Elder Spencer Christofferson: "The Lord really did protect me"

A little Hotel I found in Porto Seguro. Had to take a picture!

Hey everybody!

How are you all doing?! I hope that everyone had a great week and served somebody! Our week was crazy!! As many of you may already know, thanks to modern techonology, I had a little bike accident this week but I am doing great now! I will tell the whole story a little later and fill you all in on the details but other than the bike fall, we had a great week! I will try to hit the highlights.

So, last Monday we had an awesome p-day. Later hat night we had been invited to go over to a member's house for a family night and birthday celebration for Agatha, one of the young women in our ward who turned 16. Her and her older sisters, along with their mom have been members forever. But the father of the family isn't a member! So any time we get the opportunity to go visit them, we take advantage! We had a great time that night with their family, some other members, and some non-member friends as well. I got to share the message at the family night and it was awesome! Afterwards we played a bunch of fun Basilian games. I will definitely teach them to everyone when I get home!

Tuesday we had one of those days. It seemed like everything was going wrong! We had a ton of lessons marked and no one was home at the places we had marked. It used to bug me a lot when stuff like that happened but now I am totally fine about it! Of course I still get sad but have learned to see the opportunities that come as great blessings. Now as soon as my disappointment creeps in I change my attitude and start looking for what the Lord has prepared for us to accomplish. On this day we decided to head over to visit Elizia! The strike thing is ending so we knew that she was going to start going home soon. We needed to visit her. We got there and we could once again tell she was acting a little different. She wasn't completely shut off like that other day last week but she also wasn't her normal, happy self. This time, however, we were determined to help her! And we succeeded!! We just started talking to her about how she was doing and what was going on. She still was kind of quiet though. So we decided to start the lesson! We said a prayer and then started talking with her again. And it was like she totally changed. She started to open up to us about her struggles, and feelings and a ton of hard stuff. It was super sad, but we were happy we could be there to help her. We sat there for about 30 minutes, having a heart-to-heart talk with Elizia. We shared our thoughts, our testimonies, we shared scriptures, and comforted her. There was even a moment when she started crying as she was talking about her grandfather who died a few years ago. We testified again about the Plan of Salvation and she felt better. It was an awesome visit and we felt like we were able to take a step forward with her.

Tuesday night we took a bus down to Porto Seguro and slept at the Elders house there. Because on Wednesday we had a division, or split, or whatever, with the elders down there. Wednesday morning we had a joint district meeting with our district, and the other district in Porto. It was great! Elder Palma gave the training about bearing our testimonies more in lessons and using the power that they have! And I got to take a fun picture haha! I will send it! I spent the day with Elder De Jesus and his companion Elder Marangoni in their area, while Elder Palma spent the day with the other elders (our district) in their area! It was an fun day! The area of the elders that I stayed with is a little tough because it is right in the center of Porto Seguro. Which means it is mainly a touristy place! Porto is the place where Brasil was discovered so a ton of people from all over the world go there! But we tried our best! The best part of the day was that night when the branch had an activity! It was SOO cool! It was an integration night thing again and it was awesome. The members there had set it all up and we had a fun activity about music. Everyone got divided into teams and then played name that song. The only bad part for me was that it was all Brasilian music hahahaha! So I didn't help my team that much. There were a ton of the elders investigators there too so we had a blast.

