Elder Spencer Christofferson: A goal needs a date!

PUPPY anyone?

Hey everybody!!

How was your guys' week?!? Ours was great and ended on a FANTASTIC note with this next week looking really nice!! Also the last week of the transfer is this week and I am sad because I think I will be going to a different area. I really do not want to leave here and hope I don't get transferred. We actually had interviews with President last night because he is in town and I tried to get out of him a little to know if he already had figured out the transfers yet but he just said that the members here love us and that is all. I hope that helps my cause, but in the end it’s the Lord’s will and I’ll go where he needs me. I just really love it here ALOT! J

Tuesday night we had a cool experience! We went to teach Marina and Hildo. They are super sweet but the problem is that they are always so busy. But we had marked with them for 6pm that night so off we went. Hildo seemed pretty tired and just kind of out of it when we got there but he powered through and sat down and listened to our lesson. We taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Elder Bair and I had discussed a little bit before the lesson that we needed to be more direct with them. They needed to know what our purpose of visiting them was and realize it wasn’t only to be their friends (we learned that from the training last week from President Bangerter). So we taught the lesson and the Spirit was strong and we moved in to teaching about the Spirit. As we taught Hildo stopped us and said. "You know I was actually just talking to my wife before you guys got here about how lately I have been soooo tired from work and everything and how I really have just been feeling down. I almost actually cancelled this appointment with you guys. But I will say that after this meeting I am feeling way better. I feel rejuvenated and a lot better." It was REALLY AWESOME!!!! He was literally giving a testimony of the Spirit and what it can do for us in our lives. Help us feel comfort and peace and give us motivation to move forward in life. Of course we told him all that and he recognized the difference he felt.

Friday was pretty sad but did have a bright spot!! So the reason is was sad was that Elder Bair and I had a failed English class. We tried to have an English class because people have been asking but sadly it really did not work at all. We prepared well but no one showed up. Like ZERO people, ZERO. I was pretty sad. I think we could of done a better job of announcing and telling people about it but looking back we had a TON of people say they would come and then they just didn't show up. It was a bummer, but I am trying to keep a positive attitude about it and know there was something to learn from it and will plan better the next time.

Looking on the bright side of the day, a little bit before our failed English class, we visited Alexandro. Alexandro was one of the people that we found last Sunday on the split with the members. He is 17 years old and just awesome. He read the entire Joseph Smith pamphlet already and was excited for our visit. It was a great visit and he got really excited about the Book of Mormon. When I asked him if he would read it he said, " are you crazy?!? Why wouldn't I?" Haha! It was really cool and I am excited to see how he progresses into the future, especially if I stay here.

Sunday Daví was confirmed. And there is a pretty crazy thing that went with it. When Daví was called up, Elder Bair, the Branch President, one of the counselors and I were all there to participate in his confirmation. I had Daví's baptism paper and went to put it on the bench when I heard President Elidio, the branch president say, " Okay Daví you can pick any one of these 4 here to say the prayer for the confirmation." I wasn't looking at Davi but when I heard President Elidio I got really nervous because I have never performed a confirmation in ENGLISH, let alone PORTUGUESE! Just then I heard Daví say “Elder Christofferson”. I thought “oh no” but President told me really quickly what I needed to say in Portuguese and it ended up being a really cool experience. It was on the spot in front of everyone but I just did it. It was awesome and I didn't mess up!!

Also, Sunday we had NINE, yes 9, investigators at church!! A lot of them weren’t there with us because Daví invited a lot of his non-member family but it was awesome. And our branch had 90 people which is huge for here!!

Now for the best part of the week, WAGNER! This week we decided to give him a little more space so we headed over Saturday to teach him. We had an AMAZING lesson. It started with a miracle. Elder Bair has a PIN drive with the Bible videos and we wanted to watch one to start the lesson and we let Wagner choose which one he wanted to watch and learn about. He picked a perfect video about Why Christ came to Earth. It ended up being a small miracle because we then were able to talk about not being ashamed about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that we need to be worried more about what God thinks of us, not what others think of us. At the end I said “Well Wagner we know that your end goal is to be baptized. But a goal needs a date.” He laughed and said that even he had been thinking to mark one soon, but that he wanted to go to church first and decide after. Being bold I threw out the 25 as a day to think about and said we would return the next day to see how he felt about it. So the next day we went back and he SET THE DATE FOR THE 25TH. I feel like THIS ONE WILL HAPPEN!!!! I left his house feeling maybe the happiest of my whole mission! I am just truly seeing that everyone has their own time of conversion and happiness is there when they are ready.

A quick thank you to Andrea for my package! You are THE BEST! It was AWESOME!!

I am in shock to hear of Jared’s death, mom. I am seriously like devastated. He was one of the guys who always treated me well from the team. It’s just so sad. I have been emailing Braden about it today and he too is in shock. I will be sure to keep his family in my prayers.

To end, I cannot believe 8 months has passed on my mission already. I actually forgot about until Saturday but when I remembered the date and I was shocked by how fast a month passed!!!

Thank you for all the support everyone!

Love you all! Have a GREAT week!!!!

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson