Week 64 ~ God is Good

Hola amigos!!

This week was so good! George got baptized!!! I was so happy!! It was so fun to call and video chat with him and then watch the baptism through Zoom. He is one of the most special people I have met on my mission and I was grateful to be a part of his teaching experience! 

I had my first exchange as an STL with Sister Bryner!! It actually went super good and we had a good time together. Literally all of our plans fell through for the day so we decided to contact a bunch but we found 2 families to teach because of it!

We are crazy stressed because zone conference is coming up and we have a lot to plan for it. We also are doing a Dia de Los Muertos activity that involves a lot of planning, but we are excited for that next week. Dia de Los Muertos is basically what you see in the movie Coco!! We were able to help one of the members make her ofrenda!

Funny experience:

We helped clean out Hermana Palleros food storage with her and her kids were helping us. They put "Who Let the Dogs Out" on repeat and we listened to it atleast 15 times hahaha.

Spiritual experience:

We met a family while looking for someone we had met during divisions and we began to talk to her about eternal families. As we talked her eyes filled with tears and she said her father had passed away a few years before. It was a really spiritual moment for me to see that the spirit had led us to her house in that moment to share exactly what she needed. The Lord knows each one of us so personally.

As I'm reading back through my journal this week I've realized that I have so many spiritual experiences and I wish I could just write and share them all with you!! Serving a mission has absolutely been the best thing to ever happen to me and my life will forever be changed because of the things I have felt and seen here. GOD IS GOOD.

I had my first exchange as an STL with Sister Bryner!! It actually went super good and we had a good time together. Literally all of our plans fell through for the day so we decided to contact a bunch but we found 2 families to teach because of it!

Love you all!

Sister Spackman

Pictures:

One of our cute little investigators drew this for us <3

My comp absolutely dead after this crazy week hahahah

a picture of the old district bowling:)

Week 63 ~ Shellacasauras

Hey Everyone!

I LOVE BROWNSVILLE!!!

I never thought I would love an area as much as I loved Laredo but we are off to a good start here. I am in a Spanish area again! Brownsville is beautiful. There are these little lakes everywhere called Rasacas and it's covered in palm trees. It is literally the best!

Sister Taylor is so sweet! She served in Bolivia for the first part of her mission, but actually was sent to this mission way back before COVID because of political riots in Bolivia. She is so cute and we get along really well and have lots of dance parties. Our apartment is also so boujee and literally the biggest apartment in the mission probably, we feel very blessed. And we have carpet!!

Saying goodbye to my homies in Laredo was hard, especially my cute little greenie - but I know they are still doing great out there. I just got an email from Sister Lund today that George's baptism will be this saturday!! YAY!! I will get to hopefully video call in :.)

This week we had MLC - it was awesome!! I learned so much about what we can do to better help the sisters in our zone and how to improve missionary abilities. It's also super fun to see all my friends from the mission and get together again.

Our main investigators right now are Luis and Juan. Juan has the coolest back story EVER. They contacted him with a picture of Jesus from the Book of Mormon and he said "I've seen this picture before in a dream." WHAT!! So escogido. He is a little hesitant about baptism but has already had all the lessons haha. We are working on helping him feel more prepared. He is too down for the gospel though.

Luis is our other little buddy. He is so awesome. We haven't been able to visit him all week because he locked himself in his RV and read the Book of Mormon and did some repenting hahahah. But he came to church for the first time on Sunday and it was so awesome!! this fire member helped us give a church tour and at the end Luis said he didn't even want to leave because of how good he felt :')

The members in this ward are so cool. I had my first dinner in person with members since February and it was so fun!!! I had to hide my runny nose and red face because of the spicy food, but we had a good time and lots of laughs. Eating with members is the best.

Today we got together as a zone and played pickleball and barbecued! I fried up some burgers (big shoutout to my old comp Sis Anderson for teaching me how back in Argy) and we had a good time!

GUYS I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!! I can't even say it enough. This week has just been so good and we have seen so many miracles.

Spiritual experiences:

Our zone had two baptisms this weekend and we were able to go to the first one so that I could help out with piano. We brought our investigator Juan and the spirit was just so sweet there and he said he loved it! When Julieta got out of the water she yelled "I'm a new person!!!" hahah it was so cute!

Funny experiences:

the title of this email comes from hno perez in the english ward. Apparently he gives all the sister missionaries a "lady dinosaur" name when they first get here and Shellacasauras is mine hahah.

I hope you all have a great week! I'm sorry if I don't get to some of your emails, it has been a crazy pday and last two weeks. I will try my best to respond to all of them next week!

Love,

Sister Spackman

Week 62 ~ Goodbye, Laredo :')

Hey y'all!

This week was a good one here in Laredo!! Our girl Edalia and her husband Simon came to a church tour with a member and then to church on SUNDAY!!! WOOHOO!! Blessings!!

We also got Wingstop with George Cruz and had a good lesson down at the lake by the park! It was super fun and we were able to finish up some of the things we haven't taught him yet. He is super excited for his baptism!

