Guts, May 6, 2024

Hola a todos! Como están?

(sent an mp3 file that won't upload here)

Leandrosito, April 29, 2024

Owen Spencer <owen.spencer@missionary.org>

Mon, Apr 29, 8:43 PM

to bcc: me

This was a busy week!

Highlights:

- Service! We got to do some service for a lady in our ward. Someone had cut a bunch of branches down and we had to snap them and fit them into bags.

- Went on intercambios with Elder Tate, I went to his area and got to follow him around. He has less time in the mission then me and we had a lot of fun. He's from Florida and a red necked one at that. 

- During the intercambio we visited a lady who's paralyzed from an accident years ago, and then recently her 16 year old son died. She had every reason to be bitter and angry for the miserable things happening in her life. But she turned toward God. I had the opportunity to give her a blessing of health as she is sick and I found myself saying that God loves her and knows what she is going through. And that she will see her son and be with him one day. And then I felt pure love for this lady as she took my hands after with tears in her eyes and thanked me and praised God. 

- Also on the intercambio, we went outside of Santiago to the countryside and it gets dark early now so we walked alongside a long country road for a couple hours talking to people. It was very nice, quiet, could hear bugs, could see the stars. Much different then the past 9 months of living in the city. Then we found a random restaurant and ate some food while watching a fútbol match. Then the next morning we tried flying some kites to no avail and a homeless guy ended up laughing at our attempts, and we laughed alongside him haha. 

- On Sunday our 9 year old friend got baptized! It was very special experience! I had the opportunity to baptize him which was pretty special as well. After the ordinance he asked if he could swim a little bit in the font haha. And after he received the gift of the Holy Ghost I asked how he felt and he said "I feel God." And then walked away. It was powerful. 

That was about it for the week!

A scripture that I really loved this week and that helped me out is:

Matthew 11:28-30

"28 ¶ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

I took comfort in this scripture this week because life as a missionary is not easy. You are constantly exposed to the negative things happening in people's lives. If we aren't teaching someone or eating we are out walking in the streets with a lot of people yelling rude things at you. And sometimes you feel completely alone, in a different country, far from your family, with another 20 year old you just met a month ago. 

But the fact about this scripture is no I'm not alone and no this is not my burden to take. It is Jesus Christs. And He is offering to us to come unto Him and we will have rest. We are still expected to take upon His yoke and follow Him, but it will be easy and light with Him by oursides. We have to come unto Christ and make the choice to do so, He is waiting with open arms to take up our burden and work with us. 

Question of the week: How can you give your burdens to Christ?

Love you all!

Elder Spencer

Leandro's baptism

broken egg

kites!

Baptism

dog in the apartment

service

intercambios

intercambios

Christian🌊🌊, April 22, 2024

This week our friend Christian got baptized!! It was an incredible experience for everyone especially for him! His girlfriend and family showed up as well as members from the ward! My friend Alexis got to baptize him and the hug they shared after Christian came out of the water will be in my mind forever. Christian couldn't stop smiling and then invited us over for food afterwards.

Speaking of food, our friends Iris and Catalina had a completada where they sold cualquier completos and we went and pounded them back. 

Also went on a intercambio with Elder Carreño, it was a blast! Lots of hard work and we found a new person to teach that was a punto rojo, a red point, meaning that in the past a missionary said this person should not be contacted due to danger or something. But Elder Carreño went for it anyways and now we are teaching someone new!

We had zone conference as well. Got to see elder Call, my trainer. Got to see my boys Carlson and Quist and a lot more! And I got to say goodbye to Elder Plane, he goes home in less then a month now. He started crying thinking about it, and I told him I'd see him on the other side in a year haha. Imma miss that man. He was with me for 8 months of my mission, a good true friend.

Spiritual thought: Mosiah 1:7

"7 And now, my sons, I would that ye should remember to search them (the scriptures) diligently, that ye may profit thereby; and I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers." 

I love the two invitations made by King Benjamin in this scripture! One to read and search diligently in the scriptures! And the second to keep the commandments of God! And what will we receive in return for our efforts? We will profit on the word and prosper in the land according to the promises of the Lord! Pretty powerful eh? I also love the wording to not only search the scriptures but to search them diligently.

Question of the week: How can you more diligently search the scriptures this week??

Love you all!! 

Elder Spencer

                                    Christian's baptism 

Elder Plane

Intercambio with Carreño

Me and my comp cooking up at a friend's house

Completada with Iris

A family history ward activity, spot the Elder

The original renca boys during my first 6 weeks in Chile

Christian's baptism

🌟⬇️ Update, April 15, 2004

Wena wena!!