We got back to Eunapolis Wednesday night and then Thursday rolled around. Now Thursday was the day of the accident....so here goes the story. That morning we had a good planning session, then we headed off to lunch at João Pedro's. He is the district presidents' son. After lunch we stopped at home to grab some things we had forgotten and then went to go do visits. Around 4 o'clock we decided to go to a different part of our area. The funny thing about this city is that it is mostly flat. There are very few hills but a large valley runs through almost the middle of the city. To get to the other side you go down, then immediatley back up a hill. To get to the area we wanted to go to we had to go down and then up a quick hill. It is normal and a route we take all the time! We started down the hill, gaining speed. The decline then turned into an incline and I stood up on my pedals so I could pedal hard to get up the hill faster. The fun part of the hills is going down, not going up haha! Anyways, I stood up on my pedals and started going up when my bike chain fell off. After that I don't remember anything... actually, don't remember the chain falling off either. I just remember starting up the hill. And the next thing I remember I woke up in the hospital!! Elder Palma then told me the rest of the story. My chain had fallen off and I fell forward and he heard the sound and turned around. He saw that I had fallen off my bike and wasn't geting back up so he flipped around real quick and jumped off his bike to help me. He said that I was kind of out of it, speaking english and trying to run away. He calmed me down and a bunch of people stopped to help him. They layed me down on the sidewalk and I fell asleep. (I don't remember any of this) One of the guys helping decided to call an ambluance and they waited for a while for it to show up. After waiting the ambluance showed up and took us to the hospital. The whole time I was unconsious. A nice lady who lived close to the hill stored our bikes in her house. So I woke up in the hospital and stayed there for a while getting some medicine and a docotor looking at me. They said I was fine, but to just take it easy for a few days. From what I've been told, I think what happened is that I fell forward and hit my right temple on the handlebars, which knocked me out, then I fell on the ground, which is why my face was a little scraped up and my knee and hand. Thursday night our Ward mission leader came and got us at the hospital and took us home. I had a nice goose egg on my head and other than that I was all good!

An IV at the Hospital after the accident

Just a little scraped up!

Friday I woke up with headaches so we decided to go to the doctor again. The district president's wife took us around throughout the day to find the right doctor, trying to set up a tomography. I think that is what it is called in English (I did some research and that's basically a CT Scan-Marilee). We finally got one so I did it that afternoon. I won't get the results until tomorrow. The rest of the day I took it kind of easy.

Saturday I was feeling better but not 100%. The bump on my head was smaller but I was still feeling weak. The hard part is that we needed to work so Elder Palma took one of the men from the ward with him, and I hung out at another ward member's house while Elder Palma went to go visit people! Resting on Saturday gave me time to think about all that had happened and I realized that I really got lucky in my crash. I could have totally scraped up my face and arm, or worse, but I didn't. I only got a small scratch on my face where I fell, and on my knee. It actually ripped a small hole in my pants over my knee. My glasses didn't even break!!! I realized that the Lord really did protect me. And I was blessed by all the people that stopped to help Elder Palma, the members who all helped us, and by Elder Palma who didn't freak out when I crashed and was able to take care of getting me the help I needed! I know that the Lord is watching over us and helping always!

Sunday came and we had a great Sabbath day! President and Sister Bangerter where here and it was awesome. A ton of members brought non-member friends and it was great! Our attendance was 80 people! Which for here is a lot because it is usually 50. But that happens when we have Branch Conference. But it was a great church day. It was also funny to see all the members react to my story of the crash. They were all messing with me saying things like, "Americans always got to be special, falling UP a hill!" or "Looks like the laws of physics don't apply to you Elder, you fell going up a hill!" It was pretty funny and now I will surely not be forgotten by the members here haha! We had lunch at a members house with President and Sister Bangerter and a TON of other people and it was great! Afterwards we went and picked up the bikes from the lady who was keeping them for us. It was super cool because the lady is awesome and we marked to go back and teach her and her daughter on Wednesday!!! You can find new people in all kinds of ways :-)! Sunday night we got a bus down to Porto Seguro because Monday we had Zone Conference!

It was President and Sister Bangerter's last round of Zone Conferences and it was awesome! I also got to give my last training! It was crazy!! I love being a missionary!! We all felt the Spírit so strongly and I am sure that the mission will dearly miss President and Sister Bangerter! They are so strong and I am so grateful that I was blessed with a wonderful Mission President. The Lord truly answers our prayers.

Our last Zone Conference with President and Sister Bangerter AND for ME!!!

So that was our crazy week! Today (Tuesday) we are back in our city and Elder Gomes is with us for the day! I CANNOT believe that this is my last full week as a missionary. That is truly humbling and crazy and we are going to make the most of it!!! This church is true! I love you all! Have a great week!

#itsalltrue

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson