Elder Spencer Christofferson: "A brief overview of a FANTASTIC week"

Dropped off suitcases and headed straight to work!

Hey everyone!

How are you all doing?! I hope everyone had a great week! This week for me was CRAZY and AMAZING!! It was transfer week and I was transferred for the first time in 6 months haha! I had almost forgotten what it was like! But it was a blast and I am LOVING my new area and new companion. I am in a small town called Eunápolis and it is an awesome place. It is so different from Salvador. We have the whole city for ourselves and we have BIKES!!! I feel more misisonary than ever! It has been so fun but I am a little sore I must admit. So last monday night I went to the bus station to get my bus at 8 at night after I said goodbye to some of the people I had gotten to know in Salvador. I got on my bus alone, which is so weird, and I was off! I said goodbye to the huge crazy city I came to love but not for long because I will have to go back soon. Like this next week for Leader Training, haha! The bus ride was about 12 hours long. It was super cool because I got a bus with 2 floors! I've never been on a double decker bus like that before.

So Tuesday morning I got here at about 7:45 and walked off the bus and Elder Hilton, my new companion, was there waiting for me with Elder Lee, his companion last transfer. We waited another 2 hours for Elder Lee's bus to arrive and him to head out to his new area. We then got a taxi and got to our house. I didn't even unpack my bags and we headed out to work... riding on our bikes! It was a blast to ride around on a bike again even though I'm a little sore, haha. (Quick insert from Marilee....I've become friends with Spencer's new companions mom. Spencer has only had one other American companion his whole mission and I love connecting with the moms of his comps anyway, so to find his American comps mom was so much fun. Anyway, she and I were texting this week and she shared the story of how Spencer's new area got approved to have bikes... Apparently Elder Hilton was in the area during the last transfer and quickly realized how far away everything was. It would take 30 or more minutes to walk to their appointments and he felt like it wasn't efficient use of their time, so he called up the Mission President to discuss it. There are no official "bike areas" in their mission but he plead his case and President B agreed that the area could use bikes. There was one catch though, Elder Hilton would have to pay for the bikes or he could fix up 2 old ones that the mission had stored in another apartment in the zone. Elder Hilton got hold of the old bikes, fixed them up and now the missionaries ride bikes in that area.)

We had one of the coolest experiences of the week after lunch on Tuesday. So we were biking to a different part of the area and my chain fell off. (2nd time in less than 2 hours, haha) We stopped to fix it and this man had just gotten out of his parked car and looked over and asked if we wanted help. We said yes so he showed us a trick on how to fix it and then said he could tighten some part so that it didn't fall off again. We were stopped in front of his house so he said, "come on in real quick and I can fix it up for ya." So we walked into his garage and he went in to get some tools and then his wife and his 12 year old daughter came out to talk to us. It was like one of those things you see in the church magazines. They offered us water and asked us all about our missions and what we do and stuff. They loved it and then offered us to eat lunch! We had just eaten so we politely declined but it was crazy cool, we had known them for less than 10 minutes. And then BEFORE we could even ask to set up a time to come back THEY asked us to come back first! That night!!! Obviously we didn't decline haha and they marked the appointment with US! It was crazy. The dad, his name is Israel, he wanted us to meet his whole family. That night we went back and had an AMAZING time. So we showed up at 7 and they were waiting for us. We met the whole family, Israel (father of the family), Jucilene (wife), and their 3 daughters. Carol(20), Cristina(15), and Clara(12). We explained a little more about our work and then Israel told us why he helped us. He started to tell a story that 10+ years ago, he was one day getting ready to build his house and then 3 Elders walked by and asked him what day he was going to start constructing and he told them it would be Sunday Morning. They said that they were going to come and that they didn't need to be paid. He didn't belive them but they showed up on the day at 6am and worked harder than the other guys he had hired! So since that day he says he has respected our work a lot and when he saw us on the road he had the impression to help. So thanks to those missionaries helpíng someone YEARS ago, it opened the door for us! And that night we taught the wonderful message of the Restoration. It was incredible. The whole time they were focused on us and payed so much attention. Israel was even taking notes! Haha it was insane. So towards the end we moved to the floor haha. We were doing a drawing explaining the lesson and Elder Hilton got up to show it to the wife who was sitting on a pillow on the floor and when he went over the rest of the family did too. I was still sitting on the couch but when everyone followed Elder Hilton to the floor to show the mom, I was like, "well guess I will go too." It was so cool because we were all sitting on the floor in a circle close to each other and I got to talk about the First Vision. It was so spiritual. It felt like the rest of the world around us just disappeared. Everyone in that room felt it. I testified of the truthfulness of our message and then Elder Hilton did the same and we finished. They loved it and committed to praying and reading. Then they fed us dinner and we were off! When we left and got off their street I looked over to Elder Hilton and said, "ELDER WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?!?!" Haha we laughed and got super happy. We are so grateful that Heavenly Father guides us to find his elect! But more on them later.

