Happy Birthday to me!

Hola! 


It's been a really long time since I wrote! But it was my birthday on the 26th and I finished 22 years! I had an absolute blast! One of my favorite birthdays I have ever had. I left Comitan on the 1st of May and now I'm here in a city a little north of Tuxtla called Cintalapa. I have another Mexican companion named Elder Perez. He is from Baja California and is super fun. He is old, haha he is 24 years old and has been out 10 months in the mission. On my birthday we had to travel to Tuxtla to do some interviews and it was a lot of fun because the church is to the side of the temple. We didn't enter, but we saw a bunch of people. Elder Perez lived in Tuxtla a big part of his life and when we went to the temple, we ran into his Uncle, Aunt and Cousin haha. We saw a bunch of his friends from the past too. 


When we traveled back to Cintalapa, we had a ward activity. The sisters of the ward presented a Mexican dance that was really sweet, the young men did a pupit (?anyone know what that is?) show, and the young women did a song. We ate Chinese food and had a little bit of cake. Everyone sang me a birthday song they have here in mexico called the Mañanitas. It made me blush, but it's okay because no one could tell I got redder because it's super hot here and I'm already red, ha! Braden- 1 Mexico- 0. 


This whole month we have been praying super hard to have a baptism on my Birthday. Last Monday we were thinking it wasn't going to happen because all the people that were getting prepared to be baptized chose other days. Tuesday in the afternoon we were walking to an appointment that we had and all the sudden we got a text message. This is what it said...."Hi, I'm Eduardo. I just moved here from the state Hidalgo and I was talking with the missionaries there and I want you to stop by my house to prepare me for my baptism..."haha that was the message. I laughed and read it to my companion and said that it has to be a joke. My companion called him and talked with him and apparently he really did just move here. He walked around for two hours trying to find the church and when he finally found it asked a member that was there for our number. He went to church up North and talked with the missionaries but just as he was about to be baptized, he moved here! So Wednesday we went to his house, talked about what he learned (already knew everything), asked him the baptisimal questions and he knew everything perfectly. I then asked...."well the last question is when do you want to be baptized?" We all laughed and he said when you tell me to. I said "SATURDAY!" and he gladly excepted. So he got baptized Saturday on my birthday and he asked me to do it so that was just about amazing! The hardest thing we had to do with him is walk up a huge hill to get to his house haha. That was a great answer to my prayer too. 


After the activity, we went to a members house and ate hamburgers and ate cake...they shoved my face in the cake haha. I smelled strawberries that whole night! So that was a sweet 22 in Mexico haha. I love the mission. I got about 8 1/2 months left and I'm going to enjoy every day and every tortilla haha. Adios! Don't be dumb! 


Elder Braden M. Spence

Editors Note: Braden has decided to purposely slow down and/or stop writing e-mails to anyone and/or blogs to everyone, so he can focus more on his mission and give it all he's got. If you would like to leave a comment and he happens to check his e-mail, which I don't know if he regularly does or not, he'll see it. Other wise the only way to contact him is to write him snail mail. The address to send letters and packages to is to the left on the side bar. Remember postage will be at least 2 stamps for a small letter and you can not use "forever"stamps, they are only good in the U.S.A. make sure you buy regular stamps. This e-mail actually really surprised me because I didn't think he was going to write another one the rest of his mission. We'll see if he keeps up the blog or not other wise let him know you are thinking about him with a letter.