My Brother, Saili

Fam,

My new area is great. We have about 50 members in our unit. We just completed our assigned project to gather GPS coordinates for the boundaries to make us a branch soon. A 16 year old boy named Kojo, comes with us most of the time to help translate and man does that open up our teaching pool.

I have enjoyed these past few weeks with Elder Saili. I feel as if my own brother has come to serve with me. He is a great guy who is learning a lot about the gospel and how to teach others about it. His simple, powerful testimony is motivating and brings joy to those who hear him share it. He and I have found that to bring the spirit into the homes of those we teach, we have to be prepared spiritually for every lesson, and try to ask inspired questions.

People want to go to Church with someone they know, so we are teaching around member's houses so those we teach will have friends to come to Church with. It's working! Our new investigators feel more comfortable going to Church with a neighbor.

We just baptized a woman named Jenna who was supposed to be baptized 10 months ago, but the missionaries that came into the area, didn't look at the Area Book of the previous set of missionaries so they completely missed the opportunity to continue teaching her. Our Mission President has always emphasized the importance of using the area book. It's actually one of our mission rules. If every missionary obeyed all of the mission rules in the white handbook and those given by the mission president, we would have so much more success. We are now preparing Jenna to be able to go to the temple. Had she been baptized 10 months ago, she might have been preparing now to receive her endowments and bless the lives of thousands.

Well, I think I'm putting on too much weight, and it's hard to find the time to work out. I need to schedule it in my planner and just do it. I have a weird feeling about these next two transfers. We'll see how things go. I love you all. The gospel is true and you are a great family. Thank you for your support!

Spence