This week started with a intercambio with Elder Maxfield my new zone leader. He's an amazing person and a hard worker. I got to go to his area for the day and not stress about where to go and what to do. We had an amazing day as well. Started off with a lesson in the morning with a woman named America and her 1 year old daughter. And then her neighbour came and joined us! It was the neighbours first time listening to us and we taught about the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ. We took turns teaching and when it came time in the lesson to share the first vision with them it was my turn. Every time the first vision is shared I feel the spirit, and this time was no different. After the lesson America and her friend commented they felt it too and believed in the experiences of Joseph Smith. After that lesson we went to lunch with a big family. And it was a very funny lunch, lots of out of pocket comments from the members. At one point the hermana was tallying points for either Canada or USA and which was better. After that Maxfield and I went and did some contacts. We were looking for a house for about 30 minutes and it turns out the direction we had was wrong, after asking some neighbours we found the home. And we talked to a less active sister for a while and set up a lesson with her and her grandchildren. Then we visited a father and a son, the son is a member and has just finished his mission papers. He really wants to get called to Canada, so when he found out I was from there he got really excited. His dad isn't a member and we were able to talk to him about his son, baptism and the church. Then we had a couple more successful contacts and lessons and that was the end of it, I didn't stay the night because the zone leaders had a meeting to go to, so I went back to 🌟 ⬇️ Estrella Sur with Elder Sorensen. 

The next day we didn't have any lessons so it was straight contacts after district council. After a long day of walking and getting rejected we returned home around 9:45pm and we started talking to our gate keeper (the person that works at the gate and unlocks it for pedestrians and cars). Turns out she's met with the missionaries a bunch and listed some that we know, and we ended up talking to her till 10:45ish while she was working, shared beliefs and she told us her story and we shared ours. Her name is Esther, moved from Paraguay a while back and has been here alone ever since. Got married had a son and got divorced. Kept going, her parents visited her after a while, then her dad died when he returned. She wasn't able to go to the funeral and her only regret amd fear was he didn't know Christ before he died.

On Friday we met Sebastián. Bro popped out of the shadows and said in english "what's your name." I thought we were getting robbed and that was buddies intro line. Nah. Turns out he just wanted to talk. Invited us over to his parents house for a smoke and a drink, we politley refused. And then he invited us over in the morning next week to cook for us and talk to us more, so we said yes. He told us he believes in God and Christ and no one else. Not in saints or in Mary. We told him we weren't catholic and said we believe in the same things he does. He got happy after that and talked about a lot more then went on his way. 

Sunday was pretty hype at church. Every Saturday we send out an ad for church on our whatsapp story. And one of our old friends we taught a while back texted us and said he'd pull up with his mama and niece. And sure enough they came! As well as Christian who is getting baptized on Saturday and also Cristian the son of a recent convert. It was testimony meeting and they all loved hearing the testimonies of people just like them that have come to know Christ and His power. I hoped it inspired them. I also had the opportunity to pass the sacrament and seeing peoples faces as they had the opportunity to renew their covenants and start the week anew gave me courage and strength to work with cualquier fuerza this week!

Spiritual thought: D&C 82:9

"9 I give unto you directions how you may act before me, that it may turn to you for your salvation." I like this scripture a lot as it shows how God allows us free agency. Yes good has given us commandments to follow. But it is "how [we] may act" not "how we must act."  God allows us to choose to follow the commandments or not. But then He also clearly states what will happen if we choose to keep His commandments. It will bring us our salvation and we will be spiritually saved, allowed to live in the presence of God.

Questions of the week: who's an example of a follower Christ in your life? And how have you seen God bless their lives? 

And

How have you seen God bless you in your life for your efforts?

Love you all! Take care!

Elder Spencer

Me and Elder Maxfield

 Swing break

Me and Alonso, absolute legend of a character

Morning run got some chocolate from a friend

Aquí estamoh hermano, April 8, 2024

Hola como les a ido?

This week had two parts a spiritual high and a physical low. 

It all started last week Monday after pday when we had an online meeting with the ward missionary leaders. My comp went to take a quick power nap because he had a massive headache. When the time came to start the meeting I went to wake him up. Now imagine this... a huge 6'4" football player snoring like a huffing bear. I was a bit nervous to wake him up, and then when I tried I couldn't. So I left him to rest up his headache and joined the meeting. 

