It's Amazing, I'm Addicted

Hola!

It was a good week. We went up to another city to have a conference with the president! We ate really good as you can see and I got packages from my Dad and Matt and Mickie! (It was supposed to be for Christmas, guess he didn't wait) It made me so happy you don't even know! I'll try and remember the pictures I sent. One of them has a waterfall in the mountain and a river. Those are in a place called Chiflón! They are waterfalls really famous in Mexico and the water is really blue. You can rent cabins there and yeah it's sweet. We didn't go close this time but we did have a family near by that we taught. The guy delivers those sticks up north. The sticks when you peel them apart, you bite off a piece and chew it and its really really sweet but you don't eat it haha. Bad for your health but tasty to the mouth, can life get any better? I submit that it cannot! Also there is a fruit, it is called Granadia. It has a hard shell that you peal off but those seeds you swallow. It's really sweet but if you bite the seeds they are really sour haha. It's amazing, I'm addicted.

There is a picture of a guy that I am standing with. He is a member of the church named Brother Alfaro. He lives 1 1/2 hours outside of Comitan where I live and travels every single Sunday here to go to church. I have a hard time not wanting to break down when I see him because that is a huge sacrifice a lot of people don't make. It is a lot in travel fees and yet his faith is strong and unbreakable to the point where he would rather eat cheap and go to church than have other luxuries in life. To me, he is richer than anyone I will every meet. I think a lot about the sacrifices of Christ and I heard a really good analogy from another Elder yesterday. He said, "Imagine your birthday party. It's amazing, you invite friends and family, you eat amazing, and everyone is so happy. Then think if no one ever showed and think about how you would feel. Now imagine the sacrifice Christ made for the world and how he feels when we wont make the effort to go to church, to give a little time BACK to our Savior and our Father in Heaven and rejoice by showing our love for Him by taking the Sacrament. The greatest sacrifice, most supreme gift, and humble love Christ has for us is represented in the bread and water we take every Sunday." How amazing is that? I hope that as this Christmas falls on a Sunday, ALL will give what little we can to Him that gave us the world. I am so grateful for Brother Alfaro and his silent yet powerful example. 

I love you and I miss you. Thank you for everything you are doing for me, all of you. Smile! Help those who need it. Oren y lean y siempre sonrean.

Elder Braden M. Spence

Prayer, It Works!

Hola!


So my computer doesn't work with the photos this time, but next time I'll put some on. We had a good week, it flew by really quickly. But yeah, it was a really good spiritual week with our investigators. So I had something really cool happen to me this last weekend. It happened Thursday to Sunday. So we had exchanges for a day and we had to travel down to a city called Comalapa which is really close to the Guatamalan boarder. My companion stayed down there and another Elder and I were going to head back. We had a really, really, important meeting that night and we left the city like 30 mintues late. Not to mention there were police stops checking all the cars (100 cars in line). I knew that were were running late and with all those stops there was no way were were going to make the 2 hour trip back in time if we had all those stops. I was praying sooo hard that we wouldn't get chosen to be checked. We came up to the first stop and ALL the cars infront and behind us got check but not ours! I had such a good feeling come over me of gratitude that I didn't know what to do. We had three pólice stops like this and seriously just about all the cars got stoped besides ours! We started to come back into our city but we were still behind a little bit. I realized we didn't have money for a taxi so I was praying even harder that a bus would be where we got dropped off going to where we needed to go. We show up and after running a block to where the bus usually was, there was the one bus that goes to where we needed to go. As soon as we got on, the bus closed the doors and we went on our way and made it in time. I was sooo happy, greatful for the love that God has for me on that night. That prayer Matthew 7:7 where it says that those who ask will recieve. I know that's true. Anything that we really do need, and if we try our hardest to do everything we can our part, God will do the rest and it will come out alright. It happened like three times Friday and Saturday and on Sunday I thought I would try it out again. I prayed in the morning that a random person would show up to church. Not thinking it would happen, halfway through the meeting, an inactive member from Peru showed up. We will go visit her and her non member husband this Wednesday. PRAY! ha ha it works! I love it and I love ya'll. Hope you're good and happy. smile!


Elder Braden M. Spence

Thanksgiving

Hola! 


So it was Thanksgiving that was pretty sweet, we worked all day haha and we ate tacos at night. They were free though so that was awesome! There is a lady that gives us free tacos so that made our day. My new companion is Elder Townsend and he has 15 meses in the mission. Everything is going well here and we are finding a lot of people. I really dont have too much time we got to go but yeah haha the mission is the same. One thing cool that happened is we found a less active person, he hasn't been to chruch in like 15 years and his wife isn't a member and didn't listen to us. But she read the pamphlet on the Word of Wisdom and told her family that she quit coffee but didn't give anyone a reason why haha. She is getting baptized this next month! It's awesome how the small things you never thought would make a difference can change someones life. I love and miss you all. Thanks for everything! smile!

Elder Braden M. Spence