Elder Spencer Stokes - Mexico Ciudad Juarez

The Internet Cafe closes in 10 minutes. But I wanted to write a quick email to thank all of you for all the support you have given me throughout my life. I cannot be enough grateful for each of you and how you have shaped who I am today. After 19 years at home, so many of you helped me just with your smile or your great example.  The mission is tough. And it is definitely really hard to live with the same person for 7 weeks straight 24/7. I have learned how to be more patient and to talk to Elder Rosas when there is something small that is bothering me. And he has stopped what was bothering me instantly. It is amazing how a small thing could bother me and make me mad sometimes. It was that he said "I do not care" a lot. I do not know why it made me mad but it did. It took some courage to talk to him about it but I feel so much better ever since I did. We are in Juarez right now.. The actually city city. For a council for the 3 branches in our mission. I am excite...

First Off - Elder Rosas and I are both staying in Buenaventura! I am excited to be able to at least spend another six weeks with Elder Rosas. Which is great because we are finally starting to build that connection when we are teaching. We are better at bouncing off one of each other and letting each other talk when they have that spiritual prompting. With our obedience, we have been inviting the spirit into the rooms when we are in lessons. And the lessons go so much better when we have that spiritual guide with us (especially since I am still learning Spanish). And I am excited to be staying in Buenaventura. I am getting to be good friends with a lot of the members and our investigators are progressing and keeping their commitments so I am excited to be able to stay with them and keep teaching them. I also am getting a hang of the area. I said 90 weeks to go because my companion likes to remind me over and over again that he has less days than I have weeks. He has 84 days left now ...

This week was great! I would like to start with the success Elder Rosas and I had this week. And all this success came from one thing. Exact obedience. The whole time I have been here Elder Rosas has not been able to get out of bed at 6:30, and I had some days where I did not as well. It is hard to wake up at 630 every day. But I talked with him over a week ago and we decided that this last week we were going to be exactly obedient. Two weeks ago we only found 7 new people to teach (the goal for the mission is 12 a week) one person attend church and a baptism fall out... Marisol - Marisol told us she wanted to ¨try other flavors¨ that she wanted to attend other churches before deciding to get baptized. But that is fine because I know this church is true and in time she realize by the spirit that is the right decision to make. It is actually really good because she told us, she wants to join a church she knows she can defend and speak for knowing it is true! This last week, with...

Oh what a crazy week... This week I only had one day where I was in Buenaventura doing regular missionary work all day. But it was such a great week with how I have progressed. We did not see that much progress with the people we are teaching though. Which is kind of sad, because the only way to progress is by doing stuff by yourself and asking the Lord. All we can do is just keep inviting them to do it. And I hope they will. Quick sidenote. The weather here right now is like Utah probably about a month ago. Freezing in the mornings and nights but hot like none other in the days. So we always our carrying around our jackets in our backpacks right now. But it is all great. But that is why I have not left Utah.  Monday... Monday night we got a call from our executive secretary saying I had to go to Migration in Janos (which is 2.5 hours from Buenaventura) early the next morning. And because no buses leave from Buenaventura early in the mornings we had to leave that night to ...