One of the members texted us on Saturday afternoon and asked us if we could come pick up some food from her. We met her at the store and she had literally bought us a week worth of groceries and dinner for the night :,) some people here are just so sweet and giving!!

We had transfer calls last night and I will be leaving Laredo ): I am a super sad girl to leave this wonderful place, friends and area, but I'm also really excited for the adventures that await! The members and people we have taught here are so special and have made a long lasting impact on my heart.

I will be going to Brownsville and my new companion will be Sister Taylor! We will be Sister training leaders for the Brownsville zone so that will be fun as well! I'm excited to help out the sisters down there and go on some fun exchanges with them.

Spiritual experience:

The other sisters in our ward had a baptism on Saturday and asked if I would play the piano so we were able to go to the baptism!! Everytime someone comes up out of the water they always just have the biggest smile on their face and it is so wonderful. It was a really sweet experience to be a part of.

Thank you for all the prayers and emails! They are most definitely felt and help me to get through those moments that are hard, as the mission can sometimes be. I love you all and I look forward to giving the update on my new area next week!

Love,

Hermana Spackman

Week 61 ~ La Conferencia Genial ;)

Hello everyone!!

Wasn't General Conference just awesome??? 

This week was seriously the best one yet here in Laredo!

We have been teaching our friend English by using the Book of Mormon. This week we brought up baptism and he said he wanted to be baptized!! We set a date with him for November and will be passing him off to missionaries in Mexico.

Edalia is progressing along with her husband. Her husband is actually reading the Book of Mormon - which is a complete 180 from when we first starting visiting. He wasn't even interested at first.

We went over Saturday night and watched the women's session with Edalia and she was blown away by President Nelson!!! She has been struggling with the Book of Mormon and a testimony of living prophets and after his talk she had the biggest smile on her face and said "I really need to read this book!!"

We had a lesson on Friday at the park with our friend we have been teaching for awhile now and he is progressing milestones. He came and watched conference with us and said he had so many of his questions get answered. He loved the messages focused on unity in diversity. He has a lot of opposition coming from friends and family about being baptized but he said that conference inspired him to "follow God and not worry what others think" :,)

And finally, our buddy George came to general conference and got to hear the prophet speak! He took a whole 2.5 pages of notes and said his favorite speaker was Pres Nelson. Hopefully he will be baptized within the coming weeks.

For those of you wondering about our dude Roy - he is doing awesome!!! He came and watched conference with us and is going to have the opportunity to pass the sacrament next week. Yesteday was his birthday so we ate some cheesecake with him and the other missionaries at the church. We are so pumped for him! 

Please pray for:

Edalia, Alan, George, Roy and Veronika.

Spiritual experiences:

I've written about this in the past few weeks but we are trying to work a lot harder with members. On Sunday a member showed up who I had only met once and asked if she could introduce us to her friend, who she had only met in the last week and decided to bring to conference.

It was a big testimony builder to me that the Lord is seeing our efforts to work with members and he is truly blessing us for them!! This has been one of the most exciting times of my mission.

Funny experiences:

While telling an investigator about general conference I got so excited and accidentally said "la conferencia genial!!" Which means "the cool conference!!" Hahaha it still fits though so we just went with it.

We decided to use banana bread to get people's attention when they don't text us back and it worked hahaha. We dropped off around 15 muffins this week to different people and were able to have awesome lessons with all of them! So if you don't get a text back from someone - tell them you want to bring them banana bread lol.

During conference President Nelson talked about how missionaries are teaching more people than ever - it is so true!! As missionaries we are having so much success. 

But, we also really need the members help. We can't do it alone. President Nelson invited everyone to participate in the gathering of Israel.

To my friends and family back home - I want to ask you to do a few things.

1. Please reach out to the missionaries serving in your ward this week. Ask them if they have an investigator you can call or text. Or offer to join in on a lesson.

2. Pray to know who you can invite to learn more about the gospel and how - and then act on it.

 It will mean the world to the missionaries in your ward and to me! Email me and let me know how it goes. Please!

This is probably my longest group email ever. Thanks to all those who read it all the way through haha. Love you all, have an awesome week and go help the missionaries!

Love,

Sister Spackman 

Week 60 ~ Member and Missionary Work

 Hello everyone!!

This email will probably be really short today because we are going bowling as a district for the last bit of pday!

This week was good! We have been working a lot more with the members and it has been SO good. On Wednesday one of the young women asked me to give her a piano lesson. While we were there my companion was able to teach the first lesson to her nanny who came with her. We got her phone number and she was super receptive and she even came to church with us on Sunday! Miracles!

The members also brought another friend to church and introduced him to us. We are super excited to start teaching him as well.

Funny experiences:

We aren't allowed to have candles in the apartment, so we got a little creative and had a mini s'more party outside with one candle hahaha. I will attach pictures below. We sang Take Me Home Country Roads around the campfire. 

Spiritual experiences:

We have been trying to expand our resources of working with people and it has been so awesome! We are teaching an investigator English using the Book of Mormon and it's so fulfilling. I love missionary work!

Have a great week everyone!! Enjoy the fall weather and changing leaves!!

Love,

Sister Spack