Elder Spencer Christofferson: "Yeah, I am building my house."

Digging Holes!

Hi Everybody!

How are you all doing?! I hope everyone is doing great! I am pretty sure this last week in the States was Valentine's day so I am sure you all had a great week! We had a great last week of the transfer! And last night (Sunday) we got the transfer! So in a shocking turn of events, I am staying in São Cristovão!!! That is right folks, after all is said and done I will have 6 months in this ward. Crazy right? I am in the same zone (Imbuí) since June!!!! I will watch 2 General Conferences in the same place! I can't wait to see the faces of the other members of the stake when they see me once again during General Conference at the end of next month! Anyways, I am sad to report that my companion Elder Machado is being trasnferred! He will be going to Vitoria da Conquista and be companions with another American! He was sad because that city is a little cold haha! But I will be getting as my new companion Elder Loureiro! He is actually part of the group that I am going home with! I don't really know him but I am excited to see what this next transfer holds!

So this week was another great one! And it ended with a fantastic Sunday but I will get to that later. I'll start at the beginning of the week! So Tuesday was the offical Carnaval holiday. We were anxious about what the day would hold. We got invited to do a service project with Jefferson in the morning so we went. Wow it made us tired haha. He is planning on building a house on some land next to his parents house. He has just started and is digging these huge holes to be the foundation. I thought it was funny how in the United States when someone says, "yeah, I am building my house." That usually means that they designed the house and the construction guys are building. Here, when someone says they are building their house it means that THEY are the ones actually building it hahaha. So we went and helped Jefferson for 5 hours Tuesday morning, digging holes. He was already in one that he had been doing on different days and me and Elder Machado took over a different one. It was a lot of fun and great for Jefferson to be with us since he still isn't married to Ingrid and still investigating the church. Afterwards we headed over to lunch at his house with the Sisters and the rest of his family. It was Sister Bernardo's birthday so it was fun!

Tuesday night we did get to go visit Claudio! He is doing great and felt bad that he didn't get to go to church with us! But we got to teach him about the Book of Mormon. It was a great lesson but the coolest part was at the end when we finally gave him the book. He was so surprised that we would give him a present! He was so happy and was holding the book with such care and love and it made me reflect on that talk that President Nelson gave about the Book of Mormon and if we value it more than diamonds and rubies. It definitely seemed like Claudio was valuing it more than anything. He said he would read and was very thankful! It was a great lesson and he seems to be progressing great!

Wednesday was another great day! We had a fantastic last district meeting of the transfer and during the day we had Felipe go out with us. He has gone out with us a ton of time because he is 18 and planning on going a mission this year. He is awesome. Anyways one of the highlights of the day was when we went to visit Marcos. (He is the atheist) So we had gone in with the plan to teach him the first lesson but when we got there it didn't work out that way. He had done research and found some stuff on the Church and wanted to ask us about it. It is crazy how confident I feel now when people ask about that type of stuff, I really don't have anything that I can't answer anymore. But the best part was at the end. Felipe had been quiet the whole time but at the end he spoke up and said he wanted to share his testimony. He has this deep, narrorator type voice, so when he talks everyone pays attention haha. But he started to talk and the Spirit came in to the room so strongly. He spoke about his struggles when he was younger with believing if God existed. It was so great. After Felipe spoke I bore my testimony about the feelings of the Spirit. The whole thing with Marcos is that he thinks it is crazy that we can belive in things we don't see. So I tried to explain to him the feelings of the Spirit. But it is kind of hard haha. The Spirit feels different for all and I explained that for me I just kind of know that it is true. I get this feeling that helps me doubts go away. It was a great lesson and Marcos seemed to really listen and ponder for the first time the things we were saying!

Thursday we went to visit Ellen and her mom and little brother that finally got here from Fortalza! We were so excited and found out that her mom, Erika, was baptized in September! So she is pretty new in the church. She had been going to church for a while but had to get some things resolved before she could get baptized but now she is and is looking forward to learn more! We read with them 1 Nephi 8. I love that chapter! It is so great! Go read it again! The vision is so amazing for our day! Anyways, we focused on verse 12 that talks about how Lehi wanted to share the fruit with his family. Ellen and her family are living here with tons of their family that was already living here! So we challenged them to share the gospel with their family! It was awesome and we are hoping it goes well!

Friday we had an interesting lesson with Lucas. He is that young man we found who is 13 and he is great! But the whole time we have been working with him he hasn't gone to church and it is irritating us! So we wanted to know why. He told us that his mom is the one that doesn't want him to go! So we were like "Ohhhh that makes sense." Friday when we went to visit him we called his mom to come participate in the message too! We re-taught the first lesson and it was fantastic! His mom loved it and asked a bunch of questions and it was great! She said she would see if she could go to church but said that regardless Lucas could go! So we were pretty excited!

Saturday was insane! Lately in the mission, President Bangerter has been really focusing on getting people to church. So as of Saturday we had about 15 people who had told us that they could go to church this week. Saturday we decided to go talk to all of them and see if they really would go! We ran around our area, visiting people for only about 15 minutes and the Lord blessed us! We got to talk to all of them! At the end of the day we had 7 yeses, 7 nos, and 3 maybes. We called Felipe and Johnny and asked them to help us Sunday morning. They showed up at our house about 8 and we split up to go get those who said they would go! And it worked well! We had 6 investigators at church! It was fantastic.

So yeah that was my week! I am hoping that this next week is fantastic! Pray that this new transfer will be great! Love you all!!

#itsalltrue

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson

PICS

1,2- Helping Jefferson dig holes for his house that he is building himself

3-cool sign i saw with my initials on it LOL!