm going to end here. Please send me emails if you want to, I love hearing from everyone!
Elder Spangler
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