Week 2 (July 29th)

Letter from July 29th.

We´re now teaching two investigator (who are actually our teachers, Hermano Soto and Hermano Tapai, and they just take on roles). Teaching in Spanish is rough, and I certainly have to rely on the Spirit a ton. Even though there just our teachers we are told to pray and study for them as if they were really investigators and that makes it so much more meaningful! The spirit is so strong here and even though it´s tough I know I´m doing the right thing.

Our district is the bomb and has quite the variety of missionaries. A couple of the Hermanas are from BYU so it´s cool to see the connection there. My companion is great and his Spanish is progressing crazy fast. I really need to work hard to try and get to his level so we can teach like PMG says, in unity!

On thursday and friday last week I was feeling a little sick but everything feels fine now. The food here´s a leetle strang but usually good. Oh and they have nutella so I know the church is true if they provide missionaries with fuel like that! ;)

Someone in our house is from Pasco, Washington and we talked with him about our mission. He said Pasco is basically Mexico and that the missionaries there have tons of work. He also said that President Ware is great and that the tri cities are is beautiful!

I´m still struggling to learn Spanish but I certainly have been progressing! It´s amazing to see that we´ve been here nearly 2 weeks! The growth all of us have experienced I think has been much more than we ever could have expected. Being a missionary is great and seeing the 1000 plus missionaries all together is amazingly inspiring!

On sunday we watched a devotional from Elder Holland and even though it was a rebroadcast from 2013 it was great! As usual he was very powerful and inspiring. He stressed that the church cannot in any way afford to have returned missionaries fall away from the church after serving with their whole heart and soul for so long. He also talked about every member and missionary being truly converted to the gospel. Here´s some quotes from him: ´´The second coming began in the spring of 1820 and we are directly in the middle of it´´ ´´This is REAL LIFE and the faith exerted here must continue after the missionary gets home. Every single missionary needs to come home with at least one convert and that better be you´´ ´´The most common phrase in the BOM is, ´they taught with power and authority´´´. Oh and btw Elder Holland and President Pratt (the CCM pres) were mission companions!!!

I love being a missionary and cannot wait to serve the Lord through the people in Washington! I´ll try and use someone cord to send pictures next week cuz the computers here don´t have sd readers.

Here´s the answers for the family:

Gabriel´s acutally our teacher now and his name is Hermano (brother) Tapia. 

I got drenched while in the CCM and my new scriptures sorta got ruined so that was certainly a bummer but tis ok! 

The food´s strange but the waffle fries they serve every once in a awhile are divine! 

The spanish is coming but much slower than I expected! I love being a missionary and carrying the name of Jesucristo on my chest every day! The misssionaries here are great and we get a new district in our branch on wednesday so we won´t be the newbies anymore. Spanish is soooooo much harder than I expected but I know the Lord will provide. I read an incredible scripture in D and C 31:3 that you should for sure look up. I really need to work on getting better at saying more in lessons cuz Elder Davison´s spanish is so dang good I kinda struggle to say what I´ve prepared... You guys are great and I´ll send some pics next week if I can!

Love

Elder Spackman