Car crash, miracles, and an earthquake Nov 17, 2025

Holaaaa todos!!

What a week, probably one of my most difficult and weird and wild ones of being a missionary! But god and his power exist, otherwise a lot more worse things could have happened! 

Last p day- we did some disc golf in a beutiful park, and it started raining! Crazy, but tons of fun. We then all got some food and had a fun day at the church playing volleyball and chair soccer! We also bought these Hispanic- type ponchos! From where? Bass pro shops.

This week it SNOWED!! So so exciting! We were very excited! We were blasting our Christmas songs all morning and it was like a whirlwind of snow, and it was the greatest day ever. We set up all our Christmas decorations and having been listening to music, luckily the mission is pretty chill with different types of music so we have been able to listen too some fun songs! Definitely reminds me of home!

This was an Extremely difficult week, and i got very down at about halfway, which actually didn't really surprise me, just was hard. Some struggles; the language, it's definitely coming, and i am understanding so much, however, because of my actual lack of vocabulary it's very hard to connect to the person as a person. I feel like I sound like a script, and it's very normal as a fresh missionary to feel this , it is just frustrating because i feel as though i cannot bear a lot of truth and witness of things, or bring people to God. And I feel helpless in the language barrier but I know that it will all be ok! 

In the midst of this discouraging day, I admit it was very hard; trying stand outside,  and suddenly the snow doesn't seem as amazing after 5 hours, but miracles do happen! They really do! After being on the streets all day we decided to go call people at the church; this was done for 3 hours. I think I had one full conversation the whole day. So much rejection just immediatly, so it was a hard day. But no success at calls , no one was answering, and i was praying so much, just to have a margin of success. Calling is so hard because inperson, you at least have that human contact, this was nothing. We felt a feeling after all this that we should stop by this parking lot for a little bit.  We got out, and every person we saw we had a conversation with, and we gave away a book of Mormon! Its pretty uncommon in your forst interactions to do that. And we ended up spending 45 minutes there! If we had decided to go home after calling because we were so unmotivated we would have missed so many people. God knew and planned every moment of that day!

So we got in a car crash! Crazy, we got rearended at a green light. Nothing is to bad except the car, and even that wasn't too bad. It could have been so much worse, based off the actual impact, we both thought we should be more effected and the car should have had much more damage! So that was a huge blessing! The lady however, wow, she was crazy! She hit us and kept driving, a classic hit and run, luckily there was a cop literally right behind her 🤦 and he pulled her right over. He had to go for an emergency though and said he would send someone to us which was really good! But she came out just fuming, she was like mega wild, she was a basher, which means religious differences to an extreme extent. She was under the impression that the devil had come down and yoinked off the back of our car, and was convinced of that.  Then she changed her story, saying we backed into her... anyways she was extremely difficult, but to an extent some things were so outrageous we just laughed about it after. She also got in her car and left after about 30 min before the cop got there so just overall a crazy experiance! But we love and don't hate.

RIGHT after that. We go to this parking lot and see this lady running around, my comp then proceeded to tell me some things about her and some experiences he's had, none of which were good.  But she came up to us, and came up to the window and asked for money, and when we said we didn't have any she got really strange and ended up licking our windows (so gross) which sounds really odd, it was. I can't really describe what was happening... it was very,  very just, I don't even know actually! 😂

Lastly, the earthquake,  or 'terremoto' in español. It was not actually an event, it was a little kid. Ahah his mom calls him that because he is literally insane! He's about 3 yrs old and just a menace, but so cute and funny. He's so awesome.  He will bite you, but not out of malice, just for fun? I think ahah. It's very humbling cause his spanish is pretty much better then mine and he's 3. But he makes sacrament meetings so much fun, and he's a goof and we all love him!

The people in this area are so so amazing, we had a linger longer and they went all out on decorations and food! (It was thanksgiving themed) Hispanic culture is to just give give give, it's really amazing!! The people are so nice and kind and so patient with my spanish!!  Same with my comp! He's been a huge blessing this week!!

Spiritual thought: so even though it was a hard week, it wasn't bad! Just more dissappointing, but i learned lots of lessons. Lessons of patience and faith that god will put people in your path that need to be there at the right time!! We had a meeting earlier in the week and my mission president said this- " there's no growth in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone"-  this sums up my week! It wasn't a comfortable week, at all, but I grew a lot and learned trial! You are NOT going to be without trial in this life, even Jesus Christ experienced trial, the hardest any individual has ever had to bear. This trial, was all of our trials. We will grow and it won't be easy, in fact, it shouldn't be easy. Any hard thing in life, if you look at it as ' this is hard! But how can I change or grow from it' suddenly it'll all will be ok!! I know missions are hard, and im experiancing it firsthand, but when I look at these people, some are in homeless shelters, some are walking to geg to church because theg cant afford any transportation, and some don't have lots of money; and my main issue is the language!...  it can change how I handle it!  So Be grateful for what you do have, and your trials will become easy as you seek to serve and help others! I promise!

Have a great week! I'm gonna try to put my Google photos album in here so hopefully it works! 

Google fotos! - https://photos.app.goo.gl/p8XijmAwrtHC1wih8

( let me know if it works)

Lots of love,  Elder Spencer.