The Hand Of The LORD!

¡HABALA FAMILIA Y AMIGOS!

Hey hey hey hey! How ya all doing!?  I hope you are all doing Great!  So I have some pretty good stuff to tell you about this week, the problem is I just have to remember all of it, because we are smack dab in the middle of Transfers and to say the least my Brain is FRIED!Haha!!  But I will see what I can muster up!  First of all, I should tell yall that I have a BAPTISM TODAY!!! HALLELUJAH!! It’s been way to long…. And we have 4 more people with baptismal dates! YES!  So I am pretty excited about that!  My comp and I have been working really hard and the Lord has opened up the Heavens and blessed us SO MUCH! 

Also we have a family we are working with, do you remember about Martin and Nardi?  So we went to go and visit them Saturday morning, and Martin, well he didn´t really believe in God, he said he believed because they told him he had to as a kid, but he never found out for himself.  So we taught them last Monday morning and then I went to Cerro de Pasco and we didn’t have another lesson with them until Saturday, which is not a good thing to do with investigators!  But Marin told us that he read the chapter we left for him, and when he finished, he just felt so happy, he said it was something he had never felt before, and he wanted to read more and more, so he called his mom, who is a member and asked her, What else can I read?  So, he kept on reading the Book of Mormon and he said the happiness and joy he felt, he had never experienced before and he loved it!  He told us that Friday for the first time in his life he said a prayer with real intention, and he told us that He felt SO HAPPY and he knew that God was listening to him and that He is real and that He does exist!  I mean I was so happy for him!!!  The first time I met him he was really nice but not a genuinely happy person, he had a lot of doubts and questions, we then taught him about the Book of Mormon and it is incredible to see the change in him.  We helped him recognize that the happiness he is feeling comes from the Spirit testifying of the truthfulness of this Gospel!  He is SO excited to learn and get married and baptized the 24 of March, because it’s his son´s 8th birthday! YEAH BOY!!!  So with them we will have 7 people with baptismal dates!

Yesterday my comp and I announced our upcoming baptisms that we are planning  to the Ward and they all just kinda starred at us, because all the members tell us it’s really hard to baptize here in La Molina, but we have the goal to baptize weekly and we are going to meet it!  The members are partially right, it is really hard to baptize in La Molina if you work alone, but my comp and I are really trying to do everything right, finish all the work in the office so we can get out and work!  So the Lord can help us and bless us!  Because it would be really hard to baptize here without the Lord, but we are seeing miracles and his hand has been and is in every single one of them!   I LOVE MY MISSION!

               

Okay, so I have to tell yall a little about Cerro de Pasco, I went from sea level here in Lima to the Highest City in the world in a 9 hour bus trip! HOW EPIC!  Haha! I didn’t know what to expect because a lot of missionaries hate Cerro and they say it’s horrible and it is way cold!  But I got there and I liked it!  Haha, it is pretty dang cold, but it’s like Utah in January, but the difference is that you can’t escape the cold!  There is no such thing as heating there!  So it’s just a constant cold! But it was pretty cool to be in the Highest Stake Center in the whole world!  I was there for 4 days and 3 nights but they called me from Lima and President said I had to go back and help with Transfers… bummer but that’s the way the cookie crumples, I guess!Haha!!  But it was sweet, I was with Elder Madsen, he is a great missionary and works really hard and the people love him!  So if I end up in Cerro finishing my mission I would be pretty happy!  SO I have to run, we gotta fill up the baptismal font (pictures from the baptism, next week, I hope)  Love ya and I will be writing again Saturday!  BYE!

Love,

Elder Spencer Marty McGhie!

Ps. in my trip back to Lima I had to stop in Tarma where Elder Brown is, and we got to eat lunch together!  LOVE THAT KID! 

