I don't remember how to blawg

I don't even remember the last time I blogged.

 

I'm guessing it was before the mission. I was looking back, and I was a pretty good little blogger. For a while there, I blogged at least three times a week! Also, props to my older sister, Erin for trying to update my blog while on the mission. It lasted until about September of 2012! That is pretty darn good!

 

#winning

 

Today is my mother's birthday. She is 54. (she probably won't be too happy with me for posting her age), but I just love her so darn much. I will never forget how old she is because she's exactly 30 years and 20 days older than me.

 

Bless her alma.

 

We made a list/mini album for her of 54 things we love about her.

 

Hope she likes that.

 

We get to go celebrate tonight with a little bit of Teppanyaki's, and Catching Fire!!

 

 

He's CATCHING FIRE!

DANG IT, SAMANTHA! Dang it, dang it, dang it!

Fam fam!!

 

What is happenin'!? I Love y'all so much! That is so funny that Dad was in Dallas today! He proably flew right over me this morning while we went running in the park. We seriously live like 10 minutes from the airport and I see a zillion planes every single day. And every time I see one, I think, "I bet that one is my Dad flyin' down to Mexico!" "So close but yet so far! Haha. That's just great! We also live about 6 minutes from 6 Flags. We can see those crazy coasters all the days. One day, we can go there! Hermana Dapper and I have plans to come back one day, and hit up 6 Flags! Haha.

 

So still no baby Hawkins?? I will be expecting some great pictures! GOT IT?!??!!!

And CONGRATULATIONS PRESSY POO! Morgan looks just like Candace only Blonde! Haha. I love it, they look super happy! :D

Evan, ASK HER OUT!

Erin, Work hard in school!

Mom, I loved your package!

Dad, Keep up those missionary efforts to your friend in Mexico! (I have a zillion frendz from Mexico!) hehehe

 

So this week we decided to stop by a menos activo familia-- La familia Vasquez. So we stopped by and weren't there for too long, about 30 minutes, but La Hermana told us that she has been talking a lot to her husband (who isn't a member) about the gospel, and He is super interested in being sealed in the temple to his family for time and all eternity! She told us that she wanted us to come by this week and have like a Noche de Hogar with their family! We are going to go teach the Plan of Salvation, but we are trying to think of a fun way to teach it so we can get on the good side of the Hermano. YAY! We are going there on Wednesdee, and are SO excited to go and teach them!

 

We've been using a phrase this week a lot, "Knock til you DROP!" It's great. Because we have been doing a lot of knocking! We found a trailer park that is CHUCK FULL of hispanics! So of course we decided to knock it! We knocked every single door and there wasn't really anyone that was super interested. Then the VERY LAST HOUSE that we knocked we found this way cute family-- La familia Benitez. SO CUTE! They are a young family with 2 kids and we are just so grateful that we were able to find them! We taught the restauration the first time, and then gave them a restauration dvd. Then we went back on Saturday and she said that she watched the dvd, and even TALKED ABOUT IT with her husband! They had a ton of really good questions and want to read the Book of Mormon! Hopefully we can start getting some more members to come out with us so that they can invite them to church though because we had 0 people show up at church yesturday :( It is such a bummer when no one comes! You feel like you've been working your tail off the whole week to try and get these people to come, but then Sunday comes and it rains. (people like to use anything as an excuse to not come to church). NOOOOO!!! NOT AGAIN! Next week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

 

Then we have still been teaching Carmen and Delia! They are progressing. Praying about the 29th of September for baptism. We are going to have a family night with them tonight and are Happy little CLAMS!

 

Then we have la familia Dominguez! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH! Oh my. We taught la Hermana yesturday the Plan of Salvation and she just started crying! She said that she loves it when we come, and that she can see that we have a different spirit about us. She was like, "You bring so much love in your hearts, and I feel so happy when you all are here!" YES!! So we taught the Plan of Salvation, and told her that we wanted to come back when her husband is there so that we can also teach him. We have only been able to meet him once, but hopefully this week we can get them on the same page and on board to come to church as well!!! Yayayay!

 

I LOVE this area so so much! Grand Prairie is so ghetto, but I LOVE it! Haha. The people, our ward, MY COMPANION!! Oh, I want to be companions with Hermana Dapper for the rest of my mission! (this would never happen, but I can dream!) We have so much fun together and neither of us speak like super great spanish, and so we get a really good balance in our lessons! LOVE IT! LOVE HER!

