THE BIBLE IS GREAT, BUT I AM SURE GLAD WE HAVE THE BOOK OF MORMON

Dated: May 12, 2014

We had transfers this week. I am now with Elder Rodriguez. He is really neat. He is from LA and Speaks Spanish. I am excited to serve with him. Skyping with you guys was fun. It was good to see you were all doing well.

This week we had a ton of people try to bash with us. The bible is great but I am sure glad we have the Book of Mormon. People all interpret the bible differently. I haven't really understood that until this last week. We had people tell us that baptism was essential to other people that said you don't need it, and if you do it you are damned. One guy tried to save me by telling me I need to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and not be a part of the "Mormon church." It has been interesting.

I gave a talk on Sunday about building our foundation of faith in Jesus Christ. I talked about how going to church, studying your scriptures and praying is how we build faith in Christ. Then I gave some examples of people that had their foundation of faith. I shared about the Ammonites and the stripling warriors. I was also going to share about the Sweetwater river crossing where the three 18 year old boys carried everyone across the river, but I ran out of time.

Life is interesting. We have ups and downs, forwards and backwards, good times and hard times. There isn't much we can do to prevent trials from coming into our life, but we can choose what we are going to do about it. Trials will come, and they will go. We will remember some of them, others we will forget, but the only thing that really goes with us from our trials is the experience we gain and knowledge that we learned. Mom, you told me this story about me: When I was a kid, I pulled down a hot oven and put my hands on the door while I was trying to climb up on the counter. I am sure at the time that my hands hurt badly from the burn and it was probably annoying for me to be bandaged up. It was probably a trial for me (even though I was very young) and the duration of pain and the trial seemed like it would never end. I don’t remember this trial though. But with the knowledge and experience I gained, I now know not to touch hot things. I think most trials are like that. When we are going through them they seem to take up all our thoughts. We maybe sometime feel they will never end.  But days go on, the sun keeps rising. Trials will pass, the storm will be calm. Hopefully we don't have regrets from choices we made during our trials, but if we do, we know that there is the Atonement, and Repentance and our Savior that can heal us from poor choices. Life is a big period of testing and learning and Growing. I am grateful for a Heavenly Father who cares enough for me to go though some hard times so that I can grow and become more like him. So when trials come into your life, remember the most import things, God and Family. Make choices that help you keep your covenants, and always remember your family. We have many promises from the Lord. You can find many of them in hymn 85. I love that hymn. My favorite line "The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot, desert to his foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never, I'll never, no never, I'll never, no never, no never forsake!"

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Spencer