Pss.. mom, we have a new rule that we have to close our facebook pages.... SORRY! I know you are going to be upset! I will explain more Saturday!(Not a single word about this in his email that we got today, March 3, 2012????  So I am not closing his facebook page until he tells me that I have to, I have put so much work into that page so it is staying until I get the official word to close it!!)

WALTER GOT UP FROM LAYING DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!  Mom I have your scripture for this week... D&C 64: 33-34!  LOVE YOU! (In case you don’t know our very healthy dog, Walter got a strange illness that our Vet and a neurologist for dogs have no idea what caused it or how he got it but it blocks the nerves from communicating (or whatever nerves do?) with the muscles in his body………so he was suddenly, completely paralyzed except he could lift his head up a little.  The dog neurologist said there wasn’t any chance that he would get better since his muscles had atrophied and since nerves don’t usually regenerate or something like that???  So, I looked at the dog neurologist and said quite loudly………………NO CHANCE AT ALL???  WHAT ABOUT FAITH???  He then looked at me like I was from the “non-planet” Pluto and said………okay, I will give him a 2 percent chance to get better!!  I told him I liked that much better than NONE!!  So that was about 2 months ago and it has been slow but Walter is healing and getting stronger!!  He can now get up by himself from a laying down position (he is still working on this but hey he does it sometimes), he can flip himself from side to side with his back legs and he can crawl with his legs to get places and that is where we are now……….working on strengthening his  legs, hips and shoulder muscles by having him pull himself around………..then when he is strong enough (it might take a little while but that’s okay!)……………….he will start sitting up and then he will stand up and someday he will walk and run again, we are totally learning to have faith and sometimes it has been hard and I start to doubt that he will get better but then I shove that thought away and repent and try to have more faith!!  Walter is only 5 yrs old and we refuse to give up on him and Heavenly Father has given us a total miracle because the doctor really said there was no chance of him getting better……………………..AND HE IS GETTING BETTER!!  Very Slowly he is getting better and that is fine with us even though it is a lot of work but we love him and are so grateful for the wonderful miracle that Walter is getting stronger and stronger every day……..We hope he will be walking before Spencer comes home........................and that is in 8 MONTHS!! =) So we have been humbled but truly blessed that our sweet Walter is getting better!!!  This is one of those tender mercies that Heavenly Father blesses us with sometimes!!! (Sorry if this was more info about our dog than you ever wanted to know!!)

HI MOM; so I have to take the wedding pics next week cause got my hair cut and the flippin lady left me bald again.. woof and I chickened out on giving the valentine to pres.... I’m such a LOSER! But next package send something and for sure i will give it to him!  I will send a voice recording Saturday for the wedding and you guys!

LOVE YOU!(Hi, this is me speaking to your from the FUTURE…………well, really I never got this sent out and we got another email from Spencer on Saturday and guess what………….No voice recording or picture for his cardboard cutout and there was not even one word about facebook and closing his page either???  I do find it interesting, but understandable that he has no recollection of all the things he told us he would tell us about in his next email ??=) …………Oh well, I know he is super busy and working hard but I hope he remembers someday to take the picture for the cut out and to make the recording for Ainsley’s wedding, he now has about 6 weeks to remember to do it and get it sent to us (NOT WORRIED AT ALL!!!)!!????  Oh, Spencer is such a funny guy!!!  It just makes me love him even more because he is not perfect but so cute and he is trying and working so hard and he still makes me laugh, well……most of the time !!!  =)  =)

Elder Madsen and Elder McGhie
I think they are freezing as there is
no heat and the are in the highest City
in (I think), the world and it is very cold!!!





Spencer thinks he is so strong!! =)
I am goingto find the pictures that
I have of the two of them at the Peru CCM
and they are in the same pose =)




Elder Madsen and Elder McGhie are both
totally commited fans of their favorite schools:
BYU and UTAH so they have a little friendly rivalry!!





They are so funny, I have almost the exact
same pictures of them  way back when
they were in the CCM (Peru MTC) together!!!!=)




WHAT CAN I SAY????? =)




Elder McGhie in Cerro De Pasco, it is summer there???




