feliz dia de los muertos

Sorry I can't explain much I ran out of time emailing haha. Short story, we went to San Cristobal this week to listen to a member of the 70 named Octaviano Tenorio. He is really funny and was so spiritual. The family I am with in the picture is awesome. The guy knows everything about everything, it literally blows my mind sometimes. The other is with my companion and the other is of Elder tadeo and I. Such a sweet week, really spiritual. I'll write more next week. Sorry but I love you all and smile! Oren y lean! Adios y feliz halloween...o feliz dia de los muertos en Mexico haha


Elder Braden M. Spence

I think they were little Grasshoppers

Hola!


Well we had a awesome week it really flew by. as you can see i ate more insects haha. i think they were little grasshoppers. they took me a little longer to eat than the ants i ate but tasted just about the same. we did have some bomb tacos that were they best i think i have ever had, i was too scared to ask what the meat was haha. we had a activity that was pretty sweet. it was with kids that were abandoned or had other problems and we played activities and they absolutely loved it. all the little kids kept coming up to us and looking at our eyes because they are blue haha. they misison is going well. the language is coming along for sure. its a little rough having a american companion because we have to figure it out for ourselves but its going well, we are having a blast! this week we are going to travel up to San Cristobal which is even colder than the area i am in now but a lot prettier because its high in the mountains. Octaviano Tenario of the 70 is coming to speak to us. he is the second counselor in the presiding 70 presidency in mexico so it should be pretty sweet! we found a lot of people this week that are way excited to listen to our message. i am loving this area because we are having a bunch of success. haha we converted a great grandma that has 9 children, 28 grandchildren, and 5 great grandkids haha it was awesome. she is sooo funny though. my companion got pretty sick last week and was in bed for like 2 days. it was awesome at first but got pretty boring after a while. but yeah that was our week! i love ya and miss ya. oh yeah i have over 8 months now haha that last month flew by. thanks for your prayers! hope everything is going well! smile, oren y lean


Elder Braden M. Spence

Two white guys can't just walk into a Mexican military base

HI! haha How's it going? We had a good week, it flew by really. So to start off we tried contacting different places in our area. I lucked out because our area is HUGE! We have a lot of small village city things that we visited. The pictures are of a lizard we caught that is the size of a pinky finger haha and the other is of a city we traveled to called Tzimol (see-mole) haha. It's really really green over there because it rains a lot. The elevation is a little higher as you can see it's touching the clouds! The people were really nice and we entered into a lot of houses and barely contacted. The only problem is that there isn't a branch or church there so it's hard if not close to impossible to try and pay the travel to attend church. We found a family that a guy lives with his wife and two brothers that both have cancer in the head. One of them is named Julio Guadalupe and is 57 years old and acts like he is 7 and the other is 55 and is named Roberto Josè Domingo. Roberto doesn't have a left ear nor the top left part of his scull...it was really sad to see. His brother took off his bandage to show us...not sure why but he did and it doesn't have words to describe how it looked. I know Kay Bragg would have thrown up for sure haha. But we said a prayer and were going to visit him this Wednesday again.  The other place we tried contacting...is a Mexican military base haha. We tried going in the main area but 5 guys with rifles stopped us haha. We tried another part and there wasn't anyone so we just started to contact and they found us haha but we knocked 7 doors before we got kicked out. Apparently two white guys can't just walk into a Mexican military base and start talking about Christ haha. It was fun though. We went to this orphanage place where there are tons of kids and talked with the director there. We set up an activity there for the 22nd de October. It should be pretty fun.  There was a war thing in our city between two gangs and it was pretty intense. We didn't see much, just a lot of people with poles and machetes. I think its over haha. But yeah that was our week, pretty fun. Everything is going well. Hope everything is going well in the states. Smile! Oren!