 

Hmm...que mas? Puedo campartir que lo que se con ustedes?? Y ustedes pueden usar Google Translater! jajajaja.

Primeramente, les quiero mucho! Ser una misionera es la mejor decision que he hecho en toda mi vida! Estoy tan agradecida estar aqui! No puedo imagionarme en llamamientos en el futuro, por ejemplo: una esposa, una madre, sin estar aqui como una misionera. Amo a mi Padre Celestial y el Plan que el me dio. Amo a Jesucristo. Estoy tan agradecida por el y por Su expiacion para que yo pueda arrepentirme cada dia y tratar de llegar a ser mas como el. Tambien, amo al Espiritu Santo! Yo puedo hacer una lista de muchas razones de porque amo a mi Padre Celestial y a Jesucristo, y nunca he hecho una lista de razones de por que amo al Espiritu Santo! Hay muchas razones! Uno es porque por medio de el he sentido la veracidad del Evangelio de Jesucristo, del Libro de Mormon y de la Bilblia por medio de el. Se que soy una hija de Dios y que el me ama y quiere que yo haga decisiones correctas para que yo pueda regresar y vivir con el un dia!

 

LES AMO!

con mucho mucho mucho amor,

La Hermana eSpencer!

Pastelitos

Hola Familia!

 

How is everyone doing this fine day? I can't believe that the summer is almost over. Craziness. It is finally starting to cool down a little bit. It's been about 92ish this past week. I can definitely start to smell fall in the air! The Library is super crowded today because everyone is registuring for school. I just met a man that really wants to go to church! Awesome! I love being a missionary! Yesturday we had Stake Conference and President Durrant, his wife, and then their recently returned home missionary son all spoke. It was super great. President Durrant shared a story about how he brought 2 pastelitos with him to the office one morning so that he could eat them for lunch. (cookies that his WIFE had made). Anyways, he said that he came into the office and had the pastelitos hidden in his suit coat... and then went into his office and put them into his drawer so that they were EXTRA hidden. Then he said that when lunch rolled around, the Assistents invited him to eat with them, and all President Durrant could do was think about those pastelitos!! He was distrought about what he should do. Option 1: give the two pastelitos to his Assistants, or Option 2: wait and eat them by himself... Then he ends the story and says, "And I'm not going to tell you what I chose to do!" Hahaha. Oh, President Durrant, I love you!

Then he went on and asked us what we would have done. Shared the pastelitos, or kept it all to ourselves. And compared this little story to sharing the gospel.

 

So this week was a really fun week! Sister Dapper and I are finding, finding, finding! It is fun. We meet some of the most interesting people every single day, and it's a good thing that I finding is probably my favorite thing ever! So this past week we had recieved a referral from the English Sisters that are here in Grand Prairie as well. We decided that one night we would go try and meet this referral who lived in an apartment complex. Well, we knocked on the door, and someone answered but it was the daughter of the referral, so we weren't able to teach her. So while walking back to our car I see someone standing out on her balcony holding her baby, and I just had the strongest impression to go and talk to this woman. So I walked over to her and started talking to her about how cute her baby was. The conversation went on and she then asked us who we worked for. I introduced ourselves and then asked if we could come into her house for a few minutes to share a message with her and her family. She agreed. We went in and started asking her about her religious background. She said that she grew up Catholic but that there is a lady that has been coming to visit her weekly from the Kingdoms Hall--Jehovah's Witness (aAaaaaahhh!!!) haha. Anyways, so we are there for about 5 minutes when her husband and their 2 sons got home! I invited them to join us, and he was like, "Well, I'll listen but I don't want to participate." So we taught her the restauration and focused a ton on the Book of Mormon. By the end of the lesson, the husband was sitting down listening intently to everything we were saying, and was like, "I WANT TO READ THAT BOOK!" We then asked if they came to know if this book was true if they would be baptized. They said they would, but that they first want to read it! PERFECT! We all knelt together at the end of the lesson and invited the Dad to pray, but was a little shy about it. So the wife said the closing prayer and it was so so so perfect. We then went back yesturday to go visit this family. The dad wasn't home :( but we were able to explain and read the introduccion with the Mom. Throughout the whole thing she was like, "Wait, this was written on GOLD plates?? That is soooo coool!" Yeah! It is SOO COOL! I was seriously getting so excited because she was SO excited about every part! When we got to the reference in the 2nd to last Paragraph in Moroni, She was like, "lets look up this scriptures!" So of course we look it up with her. She read it out loud and just started crying. The spirit was so strong, and I was so grateful for that moment that we were able to have with her. We closed the lesson kneeling agiain, and Blanca said seriously the most humble prayer that I have ever heard. It's moments like these that really help me to remember how much God loves each and every one of his children. This seriously was the highlight of the week, finding this familia maravillosa! La familia Dominguez: Felipe (Dad), Blanca (Mom), Bryan (8), Kevin (5, and deaf!), and Miguel (9 mo.) Next time we go visit them will be on Friday, and I sure hope that the whole family is there so we can try and set baptismal dates with the Mom, Dad, and Bryan. They are so prepared, and I actually think that the JW's, had a big part in helping preparing her! Way to go JW's! :)