Wednesday we just had a busywork day with unpacking, cleaning up a little bit, getting ourselves organized and doing weekly planning because we couldn't on Thursday. Thursday we had a service project in the morning! It was fun and I got to meet the branch president, President Almir, and Irmão Diego, who is the Elders Quorum President . It was a fun time and we helped a lady move. The best part was that the truck driver was this big funny guy who had quite an uncommon name. I thought it was fake but he was telling the truth. His name was JOSÉ SMITH!!!! It was hilarious when he told us and we didn't believe it. A guy, non-member, named Joseph Smith haha! It was funny.

Thursday we also found another amazing family. Elder Hilton had told me about a girl that they had contacted the last week of last transfer. We decided to head over there. We found the girl Iasmin and then we met her mom named Branca and the son named Icaro. So apparently we found out that last year in about October they had met the missionaries and that the mom had actually gotten pretty close to being baptized! Of course we were super excited about that. So then we taught the first lesson to the whole family and they loved it. It was cool because Branca remembered a lot of it! We really had a good lesson and they committed to going to church. Branca said that she had actually walked by the church on that same day and had the thought, "I need to start coming back here." And then who shows up at her house that night? We did!! Haha, isn't it amazing how God works?

Friday was a tougher day because everything fell through but that night we had a lesson with Israel and his family! We got to teach everyone except for the mom because she had to go run errands. But they fed us again, before the lesson this time, and then we had the lesson. We explained with more detail the Book of Mormon and it was awesome. They loved it, especially the two older daughters. They were super excited to read it and we had only brought one copy, (we forgot to take more haha) and they had to do rock-paper-scissors to decide who was going to read first haha. It was awesome and then we kind of shifted roles and they started to talk. Israel started to tell a story about his oldest daughter, Carol. He said that when she was 13 they discovered some weird lump on her stomach at a normal doctors appointment and then looked more into it. At this point in the story Carol interruped and asked to tell the story. So she took over and told the rest. She had surgery on this tumor and got it all out. But then the doctor told her dad they thought it was cancer. Israel didn't accept it. He kept saying that his daughter didn't have cancer but after time they got the results and it was cancer. So they had a meeting with the doctor and he said she would have to do chemo and a bunch of stuff and if not the cancer would spread. It was a super aggresive type and the doctor said it had to be done ASAP. Israel was still determined that Carol didn't have cancer and demanded that she didn't. The doctor gave her 9% to live. So they refused and wanted to do a test to see if she had tumors. A year after the surgery they did some type of Scan thing to see the cancer and when they got the results she had nothing. The cancer was gone. The doctor said that if 10 years passed and she felt NOTHING that she was good! But he said that she wouldn't make it that long. It has been now 7 years and she is prefect! What a miracle right?! I love that family! They couldn't go to church this sunday but next week they will!

Saturday we had another good day. We visited Branca and her family again with a member named Flavia who is waiting for her mission call and lives close to them. I gained a better testimony of the power of members because we taught the Book of Mormon and Iasmin had a lot of questions and doubts and Flavia just took over and explained her story and how she had the same first thoughts and stuff.It was so amazing and spiritual! And it helped! Because on Sunday Branca and her daughter came to church!

Saturday night we taught this guy named Patrick. He has been an investigator for a couple weeks. We had a nice little lesson with him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was awesome. I don't know why but I feel like he has a lot of potential! He is 20 and really just looking for the truth. I love how we find so many people who are in the same situation as Joseph Smith was!

Sunday was great and we had 4 investigators at church! I love this little branch already. The attendence was 58 this week and apparently that is a lot for them.They are super excited to work with us to make their little group of saints grow!

Well this is a long one so that is it! That was just a brief overview of the fantastic week!

This new area is awesome. The city is small and super fun and I am loving it so far. This place is a lot different from Salvador though. Here is quiet haha. Elder Hilton and I are also having a great time so far together. It is so weird being with an American again and we speak a lot of English. it is okay though because he needs to practice and so do I. But we have already become good buds already. Elder Hilton only has 4 weeks left and if this week was any indication these next four weeks are gonna be awesome!

I love you all so much. Jesus Lives!!!

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson

#itsalltrue

PICS

1. The day I arrived in Eunapolis. Dropped off my suitcases and we were off!

2. The primary president in our branch asked us to help teach in Primary. Here we are with all the cute little kids.

3. Us after a trip to the grocery store!