Elder Brown and Elder McGhie
They used to be companions and are the
best of friends, Spencer got to have lunch with
Elder Brown when he was traveling back to Lima!! =)




The Office Missionaries at the Temple
I dont know why but they like to make this
pose a lot, not sure what they are looking at
but Spencer does it quite often????







“And February? Where did it go?”

¡Querida Familia Mia y Amigos! 

WHATS UP!  I am first of all really sorry that you thought I was going to have p-day day on Tuesday (he got on the internet and had no emails from us but luckily Ainsley read his message on her phone so she woke us all up (it was Saturday morning early) and told us that Spencer was on the internet and to hurry and get writing to him……it was crazy and I have no idea what I wrote to him since I was half asleep but at least he got emails from us?? =), but what happened is my Companion went to Tarma and I stayed in the office because there was a whole bunch of things to do in the office this week and he doesnt know how to do much of the office work, so I stayed.  But dont worry, I will be headed to the wonderful land of CERRO DE PASCO on Monday and I will be there for a week!  Well Cerro de Pasco is only the Highest Stake in the WHOLE WORLD!  And I’m going from Lima (sea level) to Pasco, where it is snowing and freezing and here in Lima it’s SO HOT!  So it will be a dramatic change for a week.  The reason why I’m going is because Tarma and Cerro de Pasco are some of the harder zones we have and President Ardila called us into his office, my comp and I and said, well Elders, You have 1 week to go to Tarma and Cerro de Pasco and Baptize someone.  I don’t know how, because they don’t have people with baptismal dates, but go and baptize!  AHHHHHHHHH!!! How about that for faith!?Haha!!  My comp and I looked at each other like... AY CARAMBA, haha!!  But the good news is my comp has found people and there are baptisms in TARMA!  So now it’s my turn! PLEASE PRAY FOR ME! (I am worried that he wont be able to breath way up there in Cerro de Pasco, I have heard that when missionaries first get there they have to use oxygen since the air is so thin?? I sure hope they find someone to baptize??  I am excited because I know that some of Spencers missionary friends are in Cerro de Pasco, so he better take lots of pictures !! I sure hope he will be able to breath???)

And in my area we have been searching SO hard for investigators and the Lord ALWAYS blesses us when we do our part.  We have found great investigators this week.  We have Ronald, Patty, then Martin and Nardi.  Ronald was going to get Baptized the 25th of February, he lives with his sister who is member but his dad gets to Lima on the 6th of March and he wants him to be there, so we changed his Baptismal date to the 10th of  March.  Then we have Patty, she is from Chiclayo and working here in Lima for some members, we went and had lunch at their house a few weeks ago and we contacted her, last week we had family night with the family and Patty joined us, we invited her to baptism right then and there and she accepted, but she can’t get baptized this month cause she is going on vacation for 2 weeks... CHISPAS!  But she agreed to the 17th of March.  Then we found the family of Martin and Nardi, they just got here from Huanuco and have been to church before.  But they aren´t married... So we have been teaching them the Plan of Salvation and it was so amazing because Martin has so many questions, but during the plan of salvation lesson, he was dead quiet and after the lesson he said he loved it and the message has changed his whole perspective on life.  With the knowledge he now has that this life is a time for preparation and that there is life after death and that his family can be together forever, he so much more happy!  It was amazing to see the change in his whole appearance in just a few lessons! 

What joy it is to have the plan of salvation in our lives!  I don´t know what I would do without it!  I mean think of how sad it would be to believe that once we die, it all ends there or we forget everything!  But it’s not like that at ALL!!! FAMILIES ARE FOREVER!  How amazing is that!  We must shout that to all the world!  At the top of our lungs and tell the world!  I love you all so much and like Elder Nelson said, We live to die, and die to live... AGAIN!  I love the Gospel and my mission, its going by way too fast (only 8 and a half months left and counting =)! 

LOVE YA!
Elder Spencer Martin McGhie

¡Perú Lima Este, LA MEJOR MISIÓN DEL MUNDO!

FAMILIA Y AMIGO’S!

HOW IS EVERYONE? I would first of all like to tell you that my package got here yesterday and it was THE BOMB!!!  You guys are the best!  I mean really thank you sososososo much for the valentines, snacks, my watch, the jump rope (I sent him a pink, sparkly little girls jump rope along with his black exercise jump rope so, I am sure he is thanking us for the pink one!!! ) and the pics!  Of course thanks Ains for the wedding tie I will be sure to wear it on MAY 4!  WEDDING DAY!YIKES(“Yikes” is a good way to describe the upcoming wedding, it is a bit hard for me to let  my baby go, I totally remember when she was little and she was all mine =)!!  But I am trying to get happy about it and Russ is a great guy, who makes her very happy, so I will just have to learn to deal with life (nobody ever told me that having your kids grow up was so hard on a moms heart!)?? =) !! Haha, it’s a good lookin tie for sure!  Also thanks for the updates,  about the Super Bowl or in Spanish… EL SUPER TAZON!  I couldn´t believe it was the super bowl, I really had no clue, how weird is that!?   I used to have a 2 week preparation for the super bowl with Sports Center every day and watching Super Bowl Classics on NFL Network (Oh yes, we totally remember how you watched all the Super Bowls from 1975 through 2010 !! Oh the good old days !!!   And, just in case everyone reading this hasn’t figured it out…..he really is kind of a strange person… but we love him strangeness and all =)!!!)  and now I had no clue, Haha!!  Well I guess that’s what the mission will do to ya, but don’t fret, next Super Bowl I will be in FULL force, but for now, Its 100 percent time for the Lord! 

So I have my new companion like I told ya Tuesday and he is THE MAN!  I mean he is such a Champion; he is from Concepción Chile, that’s where Elder Contreras, my trainee in Huancayo is from as well.  I had a great time with Elder Contreras in Huancayo, one of my best comps and now it looks like the same deal with Elder Avalos, he really is an excellent missionary.  So, to update you on my plans this week, tomorrow we have a training session for all the Ward Mission Leaders in Lima that our mission covers.  That’s 5 stakes of Ward Mission Leaders and All the Bishops… President Ardila is going to do the Training Session and Elder Soliz will be Presiding.  That’s tomorrow so we are all a little stressed out and trying to find a snack for the break tomorrow so that should be interesting to find someone that will cook hamburgers for about 115 people… Where is Bishop Peterson when I need him!? (…  =)! ) Haha!  But we will see what we can find! 

So you guys asked me to update you on my travel plans, and I think it will help Mom be more at peace. (Thanks Spencer, I could use some more peace in my life, that’s for sure! =)   This week I will be traveling to Tarma, and I will be there from Thursday till Monday and I will be staying with none other than the one and only ELDER BROWN! YAY!  Haha so that will be pretty sweet, he is there with another Gringo from Utah, Elder Riggs, who is also a Champion!  They are great Missionaries, in the hardest zone in the mission right now and they are really doing a great job.  We need more missionaries like them!  So life is pretty great, we are working really hard in our area.  It’s a little difficult but there are people and my comp and I have the goal to Baptize 8 people , we are bound and determined!  We are Challenging The WHOLE WORLD to Baptism! Haha!  So I really enjoyed your letters last week!!

I love yall sososososo Much and I thank you for your patience and love you really show for me! Thanks SO MUCH!

Love,

Elder McGhie! 

 The Office Elders!! =)
Elder Udall, Elder Avalos,
Elder McGhie,Elder Moralez,
Elder Daga and Elder Dodge!!
Not sure if I have them in the right order???



  Spencer and Elder Daga (I think?)




