Crazy past week and even crazier one coming...

Hey Momma!!! How are you doing?? I am doing very well myself!:) This last week here in Quellón honestly flew by! It was pretty great. We had a little bit more of lessons fall through this last week, but that’s the name of the game sometimes, so we got to do a lot of contacts! Sadly we couldn’t meet with Denise this last week but we are going to pass by her today! Also this last week we were meeting with Hortencia a lot and also Jaime. But we have Hortencia's baptism this next Saturday in Castro!!:) Our church is under construction here so we are renting some other building at the moment. So we are trying to get everything in line for that. Sadly Jaime can’t be baptized the 28th of January because it is hard for him to come to church. His parents are really strongly evangelical, and they don’t want him getting baptized;/ but it’s all good because Jaime is so bomb and has such a strong testimony! so we will keep working and praying for his parent’s hearts to change!

Also we met some really cool new investigators this week but sadly both are leaving soon... one is named Patricio and is 24 years old! He is humble and loves sports and loves learning about religion. So we are going to talk with him a lot this week before he leaves to Valdivia for school, but then we can pass him to the missionaries there!!:) But overall it was a good week and filled with a ton of good stuff. The work is moving very well here! This last week we also had interviews with President Isom!:) It was cool and he told us about a meeting we have on the 25th for all the missionaries in the world!! He said they are changing some things about the schedule for us but I guess we will see!!

This next week is crazy as well because we have inter-cambios with the missionaries in Chaiten (elders in my district). I do it as the district leader to help them and see what we can do or teach better.:) Then the next day we have inter-cambios with the zone leaders! Then the baptism of Hortencia on Saturday! SO this week will be interesting!:) What I have learned from my companion so far is more obedience.:) I mean like I am obedient don’t get me wrong, but he just has such a strong testimony of it and we are continuing to watch it bless us and the work we are doing here!!:) It has been really cool!

We do a ton of walking here because Quellón is on a hill.... It is smaller than Villarrica, but still big,... haha. Also we have a mamita here and she is the branch pres. wife:) She is pretty cool, and I’ve liked the food so far!:) I’ll try and send a pic next week ok!!:)

Yeah this last week was more calm weather then the last. It was cloudy every day, except for one day really but still not really very hot here... I love it!!:) haha but still we got a little rain off and on and still the same today. Also that is crazy about Orem!! haha oh man I want snow!! I hope it continues to snow there but stay safe ok?!

Woah that sounds like a pretty good week! I’m glad that you made it home ok and that you got to rest a little bit!!:) That is so sick that you got to go to top golf and yeah I’m down to go there when I get back!!;) But I’m glad that you had a good week and got a little date night with dad, did he try to golf at all?

Oh man Brad Wilcox is so sick!! I have a talk of him on our phone called “Learning not earning heaven!” He has some really good insights on the gospel and I want to hear that talk!! but I’m glad that you got that book on cd! (The Continuous Atonement). I love that quote that you shared! Thank you for that. It is so true that we don’t have to be perfect in this life, we only have to learn to be more like God and try to apply it when we can!:) Also thank you for the picture of the plaque! that looks so sweet!:)

Oh man... what the heck happened in football this year.... the Falcons and the Steelers made it to the conference finals?? what the heck??.. hahah It’s all good. The Broncos just have more time to rest and improve until I get home!;) Thank you so much momma for all that you do!!:) Love you and stay safe!!:)

Love you to forever and back,

Elder Shawners Spencer

Shawn with President Isom

Wonderful Messages from Some People in Villarrica

After Shawn left Villarrica for Quellón, several people who knew him there posted some wonderful messages and pictures on Facebook so I wanted to capture them here as well. How grateful I am to all of them for taking care of my son!!

‎From: Maximiliano Andrés Novoa García

¿Conocidos? Miles. ¿Amigos? Muchos menos. ¿Hermanos? Son únicos.

Cómo te voy a extrañar, hermano mío.

Known people? Thousands. Friends? A few. Brothers? They are the only ones.

How I'm gonna miss you, my brother.

#lds #ldsfriends #missionary #friends #iloveyousomuchmyfriend #amigos#hermanos #brothers #misionerosud #ldsmissionary #ldschurch#iglesiasud #gonnamissyou #thebrotherineverhad #eternalfriendship#mormon #instamormon #chileosornomission #ilovethisguy #elder #utah #orem #villarrica #chile #amistades #amistadeterna #feelingblue

‎From: Patricio Huaiquimilla Castro

Mi gran amigo! Aun no se va y ya se le extraña.
Translation: My great friend! Still won't go away and now he is missed. 

‎From: Marcela Vega 

Lo queremos. mucho..tiene un bello hijo. ..lo extrañaremos..
Translation: We love you. So much.. have a beautiful son. .. He will be missed..

