Elder Spencer Tingey: Happy Birthday

Cool sunset on top of a neighborhood called "Ciudad de Cielo" (it's like climbing Olympus to get there)

Hello!

Thank you all for the well-wished birthday. Once again, we had a crazy week, and we've been highly blessed. Elder Allen and I ended up going down to los Cabos on Tuesday! It was an effective trip, but it was a good chunk of time away from our area for the week. We came back real quick-like on Wednesday. I had the chance to stay the night with my MTC-district buddy Elder Mortensen, which was great. Los Cabos is a cool place.

We found a teaching record in our area book of an old lady name Macelina and felt like we should go with her a few weeks ago. We taught her once, and she was nice and said that she had gone to church twice a while back when the missionaries had passed by for her in a ride. Since then, she hadn't gone at all. We felt like we should go back with her during the week, and we managed to arrive when her son, Lino, was there as well. He told us that he had recently had some marital difficulties and that he also had trouble giving up an alcohol addiction. We had a simple, powerful lesson with them. We discussed the concept of faith and works. If you pray for something and then don't act, or give God a medium through which he can help you, how can you expect a blessing?

Has Lino asked God to help him stop drinking? Yes. But then if he goes and hangs out with the same bad group of friends that conduces his drinking habits, where's the blessing going to come from? Has Lino asked God to help him have more family unity? Yes. So would going to church be a good way for God to instruct him and help him apply the Gospel better at home? Certainly. That was basically the lesson, which ended on a really strong commitment to go to church the next day. We walked really quite far to pass by for them in the morning, and both Lino and Macelina were all ready to go, in their best Sunday wear. It was awesome! So the lesson applied and worked because they felt the Spirit and that motivated them to make a change. We took a bus with them to show them that they are capable of making to church on their own in the future.

It ended up being a really good day of church. All of my converts were there, which is a good sight to see. The Ríos family walked over a mile to get there and showed up a little tanner at the end of the sacrament meeting. Esteban and Esteban went too. Another cool new investigator who went is named Veronica. She's a very young grandma, and her mom is a convert as of two years ago. One morning, she decided to flip the Bible open to a random page and read something in Proverbs about Jehovah instructing us in wisdom or something that she really took to heart. And then we knocked on the door! In the Gospels principle class, she was taking notes and asking cool questions and generally participating a lot. I'm happy with the people we've been able to find this week. We're really trying to baptize, and I know that we'll be blessed to be able to soon if we work with the right motives.

Goodbye!