 

Okay, well, that is all that I have time for for today!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO SO SO SO MUCH!

 

con muchisimo amor,

Hermana eSpencer

Contactos

Querida familia,

 

Hijole this week FLEW! Nuts. I've been a missionary today for 8 months! Can you believe that? I sure can't!

 

Friday we found ALL DAY LONG. We decided to invite every single person that we met to come to church. And out of the 100 people that we talked to---not one came to church, but that's just because satan's working with them! DON'T LISTEN TO SATAN! On a good note, Carmen came to church! Oh she is so cute. She talks super slow, and like Roz from Monster's Inc. I could just eat her up. She is deluting her coffee, and trying to stop drinking it. We had some Pero in our apartment (coffee substitute), that we decided we would give to her. We decorated a cute little jar and we are going to stop it by her this week and get some daily contact going! Also she is also praying about baptism! Saturday, we had a completely full day, we went by all of our appointments and every single one of them fell through.... NOOO. It was a long day. I was fightin' towards the end of it. At about 8:40pm and we decided that we would go stop by Carmen because she wasn't at our appointment the Wednesday before. All we did was share a scripture with her about how we are going to recieve answers to our prayers, and how sometimes we realize that God has already given us our answer when we are still trying to seek one. Hermana Dapper shared the scripture D&C 8:2-3 que dice, "Si, he aqui, hablare a tu mente y a tu corazon por medio del Espiritu Santo que vendra sobre ti y morara en tu corazon. Ahora, he aqui, este es el espiritu de revelacion; he aqui, es el espiritu mediante el cual Moises condujo a los hijos de Israel a traves del Mar Rojo sobre tierra seca." I shared with her an expierence that I had about recieveing an answer to my prayer about coming on a mission. I told her that before I even started praying about it, I already knew what my answer would be. I told her how much I loved her, and also shared with her how much our Father in Heaven loves her, and wants her to be happy. The spirit was so strong and we were all in tears by the end of that short 20 minutes. It's amazing how in a short 20 minutes your day can turn completely around. Then the next day she showed up at church! We were so happy to see her! She is almost there!!

 

Delia her sister wasn't at church, but she is still praying and reading the Book of Mormon every day. She is a cute little thing too! Both are about in the 60'sish. I look forward to our little appointments with them!

 

Marta y Erandi are just as sweet as could be. We taught them the Word of Wisdom, and are ready to start living the it! I love the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity! I just really love teaching those lessons... hahaha. Law of chastity to kids goes something like this: (Erandi is 8)

 

Head, shoulders, knees and toes.

between your head and shoulders: have good thoughts, watch good things, lisiten to good and uplifting things, and speak of good things.

between your shoulds and your knees: don't let anyone get close to you!

between your knees and your toes: and if they do, you KICK THEM! and run away!

 

p.s. I still will never name one of my daughter's Chastity! No te preocupes!

 

Well thats about all I have energy to type for this week! I love y'all so so so so so so so so much!

Thanks mom for the Package!

Jammie, you're such a cute preggy lady!

Sarah, I love you too!! (thanks for the letter, I will be writing you back)

Mom, Nicole and Bret...(they have the baby that is so cute and are in our ward) they wrote me! Can you tell them thank you so much and that i loved her cute decorated card?? It was so nice of them!!