Tuesday was a normal day, my companions headache got better. We had a fantastic lesson with Christian about the law of chastity and tithing and fast offerings. He already knew everything from his girlfriend who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Christian was a miracle, he came to us ready and prepared by God.

Wednesday was más o menos normal until our final lesson of the day when two things happened. Our lesson was with Yuliathny and her 9 year old son Leandro. She was baptized years ago when she was 10 and then left the church. But then she saw an ad for the church on Instagram and felt prompted to contact us because she remembered how great her baptism was and wanted her son to have that opportunity as well. Anyways this was our 3rd time meeting with them and we asked Leandro if he wanted to be baptized and he said he'd love to. So now we are helping him get ready to make this covenant with God. Thats the first part. The second part is, I don't know if it happened on our Sunday lesson with them or on this lesson but Leandro had a cold, and that bug got to me and Elder Sorensen. And it hit hard whatever it was. Oh also we received transfer news that night, me and Elder Sorensen are both staying here for another 6 weeks!

Thursday we kept working and in the afternoon we had to go to the mission office. Which worked out for me because there was a letter I was waiting for me there haha, but wouldn't receive until a couple weeks later. But the reason for going was because my companion needed to call the government back home because someone was using his info to file for tax returns or some fun thing like that. So we were there for a good 2 hours figuring all that out haha. Then after that ended we booked it back to Estrella Sur and went to the house of Elvis and Gimena. Where we ate some pizza and then they told us that Gimena is pregnant! It was a very hype evening. And then right after that my comp and I went to our zone leaders house so I could trade ties with Elder Plane as he was getting transferred out and is going home to the states in 6 weeks, and we didn't know if we'd see each other again. 

Friday morning my comp and I woke up super sick. It was kinda funny, on Monday last week my mom and I were talking and she asked if I had gotten really sick on the mission, I just told her nothing major, just some mild stuff. So we ended up texting our district leader, Elder Carreño, and he told us to rest and that he also was super sick. So all of Friday and all of Saturday we were in the house resting with the exception of going out for lunch. All we could do was work from the phone. 

Saturday was the start of General Conference. A series of sessions where the prophet, his apostles and leaders of the church give talks about numerous things. And also there are choirs that sing glorious praises. There were three sessions on Saturday and two on Sunday. We watched majority of the conference from home and some from members homes or the stake center! It was incredible!! Very spiritually filling.

Spiritual thought: There was a talk Saturday evening that stood out to me by Andrea Muñoz Sapannus or something like that. But she talked about David and Goliath and how David brought 5 stones in preparation for the battle. She related each of those 5 stones to things that will help us prepare to face the GIANTS in our life.

1. The stone of the Love of God

- let our love for God be the greatest influence in our lives

2. The stone of Faith on Christ

- this means to fully trust in His wisdom, timing, guidance, etc.

3. The stone of Knowledge of our true identity 

- we are children of God, children of the covenant and disciples of Christ

4. The stone of Daily Repentance 

- repentance isn't a punishment but freedom

- not a one time thing but an ongoing process

5. The stone of Access to God's power

- baptism and making covenants give us power

I love these 5 things and testify that with them we can face the giants in our lives with confidence and power. Embrace them and integrate them into your life. 

Question of the week: How can you use these 5 "stones" to help you?

Love you all!!

Elder Spencer

La Pascua, April 1, 2024

Happy Easter everyone!

There wasn't to much Easter celebrations here. Some chocolate eggs here and there. We spent Easter at a members house, talking and eating. I hope everyone had a splendid Easter as well, focusing on Christ and spending time with family.

Not much happened this week, we've found three Venezuelan houses which is awesome! Basically there are these houses and every time you go to the door there is a different Venezuelan. And when you go in there are about 10-15 people that live there, a range of cualquier age.

Our friends are meeting more people in our congregation at church which is sweet! This ward here is awesome, if I were to live in Santiago I would definitely want to live here. The people are super friendly, there are a lot of families, a lot of guys around my age, and more. But I might be leaving them this week, we have our transfers. I want to stay with this amazing ward for another month and a 1/2 and with Elder Sorensen but it would also be exciting to leave and go on a new adventure. We'll see next week.

Spiritual thought: Helaman 3:28

"28 Yea, thus we see that the gate of heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God."

I love this scripture because we need to have faith and believe in Jesus Christ, the living Son of our living God. This scripture shows the mercy of God and the purpose of Christ's sacrifice for us. I like that it says that gate is open unto all. Everybody. Todo del mundo (all the world). Everyone that was ever on earth and will be. So long as we believe in Him and follow Him! I am very grateful for this knowledge in my life and the opportunity I have to share it to the people in Chile!

