Allison In Between

Hey Family and Friends,

Boy do I love you! I am so happy to be writing you right now! So to tell you a couple of things. I am leaving on Monday to go to DENVER! I am so excited. We report to the travel office Monday morning at 5:00am. We have a couple of other missionaries that are flying with Hermana Thomas and I. We leave Salt Lake at 8:30 and get to Denver at 10:00. I am so excited! The rest of our district will stay in Provo until 11:30 that day and will fly to Argentina. We will already be oriented, and tracking by that point.

I have so much to tell you. First items of business. I would love to get mail from you in Denver. I know the first couple of weeks will be hard - so please pretty please with a cherry on top write me! You can still send me Dear Letters until Friday at 12. After that they will just throw them away. Also please send written letters now to my Denver address. I only have the mission home's address at this time but they will get mail to me. Please update people who don't read this with my information.

So Denver - Did I tell you how excited I am!?! Well I am. So the other day we got a letter from all of the Hermanas in Denver. There are only seven of us. We have 4 areas. 2 in Denver, one in the mountains and a Spanglish area....which I don't know where that is. Also we will most likely be living with members so that is great. Their letter was short but comforting. I am so excited to meet them. They also sent us pictures. Snow.....Temple.....Fun!

So Miracles of the week.....and this one tops all the miracles as of yet: Two of our Elders - Elder Lynch and Shaw - taught a real investigator, Lida, two weeks ago. Well the lesson went really good and she was excited about what they committed her to do. They told her to pray before and after she read the Book of Mormon. Well guess what? Last Sunday, our teacher Hma. Purziani told us that she did the commitment and has decided to get baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah really! So she is getting baptized this weekend. Hopefully they can get permission to leave the MTC and go :)

This week has been great. I feel so ready. This obviously means that my spanish is still not perfect, not even close. BUT, I feel a great desire to share this message. Last week we taught Flor, and it went okay. We really worked hard on our message we wanted to share with her. We even got a member to come with us...another teacher. It was so great. I felt a strong desire to love her more, and i really wanted her to know that this was true. So we invited her to be baptized...she didn't say no and she didn't say yes. So that is our plan this week. :)

Okay so funny/sad story. Yesterday I was working on my pro volleyball skills and I hurt myself....or the ball hurt me. My thumb hurts so much. It is swollen and jammed and bruised. So if there are lots of typos it is partially my thumbs fault and my lack of English skills. So also we left the MTC yesterday because Hma Thomas was getting some warts removed...so her hands are all hurting. So yesterday we took pitiful pictures of us because our hands hurt so bad that it was hard to change clothes after gym. LOL....I am really going to miss volleyball. When I return, I definitely want to play a lot more of it :)

So since I am getting ready to leave, I wanted to let you all know what I have learned while I have been in here - or at least a part of it:

• I have learned that missionary work is hard. Yes HARD. Not that I thought it was going to be easy, but it is a lot harder than I thought it would be.
• I have learned so much Spanish. I really mean that. I feel like I can at least teach all of the lessons. That is something that I thought was almost impossible. I learn more and more every day that we have the gift of tongues. Really. The Lord has blessed us so much.
• I have learned that the Lord calls on the weak and the simple...if you aren't weak and simple - you kind of are by the time you leave.
• I love my district. These young men are amazing. I have learned so much from them. Also the Hermanas are normal and that gives me comfort in thinking about my future companions.
• My testimony has increased dramatically. I love the gospel and am so grateful for this opportunity. I never could have imagined that this is what Heavenly Father's plan for me would be. I am starting to learn that there is a reason why I needed that extra time. I needed to learn a lot.
• I have grown to love people so much more. I see why we are sent to proclaim the gospel. People need it. They need to know there is a reason they are here and also that there is a way to have happiness in this life.
• I love my family so much and I miss them!
• Also I love my friends so much!

So all in all....I am so happy to be here! I feel the spirit working really hard on me. I know that it is refining me to be better. This next week is going to be very exciting/interesting/scary/great! Please write me!

I love you all,

Hermana Spencer

Shout outs:

Kayla - I am so excited...you should expect a letter.

Megan - Thank you for the pies! I loved them. They brightened my day so much.

Cathy - thank you so much for the pictures and the letters. You too Katie!

I love you all! Ahhh! I am so excited!