Errn, ya sabes

Dad, Keep the Maya and Rudy stories comin'

Evz, i meet Mavz fans about daily. Maybe you should let me know whos on the Mavz right now! I can't remember. DURK Navinski?

 

LOVE HERMANA SPENCER

peectures

we all love Hermana Jones!!!

Tan line. hahah.

matchy matchy!

continuacion...

Haha, this Library Bidnizz... Bless it's alma.

A lot of the work we did this week was kind of sorting through some investigators that have been taught for FOREVER, and really aren't progressing because they either won't come to church, or won't read the Book of Mormon, etc. It's kind of stressing me out, but I learned at church yesturday that I just need to chill out! I really was stressin' out. This ward is GIANT, but there are a ton of members that are less active. We're trying to think of ideas to get the Ward involved in missionary work as well. The ward has a brand new Bishop, a brand new Ward Mission Leader, brand new Relief Society President, etc. so with some new blood circulating, maybe we can get things up and running! If you all have any ideas about things we could do, I am MORE than open to hear them. I still feel like I have no idea what I am doing, but somehow am functioning. Hahaha

We went and did Service for a less active family this week: La familia Yanez. We went and stained their wood fence. Hermana Yanez actually reminds me a lot of Grandpa Coleman! Haha. He was super funny. He was like offering us something to drink, and then was like: well all i've gots is alcohol! Hahahah. This family hasn't come to church in 25 years or so, and Hermana Dapper and Hermana Lopez were working with them to get them back. We are going to go over there tonight and have a Noche de Hogar. We're going to do like a Lehi's dream something or another. I'm excited! They are a super nice family! Probably will feed us some Cantelope or Sandilla. YES! I love summer for this reason.

It's kind of fun going back and reading the stories of all of these different people from the area book. We are looking through the area book to try and find some people that weren't interested a while ago, but perhaps would be now. We are going to try stopping by them, to see if maybe now they would be interested. There is a right time for everyone, right?

Okay, I love you all so so so much! I hope that Rachel's weddin' goes good! Errn, good luck on the flowers! I know you'll do great! I want to see pictures of her bouquet, okay?! Have the best week ever, and I will do the same! :D

WRITE ME! (so I can get a real library card) HA! Now you have to!

con mucho amor,
Hermana Spencer

Grand Prairie

Hola Familia eSpencer!!!

Oh, I love y'all so so much! I always look forward to hearing from y'all on Mondee.

So yeah, I'm in Grand Prairie. It is so so so so so great! I am loving it. I am loving Hermana Dapper, I am loving the Ward, our Bishop, everything. I am one happy camper that is for sure! The only thing that is a contention in our companionship between Hermana Dapper and I is that she is a LAKERS fan. Puke. But otherwise, we get along swimmingly! We both have the same first name--Anna. We both wear the same CTR ring, AND on the same finger, and also we both LOVE Disneyland. When she was in high school she would like go there every day after school. Jealous! Also *funny story time*: She received a package this last week from her mom, and she was pulling out some stuff, and she whipped out the announcement picture of Rachel Spencer and her Fiance. I was like, "Why do you have that picture??" She was really good friends with the guy that Rachel is marrying! Small, small world. So we have the picture up on our Refri :D Tell them both Congratulations from Hermana Dapper and I this Friday! Woop wooop! I will be knocking some doorz.

So Grand Prairie is quite grand! We have the cutest investigators!
Carmen and Delia:
Carmen seriously is the spitting image of Roz from Monsters Inc. Oh, and she even speaks slowly like Roz. She is so cute! In her 60's. They were really busy this past week, so we didn't get a chance to actually teach them a lesson, but we did get to pass by so I could meet them. Delia is her older sister, and is just the sweetest old thing. They became interested in the church because their mother, who was a faithful member, just passed away.

Then we have Marta y Erandi. Marta is in her 40's and Erandi is her 8 year old daughter! Oh, they are so cute too! We will call Marta, and she'll be like, "Erandi, REALLY wants me to tell you both HI from her!" She is the sweetest little thing! We had a Noche de Hogar with them in the apartments de Sion last night that went really well! We watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restauration, and then just like a short testimony meeting. The spirit was so strong! The Elders also brought algunos of their investigators as well.

My computer says I have 37 seconds left, and I will be back on later because I still need to write President Durrant, but as for now: here tis!

Love, Hermana Spencer