Week 60: August 29 (Brindisi)

WE NO SAA

Whattupppp!! I hope everyone is doing well. I just wanted to first
start off my saying thank you for all the prayers and all the support
and thoughts that I have received this week because of the earthquake.
I am further south than the area that was affected. But something that
I realized was that exactly this time last year when I was serving in
Umbria (Terni, my first city), my companion and I went up to a city
called Reiti (which is right in the zone that got affected) so I know
some of the cities up there. If I remember correctly, we went a few days
into my mission, which was exactly a year before the earthquake a few days
ago. Hopefully the missionaries that are serving there now will be
able to be a part of the relief effort and provide some service. I am
grateful that the Lord is watching over all of the missionaries. In addition to the earthquake,
just a few months ago there was a big train accident here in Bari, but luckily
there were no missionaries on it. Again, thank you for your prayers.

The reason that I titled my email "We No Saa" this week is because that
is my new Nigerian name. (And it also makes me feel like I am a beast
Karen Elder like my homie Anziano Woodland who is speaking the
coolest language ever with Burmese refugees and always titles his emails like that.. Such a
stud. So there are two meanings to it lolol..) A few weeks ago, we met
a member from Nigeria and we have been meeting with him to try to get
him to church. He is a beast and he gave me this name "We No Saa" which
means God’s Gift. Soooo sick. His name is God’s Power and when he walked
into church, one of the members comes up to say hello and he
introduces himself as Gods Power and then was like, "Just call me
GP." Hahaha he is so cool.

So we had a really good week this week; training has been fun and
good. Anziano Young is a beast at basically everything he does, so
things have been going well. We have been doing a lot of finding so
that we can build up our work. And we have definitely been seeing a
lot of miracles from it. Our good friend D. has been coming to English Course for a few months now and I
have tried talking to him before to invite him to take the lessons and
he said that he needed to think about it. This Tuesday we were talking
and he said that he would like to meet with us. We were able to start
off our lesson and he immediately told us that he is very angry with
God for a lot of things that have happened in his life. But as we
started talking about God and the message of the Restoration, the
spirit was there and he listened and it was a really powerful lesson...
one of the more powerful lessons that I have had on my mission, and he
accepted to be baptized at the end. He really wants to restart his
life and so I have really high hopes for him. A few weeks ago we were
also able to meet these two women that were sisters and we tried
talking to them and they were not very interested at first. And then
after we talked a little, they invited us over to their house. We
stopped by (this was when I was with Anziano Morlock) and one of the
sisters was home and invited us in and we told her we needed to come
back because there needed to be a man in the house. This really
strengthened my testimony on just doing my best to always follow the
rules because as we returned, there were 3 other people there and we got
4 new investigators from that lesson, so things are going really well.
We are really excited.

So our new president has really been changing some of the
goals and things in the mission. He believes that each companionship can baptize once a
transfer. His teaching style is simple: he believes that as we are
consecrated missionaries, we will receive blessings.  Things are
going really well and we are really seeing blessings. I have always
worked on being more consecrated, so these new goals that he has
brought have got us really motivated here. He also allows us to play
sports now with Italians if we can share a spiritual thought and so
this week Anziano Young and I wrecked some Italians in basketball,
which was really fun not gonna lie. Unfortunately, they were not really
interested to talk after because, to be honest, their pride might have
been a little hurt, but hopefully we will see them again and we can
start building a good relationship when we see them again. With all of
our finding we have been seeing  a lot of success. Like we were able to invite our friends that we have been
trying to teach to church and they came yesterday! The mom has not
entered a church for 8 years, so we were super excited and she said
that she really liked it. Missionary life is good and things are going
well.

Okay so for my spiritual thought I want to share some of my thoughts
that I have had about the Atonement as I have been studying this doctrine. I was
able to hear a recording from a BYU professor that my companion shared
with me and it caused me to think a lot and change some of my
perspective about the Atonement (which means when Jesus Christ took
upon himself all of our sins)

Mosiah 14-

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief;
when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his
seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall
prosper in his hand.

The part that I want to focus on with this verse is where it says that
Jesus shall see his seed as he makes himself an offering for sin. So
it is interesting because in the next chapter Abinadi (a prophet in
the Book of Mormon) explains who Jesus's seed is. He explains:

Mosiah 15

10 And now I say unto you, who shall declare his generation? Behold, I
say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he
shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?

11 Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the
prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning
the coming of the Lord--I say unto you, that all those who have
hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem
his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of
their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the
heirs of the kingdom of God.

So what I have taken from this is Jesus, as he suffered in the Garden
of Gethsemane, saw his seed, which therefore would be each and every one
of us…or those that (like in the scripture) have hearkened unto the
words of the prophets and believed that the Lord would redeem us.
(Basically, all those that believe in Jesus.) As I read these scriptures
they really touched me because the way that I view the Atonement now
(these are just my thoughts from my studies this week this)  is not
that Jesus  took upon himself all the sins of the world like a big ball of
sin. But instead, he saw each and every one of us personally. He
took upon himself our sins personally, and he suffered for us
personally. He knows me personally and knows everyone personally and
the way that Jesus Christ works always in the scriptures is in a one by
one way. He healed the children one by one when he came to the
Americas, we take the sacrament one by one, and we are baptized one by
one. So therefore, wouldn't it make sense that in some way Jesus came
to know us one by one in the Garden of Gethsemane? I know that the
Atonement is real and that Jesus Christ KNOWS us personally.

I love you all so much! I am in Bari today because we played calcio
and we had a really good time. I am pretty tired now so my thoughts
are kinda everywhere. I hope this email makes sense.

Vi voglio un mondo di bene!!

Anziano Spencer