In a Brazilian commercial!

June 10th


Hey everybody back at home, another week down!


This week was just more learning about my responsibilities. I stayed pretty busy! We had the leadership council this week with is when all the zone leaders in the mission come to Ribeirão Preto for a meeting. I got to see some of the other missionaries that I haven’t seen for a long time, that’s one thing that’s super cool about being executive!


Last P day was super fun too. We went to a park and passed the football and Frisbee that the parents sent. It’s been awhile since I’ve thrown a Frisbee but it looks like I still got it! So funny story while we were there. The park we went to is actually really nice and has a bunch of little ponds and stuff. There's also a cliff about 70 feet high that has a pond at the bottom with a little waterfall going off the edge. We thought it would be pretty sweet to go up there and throw the Frisbee and football off the top, so that’s what we did. The problem is when you’re on the ground it doesn’t look that high or far, but when we got up there we realized that it’s actually way farther than we thought! But, we were already up there so we decided to go for it. We had Elder Summers go first with the football. He gave it a good throw, but it didn't even make it close… and it landed right in the middle of the pond. Then it was my turn, and by that point I was kind of nervous that something would happen and I’d get my Frisbee in the water the first day I use it! But I threw it! It went pretty far, but I forgot to angle it downward and so it started to go back toward the water! Luckily, it hit the ground and stopped about 2 inches from the edge, but it didn’t go in. So that left us with the problem of the football that was still floating in the water. After standing at the edge talking about what we should do, Elder Da Cunha (one of the financial secretaries) hiked up his shorts and waded into the water to get it. I was laughing so hard watching him get it! Everyone at the park was looking at us like we were crazy, but you cant really blame them! After he got out he decided that it actually wasn’t that far to throw. He stayed at the bottom the first time the ball was thrown so he didn’t see how far it actually was. So then he went up there to throw it! He tried, but also got it right in the middle of the water which was pretty funny for me. Elder Breno, the other financial sec., went and got it the next time. After that we called it good and went back to do our shopping and stuff. But it was a pretty good first P Day on Saturday! So, I made it in a Brazilian commercial, pretty sick!  You'll see me at the beginning of the commercial throwing the Frisbee!  Click here to see Spence in the Brazilian commercial! 


One thing that is pretty time consuming that ive been doing this week is talking to other missionaries about health and marking doctors visits and stuff. Its crazy how many of those I have to do, I’d never guess! This week with our field work, we had a few good lessons. We were able to find a guy named Fernando at home that we’ve been looking for since I got here. Hes a really nice guy but has one problem that’s kinda tough. He doesn’t believe in repentance, and doesn’t feel bad for smoking or other things that he does. It was a cool lesson that we had. We talked a lot about the Atonement and explained Christ’s role in getting clean from our sins. By the end of the lesson, he actually stopped to think and started to understand why repentance is important, actually necessary. That’s something that we’ve been focusing a lot on here in the mission, teaching repentance. There’re a lot of lessons and topics that we teach as missionaries but in the end it all boils down to if a person will repent or not! If someone understands the importance of repentance, everything else will fall into place. As ive been working on teaching it more, Im starting to understand it better and better myself. One thing that I didn’t do before the mission was use the Atonement every single day, and I should’ve! I can see the difference that it’s making! Speaking of the Atonement, theres an awesome talk that I’ve been studying the last few days called “The Meaning of the word Atonement” by Cleon Skousen. I’ll put the link in here for you guys to check out too: ARTICLE LINK

Kinda cool to be able to do that kind of stuff now working in the office! But, that’s my week. I’m learning ton here and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Although we don’t always have the expected or things hoped for in life, the Lord always knows what kind of experiences we need. Have a good week everyone and enjoy the first week of summer!!

-Elder Odom