Question of the week: How have you felt this week while studying and remembering the holy week? And if you don't believe in Christ, how was your Easter?

Elder Spencer

Yo y Cristobal

"Elder what language did that man speak?" "That... was spanish"

Hay un michi

Atonement of Christ, March 25, 2024

¡¡Buenas tardes!!

Had some more cool experiences this week!

- Camila: we knocked her door a week ago and she seemed hesitant, so we passed our number to her and told her to call us when she felt like it. Anyways later that night we receive a reference, amd it turns out it was her! So we sent a message and invited her to church, turns out she couldn't go... but she was open to the idea of visiting with us. So on Tuesday we set something up in the morning! But it fell through and she didn't come, but we receive a text 2 hours later explaining what happened and if we could meet later that day. So we pull up at her house and she comes out and we all walk to the church. Her first question is where we are from and as soon as she finds out we are from Canada and the states, she switches to english! She studied in England for 6 months and traveled Europe for about 2 years. It turns out when I was England for 2 weeks we were in London at the same time! We had a great lesson with her and she is excited to read El Libro de Mormón!

- Braulio: A random point from last week. We visited him Tuesday night and put a fecha bautismal with him so that was awesome!! Then we got out and just missed our bus. And it was already 9:15pm. And we were about an hour from home, and the next bus was supposed to come 30 minutes later. So we went to the mall and a restaurant was still open so we ordered some food while we waited. The bus finally came around 9:45 and it was pretty full. Then we got to the place to change busses and it is this little stop in the middle of nowhere couple street lights. Bus didn't come for another 20min so we chilled, hoping we wouldn't get robbed. Then our bus came around 10:10 and we were the only ones on there, the lights half worked and it was covered in graffiti it was a little spooky haha. And we got back close to 10:45pm.

- Wednesday we had our interviews with our President. We were supposed to be at 1:30pm so we got there at 1 and they were behind. We didn't end up leaving until 6:30... but it was fun to catch up to the missionaries that were waiting there! We rarely get to see each other so we disfrutared our time together!

- Thursday was pretty wild. My ZL and good friend Elder Plane had the opportunity to pick his grandparents up at the airport in the morning! (I'll explain why later) and so his companion Elder Jones came and stayed with us for the morning. But then he had a leadership meeting at the office which is an hour away that we had to bring him to. Anyways we got there and realized we had two options, immediately return and eat lunch and leave again after 30min or stay there. We had this crossroad thanks to a mission wide conference being held near the office. Anyways we decided to stay and chill at the office and do some phone work, which ended up being: eating burgers with the leadership, talking to all the young missionary leaders, and helping move some things around. Then President, Elder Plane, and his grandparents walked through the door and came and greeted us before going to the meeting. Afterwards we went to the missionwide conference, heard incredible messages from Planes grandparents who turned out to be a general authority for our church. Then we ate some food, got to talk to all the amazing missionaries I've come to know in my 8 months of serving! And then we left.

Spiritual thought: This is my favourite takeaway from the mission wide conference. It was mostly focused on the Atonement of Christ and how it has two powers. The redeeming power which helps us go from bad to good to better and the enabling power which helps us go from better to best to saint. Is how the general authority put it. Anyways we started talking about the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5000 and related it to how it is the Atonement and it is enough to feed EVERYONE. But then it gets better, we looked over two verses that sometimes get don't get as much attention, at least that I knew of.

John 6:12-13

"12 When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. 

13 Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten."

Jesus asked the disciples to gather the leftovers. And there were twelve full baskets. And if we relate this to the atonement it shows that the atonement was enough to full everyone there AND still have a lot left over. The atonement of Christ is for everyone and anyone who will accept it! It is infinite! You can't fall far enough from the light of the atonement, there is always more then enough to fill you up. This is especially a wonderful time to appreciate the atonement with Easter being right here. When we celebrate when Christ atoned for you, me, and everyone. 

Question of the week: How can you remember and appreciate the atonement this week?

Love you all! God loves you! 

Elder Spencer

Sun setting on the bus

                                                                New profile flick for our whatsapp

Me and my comp at the late night bus stop

I got some el fajas again!! First time since renca! It was amazing.

Morning sunrise

This little 2 year old would not stop talking to me in his spanish gibberish, started calling me tío (uncle). I kept giving him our little pass along cards to keep him distracted to focus on the lesson.

 Me with my mission "grandma" and my mission "brother"