Spencer and his new companion,
 Elder Avalos!



What a week it was!

Estimada Familia y Amigos!

   

Well hey how are ya, it’s your Prodigal Son here writing you back (He is making fun of us because we didn’t hear from him yesterday and I wasn’t happy about it...................so, I got an F- on this one but I can do better next time, I hope =) ??)! Haha   Oh, family you make me laugh so, so hard.  I thank you for the love, and concern that you have for me.  Sorry I couldn´t write you guys yesterday!!  I was on a bus returning from La Merced (that’s in the Jungle =O) and I got to come back with Elder Brown on the same bus!  So that was Pretty Awesome!!  So, you guys gotta understand that this is part of my assignment.  I´m sorry, but these thing will happen in these next few months and you’ve  gotta have Patience and Faith (Oh……that’s no problem! Haha)!!  So, I am asking you to just wait for my emails, with a little bit of Faith!(I can do this…I can do this…I really can do this =)!!!!

So I am having a few troubles loading pics but as you can see from the one I sent that I got to go to the JUNGLE this week! YEAH!! YEAH!  It was so cool and so GREEN!  I was there for 4 days and it was so great, I would absolutely LOVE to end my Mission in La MERCED.  It was pretty cool, it was stake conference there and Elder Pino was there to speak. I got to talk to him and He told me he had talked to you guys and he was pretty happy.  SO life is good, we had the Zone Leader Conference today so I’m pretty tired.  But I got my new comp today! His name is Elder Avalos!   Yes that’s right another CHILENO! YES!  haha This is my 4th comp from Chile and now I have had more companions from Chile than any other country and I have had more comps from Chile than anyone in the Mission!  Yeah!  (SHOUT OUT TO JORDY BROWN AND ALEX IN CHILE!)  I guess Chile is pretty cool, but it doesn’t even compare to PERU! Haha!! Oh and dad, my comp actually had problems with his visa in Chile, so he served in President Laycock´s mission for about a month and he was there in the office with him.  He says he is a Champion.  And I talked to another Elder from Chile this week who also knows President Laycock and he said he is so Amazing and SUPER PODEROSO when he gives talks and conferences.  So I have heard quite a bit about President Laycock and that he is a great mission president.  My comp wants his email address to write him and tell him he that he is an assistant now and thank him, I don’t know if he will need president Laycocks permission for that but he just wanted to know. 

So mom, here are some details for you about my different trips (Okay, so I asked a few times in my last email to please tell me more details about his trips, like where he went and which missionaries he got to see and be with!  It is so fun for me to hear about him getting to see these missionaries because I know quite a few of their moms through the Peru missionary moms email group and the Peru Lima East Facebook group!!  Oh and I read the blogs of the missionaries whose moms keep blogs for them, so I sort of feel like I know the missionaries too and their moms are all so wonderful, they have helped me so much during this experience as a mom of a missionary!!  I really love knowing the moms of the missionaries in Spencer’s mission, it helps me feel like I am a part of what Spencer is doing………… it makes me happy……so… I am a bit weird, I can’t help it so “don’t judge me” (that is one of Spencer’s favorite things to say) =)!!)  Cerro de Pasco was great I was with Elder Pritchett, Elder Madsen and Elder Poindexter!  Elder Madsen, Elder Pritchett and I traveled from Cerro to Huánuco together with President Ardila, in his car.  In Huánuco I was with Elder Sheridan, Elder Krebs and Elder Norris!  But this week In La Merced I was with Elder Bean, who is somehow related to the Hansen’s (I have told him a million times that Elder Bean is Ashley’s husbands brother, he never listens to me =)!! and he is a really great Missionary!!

So I Love ya’ll!  My time is out so I got to go, sorry my pics are failing but I will send more home when I write you this Saturday! LOVE YA!

Elder Spencer Marty McGhie

 



These pictures are all from
La Merced, which is in the Jungle =)!!