On Tuesday morning, September 1st--after a long night of fretting and fearing I'd sleep through the call and miss my chance to talk to Elder Valentine--we were able to finally hear from Spencer! He called us at 8:00. Linda and I were driving to Salt Lake together. She took me to the office so I wouldn't miss his call. He called at 8:00 and talked to us until nearly 9:00. We had an entire hour with him! It was really such an amazing experience. We were both overwhelmed with the Spirit and emotion and righteous pride all through the call. Here's a few highlights of what we talked about:
- He bought himself a 500 minute phone card so he had plenty of time to talk!!
- Linda asked him if he knew any of the missionaries he was traveling with and how many. He said he didn't know them, there were 12-15 of them, and that somehow he ended up being their "travel leader" for the group! Pretty funny!
- We asked if he was the only one who didn't get his VISA and he said it was just him and one of the Sisters. Bummer for Spencer!
- We asked him about the food--it was a very funny response. He said that he had gained NINE POUNDS over the past six weeks!! He kept saying: "It's gross! My stomach is all squishy!" He said the food was better than on our cruise! Tons of cookies, chocolate milk . . .plus then sitting around in all the classes. No wonder he got fattened up!
- We asked him if he had been healthy the whole time at the MTC. Elder Valentine said that he had gotten a cold early on, but just a for a few days and then he's been great ever since. He said that reminded him that there was a sister missionary in his district that had a cough and it never went away the whole time! In every meeting it was always a pattern: 6 coughs in sets of 2. In one meeting he counted and she coughed 250 times!!
- When talking about exercise at the MTC, he said they played a lot of volleyball because there was an Elder who was going to play volleyball in college so he always wanted to play it. When he and Elder Meza (his companion) were on opposing teams they both went up to spike the ball at the same time and coming down Spencer landed on him and his knee slammed into Elder Meza's leg, injuring him severely! Elder Meza was on crutches and had an MRI and everything! At first the doctor thought Elder Meza may be delayed on leaving for his mission! Spencer carried his book bag and opened doors for him and helped him out, but also teased him about being a crippled missionary (ha ha ha!)
- We asked him about his responsibilities as a Zone Leader -- he talked about the prank that occurred on his first day as being a ZL and how he had to talk with those involved about obedience. Spencer told them that the MTC is a dedicated building just like the temple and that they were now on the Lord's time. He has a hard time understanding how any missionary would not want to be perfectly obedient and follow the rules. Spencer is just so good!
- Linda and I asked him how he's feeling about going to California. He said he's really excited! He knows that's where he is supposed to be and he's just excited to be out there doing missionary work. He even had set a goal to place his first Book of Mormon while at the airort, but we talked to him so long he probably didn't end up doing that . . .
- When we were wrapping up he said he would like to tell us something in Portuguese. He bore his testimony and he sounded like a missionary coming HOME instead of one just going out! His pronunciation was amazing and he just sounded so good. Linda could understand everything he said! Linda couldn't remember it all now--we should have written it down sooner, but here are some things she remembers him saying in Portuguese: "I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer and that he can save us from our sins. Even when things go wrong we can be happy. Heavenly Father has a plan for his children.
We had a really cool experience with the call. We knew his call would come between 6-9 AM because his flight was at 9:50. we wanted to be together when he called so we could both hear and talk with him together. Linda canceled her walking and I went into work late. Even Anna and Ethan were hoping he'd call before they went to school. Sadly that didn't happen. I came up with a plan that would ensure that me and Linda would be together at lest. I needed to be at work by 9:15 to join a meeting, so Linda drove me to work. That way we'd be in the car together for the call. We dropped Ethan off at 8 and started driving. As we got on the freeway, Spencer called! We started talking to him and listening to him (it was SO cool to hear his voice!) and not long after we got on the road, traffic came to almost a complete stop. But we didn't care! It actually made it easier to focus on the conversation since Linda didn't have to do a lot of driving and maneuvering.
About half way through the call, Linda had the thought: "Traffic will clear as soon as our call is done." After about 20 more minutes of bad traffic, I was starting to worry about getting to my meeting. But w were enjoying the conversation with Spencer so much! But literally, as soon as we said goodbye (and we both got very emotional!) traffic cleared up! The moment we hung up the traffic just cleared like the Red Sea and I got to work on time! What an amazing experience!
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