‎From: Mariela Beatriz Morales Inostroza
Bye bye, I love you

‎From: Mariela Beatriz Morales Inostroza

Ultima cena, lo extrañaremos

Translation: Last supper, he will be missed

Extrañaremos a Elder Spencer

Translation: We'll miss Elder Spencer 

No picture with this one but I thought it was pretty funny. She responded to Max's post with this:

From: Camila Aguilera Bueno tienes razón, también debo admitir que extrañare....
lo bien que cocinaba esos exquisitos pan de plátano :P

Well you're right, I must also admit that I miss....
How well he cooked those exquisite banana bread 

First (complete) week in Quellón!:)

Well to start of first Happy Monday!!:) I’m glad that you are liking your conference in Las Vegas even though it's cold! But here in Quellón (kayon is the pronunciation) ;) it is pretty bomb sector! We have a ton of people we are teaching and right now we have 2 people with baptism dates (Ortencia), (Jaime pronounced Haime...haha). They are 2 awesome people and I hope we can continue to help them. It is crazy here. The people are a lot easier to find and teach. In Villarrica it was almost impossible to keep citas; but here we still have citas fall through but we have been teaching a lot!:) This last week we taught Denise about the plan of salvation and she really liked it!:) Also it was really cool to get to know her more. She helps researchers from around the world come here then puts them on a boat with her husband and takes them out to another island to do all sorts of studies! It’s so cool!:) So tell dad that we have a cool fisherman family!!:) We hope to talk more with her husband this week but we will see how that goes. They are actually really cool here. Some like to talk more than others... but if I get them talking about fishing, they talk for a long time!;) it's cool.

The weather is a lot cooler here, and it rained a lot this last week off and on. One day there was an insane rain storm with wind and rain; and needless to say, we were soaked... haha but it was a good day of teaching!!:) For New Year’s we were with Waldo who is our ward mission leader and his wife. They gave us some good meat!!:) but no I was asleep at midnight because they don’t do fireworks...:( but someone did shoot a flare so that was kinda cool...:) haha it woke me up and kinda scared me at first... As for a cool story yesterday we didn’t have any citas set so we decided to go past an old investigator named Roberto. He lives out in the campo in Quellón. He was sooooo sick!!! His son served a mission in the states and now lives in Osorno. But as for him he has received all the lessons and likes the mormons but is just really busy for his work (so it was a miracle we found him). But he needs to be married first and said he is happy where he is at but he said he would like to receive us and talk more. So we are going to continue sharing with him!:)

As far as me and my companion, we are great!!!:) haha. He is from Canada and we are both really weird so it works out great!!!;) haha no but really I love him.:) Woah that sounds pretty sweet about the conference in Las Vegas! I want one of those massage chairs!!:) haha but I’m glad you enjoyed it and I hope that you can make it home safe as well!:)

That’s sad that aunt Karen passed away but I’m glad that she is with uncle Wayne now and that she doesn’t have to be in any more pain or suffering. That is the miracle about this life is that we know where we are going after is a lot better than here!!:)

That talk is bomb!! (The one from Carl B. Cook entitled Serve from October General Conference). That is so true when we actually embrace and do the best in our callings the Lord will not only help us along the way but he will give us more power to continue to do the best we can in our calling!!:) That is what I’ve been focusing on is doing the best I can to love and magnify my calling as a missionary and I know that God is helping me to be better and better every day!:) I have a simple but cool quote from Elder Uchtdorf which says “Forever—is composed of Nows. Faith gave me the hope I needed to live joyfully now!” I love this quote and I know that what we do know can affect how happy we are and how effective we are in our service and life on the earth! Love you mom and I love your goals and yes please keep my posted on how they are going!!:) Stay safe and remember that with the Lord nothing is impossible!!:) Have a great week and can’t wait to hear back!!:)

Love you to forever and back!

Elder Shawners Spencer

(These are a few more pictures from last week. He also sent a cool video from the ferry but it was too big to upload...)

Happy New Year from Quellón!!!

First of all happy new year and wow it seems like you guys had a lot of fun with the New Year’s party!! By the way I loved the videos from the fireworks and the pictures! Also I’m frikken happy that the Broncos won their final game of the season at least! Also for me it has been a really good couple of days here in Quellón! We have a lot of investigators already and we found a really cool lady yesterday (I’ll share the story of that in a sec). So we have a lot to do in this sector. But I feel like if we work really hard this cambio we are gonna help a lot of people!!:) We already had one person with a baptism date for this month when I got here, but I haven’t met him yet. His name is Jaime but sounds like Hyme in English... ;) As for the lady we found yesterday we decided to go on a contacting adventure in a part were my companion has never been. But as it was Sunday and the first day of the year, not many wanted to talk to us... UNTIL we were getting ready to leave the area and go look up old investigators but I felt we should go up this little road to this house. Then we found this house (with an amazing view, but not important for the story...) and the door was open so we started talking to her (Denisse) and she was sooo cool! She is catholic but loved talking to us and loves helping others! She was talking about God and how people need to remember him more and not just like when the earthquake came! She liked our little message we shared about families and we are going back this Wednesday to teach her!!:)

The trip down to Quellón was A LONG TIME!!! haha only like 12 hours or so in bus in total... I left Villarrica at 7:20am and with like 10 min in between buses, got to Quellón at like 8:30pm. But oh man it was a B E A U T I F U L bus drive. Also our bus had to get on a ferry to get to the island of Chiloe so that was sweet. I have some dope pics!:) I’ll send some more pics to dad as well.:)

Oh man I miss Villarrica haha it honestly is crazy. I still feel like I’m just on intercambios and I’m gonna go back soon.. but I’m glad they loved me as much as I did them! but I hope I can help the people here in Quellón for the time that I have here.:) That’s crazy that your week flew by! haha this last week felt really long for me but is starting to pick back up now:) but I’m glad you guys had fun with fireworks and haha yes I love uncle Greg!! haha but I’m glad you all had fun and nobody almost got shot this time (with fireworks)...

Wow that is an awesome talk from Bri!! tell her awesome job!:) and tell her I say hi and stay outta trouble!!:) but one thing I like about that scripture (Ether 12:27) is look close what does it say? It says our "weakness" not "weaknesses” Why do you think that? The answer is in John 15:5. The only real weakness that we have in this life is that we don’t have Jesus as the center of our life.:) Jesus Christ is our perfect example and it is through him that we will receive eternal life.:)

Love you momma and thank you so much for your email and all you have said!!:) I hope you have an awesome week and stay safe!! Continue being awesome this new year and I hope you have good goals set for this year!!:)

Love you to eternity and back momma!!:)

Elder Shawners Spencer

My First Cambio -- and Merry Christmas!!!

For the big news….. Guess what??? I love you!! :). I have cambios!! I bet you’ll never guess where!! I’m going to Chiloé Island to Quellón (which is where the earthquake hit on Christmas day). Yeah it’s crazy!!! I’m excited but scared, it will be sick.. My companion’s name is Elder Muirhead and he is from Canada. Elder Vasquez will stay here and Elder Amaya from Colombia will come and replace me! Elder Thomas my dad is gonna be AP!! (Assistant to President). He is really nervous but I know he will do good! (Side note: Quellón is a Chilean port city and commune in southern Chiloé Island, Los Lagos Region. It is considered an end-station of the Panamerican Highway and the Pacific Coastal Highway. The only way to get there is by sea aka boat. Shawn will be traveling there on Thursday – apparently, it will take 12 hours for him to get there.)

Now to his main email: Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!!:) It was so cool to talk to you!!:) I honestly could have talked for hours!! but yeah it’s all good now, we can just continue on here and I’ll keep working hard!!:) Oh and yeah I’ll tell Max thank you again for everything. Yes we had a zone activity today and we played pass and it was so bomb!!:) also yes I’ll try to send a video of the snow, it was sweet!!:) It worked great! (I sent him some insta snow for Christmas since it’s warm there. He loved it.)

Everything this last week was really good! It honestly flew by. It was sad, we didn’t have a chance to teach Ignacio but it’s all good!! We found 2 new families this past week and one of the families speaks English perfectly! so it was really cool to meet them! also Richard (whom we talked about on the call on the hill in LicanRay) he is going to keep meeting with the missionaries!!:) so that is sweet. Also we had our dinner as a branch on Friday so that was cool to see everyone! But yeah it was a crazy week and also I agree the light the world campaign was really awesome!:)

It sounds like your week was really good! and wow I’m glad you enjoyed Christmas!!:) And my day was pretty great as well because I got to talk to you guys!!:) but wow thank you so much for that quote!!:) Thank you for all the love and support momma and I’m glad that I have the chance to be here and serve:) Love you and my challenge for this week is to listen to the talk from this last conference about suffering with joy!!:) love you mom and remember always be happy because why live this life sad. We are only going to be in this life once, let’s make it happy and go to the eternity’s happy with our family!!:)

Love you to the moon and back momma and have a great week!!:) and don’t worry about cambios it will all be ok!!:)

Elder Shawners Spencer

These are my fotos!!:)

Shawn and Max

Pato!

We had a BBQ for our zone activity! It was sweet!!!

Picture overload here but here are some more that I got from Hermana Hugeth on Christmas Day, plus a few others. It's a tradition in Chile to open presents at midnight. They had to open them at 11:00 though because they had to be home by 11:30.

Our Skype call with Shawn on Christmas day!

Max took this picture and sent it to me.
I love that he's so happy!!

Love this face!!!

Best Christmas present ever!!