Elder Braden M. Spence

It was pretty much awesome listening to the Prophet

Well this week was transfers and both my companion and i stayed! I'm stoked because the weather is really cool here, it's partially pretty haha and my companion is a great companion. So the pictures that i sent are of a fruit that i have no idea what it is called but its delicious haha. I just asked a Mexican lady next to me and she said it's called Papausa haha. The other one is of a cool sunset, one of me with people burning stuff in the background haha, and the family Gonzalaz Rojas! Their mom is the bomb! She cooks for us and it's delicious. We taught her kids and they are pretty much the coolest kids ever. Also a girl that we converted said she is wants to serve a mission! haha She still has another two years till she can go but she is way excited. She attended all the sessions of conference and everything! 


It was pretty much awesome listening to the Prophet and Apostles speak! I had a little bit of a rough time understanding it all. It was a lot that I wanted to understand so bad that I got frustrated when i couldn't. I learned a good lesson as far as faith and desire. I learned that pretty much everyone can have a desire to obtain something in their life. I also thought a lot in my life that desire and faith are the same thing. With many similarities they can be confused one with another. Desire in my opinion is something that you wish to come to pass or want to be apart of. I feel that faith requires a confidence and trust in our Savior that he can make it come to pass. As we learn from the Book of Mormon, faith without works is dead. As well, faith without the trust that it will actually come to pass is left with just a desire that has no part is the resulting effect. But i learned that i can desire to understand the Spanish language, but with out the trust in God that he will help me understand, i will forever be lost and confused. Entonces, have a desire in your faith and a trust that in all things, God will help it come about. Smile!


Elder Braden M. Spence

Mustard Seed

Hola!

We had a great week! Went by pretty quick actually. We ended up having more lessons which was good. We had a lady that said she had a dream about the Bishop but i think i explained that last week. A day later she told us that she didn't want to get baptized which broke our hearts but we gave her some time and when we returned the first thing that she said was..."whelp, i am going to be baptized." We were like..."wait what?" haha she laughed and she said that she decided she wants to get baptized. She took off this week to visit her family but we are going to baptized her next week when she returns. Also, the mission president told us to fill out these things on mormon.org and we can take one hour a week and chat with investigators in Mexico haha its pretty sweet. This is probably the last week I have with elder spear. He has 9 months in the area so he will probably take off :( no bueno but its okay i learned a lot from him.

This last month I have been reading Jesus the Christ (its like 850 pages or something) haha but i just finished a chapter about the parables that Jesus taught. One of them I really liked. It was about the faith of a mustard seed. Elder Talmage, the author, talks about how one grain of the mustard seed can grow into a whole feild! The appplication to this is that if we have even a little bit of faith, it can grow into faith that cant be shaken. Also we had our conference de ward and the Temple President of Tuxtla arrived and talked about a man named Erik Wasen Meyer. At the age of 13 he became completely blind! He always loved climbing mountains. Slowly and surely, he started to climb the tallest mountains in all the world. at the age of 33, Eric Wasen Meyer hiked to the tip top of Mt. Everest! The Temple President gave some statistics of that mountain and the people that have tried climbing it; 90% of the profesional climbers that have attempted it have failed and more than 150 have died trying. When arriving at the base of the mountain after his miraculous climb, reporters asked how he did it. He said, I didnt let doubt or fear come into my mind and I went one step at a time. I love this story! I am pretty sure its correct haha if its not blame my Spanish i'm still learning. But my companion heard the same story. I thought that was so cool. a blind person with the passion to accomplish a goal did indeed accomplish it. I read in Matthew 17:14-20 after the conference where a man confronted Christ asking him to heal the son his Apostoles couldn't. After doing so, the Apostoles asked why they couldn't, Christ's reply was..."if ye have a faith of a mustard seed...nothing shall be made impossible to you." I know this is true. I love speaking Spanish. It has been a long process but I can understand just about most of it. All of it came one step at a time. At times we have a goal that is seeming impossible such as climbing a mountain blind, but if we carefully and patiently press forward with a faith firm in Christ, we will ever so accomplish it. No matter what your Mt. Everest is, no matter your trial  or temptation, if you have faith, you will see the majestic views of your Everest. :) thought that was pretty cool.

Health is good, as well as the Spanish! Love you and miss you all. The pictures are nothing special but they are something. :) oren y preserveren hasta el fin

Elder Braden M.. Spence