Elder Spencer Romney : march 21, 2016 letter

Dear Family:

It has been an incredible week this week. We have seen so many miracles and things in this ward have completely flipped around since Elder Bromley and I got together. It has been a blast serving here.

This week, we got in contact with one of the old investigators in the teaching records that Elder Searcy and Elder Serr met again. We asked Elder and Sister Abrams if we could invite Justin to dinner with us to have a discussion there with him. We had a lot of small talk, and got to know him a lot better. The spirit prompted us to begin to talk to him about the Book of Mormon. We asked him if he had read from the Book of Mormon before and taken up the promise in Moroni 10: 3-5. We didn't expect the answer that we received, but he told us that he had read from it and had prayed and came to know the church is true. He felt a very overwhelming feeling, as he prayed, that it had to come from God. We asked him what he thought the next step was, and he said that he needed to be baptized. We asked him when he wanted to be baptized, and he said "in the spring time... so like now..." Haha it was awesome. The next meeting we had with him he set his own baptismal date for the 16th of April. We set up all of the appointments and all of the other necessary things that he needs to do, to be ready for baptism. He called us out of the blue a day after this meetings and said "I know we didn't plan to meet today, but can we meet again today anyway"? We taught him the restoration and it was awesome. He came to church with us on Sunday and got along really well with all of the people there. He said that he loved it and loved the feeling that he had being there.

We had a pretty intense lesson with a family. This is the family where the wife isn't a member and she won't let the daughter be baptized. She is such an amazing lady and we love talking to her, but she just isn't open to the message of the restoration at this time. We ended up talking to her about reading the Book of Mormon and she said that she had read it and felt that it wasn't true. After asking her some questions, we realized that she wasn't even praying to know for herself if it was true, she was praying to try and see if it was true for someone else. The spirit became pretty intense during the lesson. We asked her what was the most important thing in her life, and she answered that it was her family. We explained that the only way that she could have any hope of her family being together after this life, and having those relationships perpetuate beyond the grave, was to be sealed in the temple. It doesn't matter if you're a part of another major religion, or self proclaimed, or atheist, or agnostic, no other sect professes to be able to seal families together forever. I explained to her that I hope and pray this message is true, and I believe that this message is true, because if it isn't, I wouldn't be able to be with my family after this life. It was an amazing lesson and we will see if she ends up reading from the Book of Mormon again, and sincerely praying about it for herself.

We lost contact with an investigator for a while because of family matters that were going on with her, but we ended up just going by and singing to her and we invited her to the fireside that we were going to be holding on Sunday evening. The fireside was so great, and consisted of 3 speakers. All 3 were converts to the church and it was amazing. Elder Bromley and I sang "I Need the Every Hour". I could feel the spirit there, but I also specifically felt Annie's spirit as we were singing. It was a great experience. There was a girl there who was recently baptized and she came up to us after and asked us how we chose that song? We hadn't planned to sing it at first, but felt the spirit guide us to it about an hour before. She explained that it was a song she had listened to in her christian church a long time ago and it brought back so many warm memories. She is awesome!

I am being transferred this week and it is going to be hard to leave all of the relationships that I have built here in Newberg. It has been such a great experience serving here and has probably been one of the areas that I have grown the most in all of my mission. I feel like I am actually getting the grasp of missionary work as my mission comes to a close in the next few months. We have worked hard to flip two areas around here in Newberg and have ended up being successful. I will be headed back to work in Spanish again, which i'm really excited about. I can't wait to see what the Lord holds in store for me. Please pray for me to remember my Spanish and be strong enough to do what the Lord needs me to do.

I am going to need a lot of prayer this next week and prayers for the peoples hearts that they will be prepared by angels.

I love you all!!

Love, Elder Romney (: