Week #12 Oxford

September 28, 2016

       My week has been pretty good! Last Wednesday night we had dinner with a couple with the last name the Givens. He is a Mormon Theological author! I guess he is super famous and he has written loads of books that are published by the Oxford Press. One of his most popular books is called "By the Hand of Mormon". They are just here in Oxford taking a 6 month sabbatical from him being a professor. It was crazy but way fun talking with him. I'm pretty sure he could quote the whole Bible and the Book of Mormon as well! Hahaha so that was really cool and they are such a great couple. 

         Friday, we had weekly planning in the morning and it was long as always haha nothing new with that! Then later in the afternoon we went and painted the Pakintyien's fence. They're members in the ward and then we had dinner with them afterwards! She always cooks so much food for us! And the thing is, she just keeps putting food on our plates until all the food is gone, haha. So we always leave extra stuffed... 😂 we also stopped by another members home that night and taught them a lesson. 

         Saturday we went and did some "less active hunting" in an area of Oxford. In England there are loads of less active members! Like loads so we just wanted to try and stop by some of their homes  just to see if they are still living there and if we could come back again! We taught a few... We also stopped by a less active family called the Espoirs that we haven't seen for a while. Their son just got the new Xbox One S! It looked pretty sweet! Anyways we then went and stopped by Roy Matthews. We see him every week! He's a great guy. 

         Saturday night was the first night that we didn't have a dinner appointment in a couple weeks, but the bishops wife said if we ever don't have a dinner appointment we can just give her a call and she would order us pizza! So we had some pizza delivered to our flat! Hahaha I know we are so spoiled! The pizza was really good though! The ward is so amazing. 

          Sunday was really great as well! We got to church and prepared the sacrament. Then we greeted a bunch of members as they came in. There were even more new people moving in for school! It's so crazy! Most of the YSA students still haven't even come yet! The ward has almost doubled in a matter of 3 weeks! It's always good to see a full chapel. We tried to get in contact with more of those less actives on our list! We also had correlation with our ward mission leader at his house. 

           Monday was a good day. We taught several of our investigators. We taught one of our friends called Ben again! He has been reading a praying from the Book of Mormon so that's always good. Hopefully we can help him start coming to church. Then Monday night we taught Joss, we had Brother Travers teach with us. That went really well! Brother Travers helped out so much, he got home from his mission 1 year ago from this mission! He knew Skyler Munson who served here for those of you who know Skyler. But We're now going to start teaching Joss at the Travers house! So that will be really great! 

           Monday night the Whitney Elders came and stayed the night with us because early Tuesday morning we had to travel to Staines for a Tri Zone Conference. I guess they're really struggling right now to get along so they were really happy to be with other missionaries. We have been trying to help them out as best we can. 

           Tuesday we had to catch a train pretty early to get to Staines. It was a 2 hour journey, then since I'm being trained I had an extra meeting from 9 to 10 and then the conference from 10 to about 6 with a lunch in between! The conference was super amazing! 

           We learned about how when we teach about baptism it shouldn't be just some routine or lesson we just do. We need to teach our friends (investigators) that baptism is essential to returning to God again! Teaching with love, passion, faith, boldness, and fire!!! It is a very very sacred ordinance that some times as members we take for granted. Being able to teach someone that doesn't know about the gospel that through baptism we can be cleansed of every sin or feelings of guilt is something that would blow their minds and change lives forever!!! I just loved that about this meeting. It got me so PUMPED about this next month. Also as a mission we set a goal that has been inspiration from God for 31 baptisms in October. Might not be a lot but for us it's a high goal that hasn't been achieved in awhile. So pray for hashtag #31(: haha Facebook trending thing on our group Facebook chat. 

             Well that's pretty much been my week! It's been great!! Hope you all are doing good(:

Much love from Oxford!! 

-ELDER MCSPADDEN 

Tri-Zone Conference in Staines!

 Elder Veenker, Elder Cloward AP, and                                   Elder Veenker, 
Elder McSpadden                                                                      Elder McSpadden
Elder Cloward played football for Wasatch                              Elder Still
and I guarded him in 7 on 7. So cool!                                       (from the MTC)

Elder Menlove's nice haircut I gave him!    Painting a fence for service! I am wearing a T-Shirt that says "I am Mormon" and it's been handed down in the mission for 6 years!

Week #11 Oxford

September 21, 2016

Harvest week! GROW MODEL.  

    Hey everybody!! This week has been great so far! As a mission we have been challenged by our Mission President to share the GROW MODEL to the members in our wards to try and get referrals because the best way to do missionary work is through members. The Grow Model stands for Goal, Reality, Option, and Way forward. We teach this to members to help them achieve their overall goal in doing missionary work to help someone come unto Christ by either bringing them to church or letting missionaries teach them. This week we have had dinner appointments every night which is amazing because that's really rare and it's great because we have seen so much success from teaching the Grow Model. Members are already referring there friends to church and missionaries so hopefully these next couple weeks we can start teaching more people! 

    Elder Menlove and I had the chance to go down to Reading where the Zone Leaders are and have exchanges with them! I was with Elder Biddle from Australia and our 24 hours consisted of contacting and knocking doors. We had a lot of people stop to talk to us with many return appointments but we also had a lot of people stop to bash and tell us how we are wasting our time, haha. Overall it was good but one thing that was sweet was we had a dinner appointment with a part member family and the father was the one who wasn't a member. Really shy guy so it was hard to talk to him but finally he asked, since I was American, if I followed American football? I was like heck yes it's my passion I love football! Turns out this English guy knows everything about football. He's a Steelers fan so we talked about them and Antonio Brown and his good year last year. This guy just lit up because he loved talking about football with me. After that great conversation I brought up the church and asked if he could come with his family. He said he would come and that he would take off work to do so as well! Miracle because this guy hasn't come to church with his fam for quite awhile. I feel like God prepares people in different ways and that is one of the ways I have seen his hand in the work we do as missionaries! Hopefully I can here from the Zone Leaders soon to see if he's taking the lessons. 

    Nothing really has happened with our investigators lately. Joss is one of them and he said a prayer at the end of one of our lessons which was great so we are going to keep on going strong with him. 

   Also the recent convert James was having a rough week with school and stuff so we baked him some brownies that we got from a member and gave it to him! He was so excited cuz this dude loves food haha. It was nice to see him smile and be happy! 

    I have started to read the Book of Mormon from start to finish again and I'm loving it so much!! It's weird how you come to love your studies on a mission because before I didn't like it to much! It's crazy to see how Nephi had so much faith and a testimony to get him through so many trials in life. I'm trying to do the same and I challenge everyone to do so as well. Have faith in Christ and he will lead the way!!(:  I love the Book of Mormon and I know for a fact that it's the word of God.

Love you all! Have a good week! 

     

-ELDER MCSPADDEN 

Week #10 Oxford

 Heyyyyyy it's ya boy Elder McSpadden saying what up from Oxford!! Pretty successful week we have had here filled with some good things happening! 

   

    We went to go teach a recent convert the other night and when we came both his daughters and her friends were there ( non members). One of the friends just started asking us all these questions about who we are and what we are doing teaching about God! We said, well we can sit down and have a better discussion if you would like. So she (Shaun) sat down and we taught her about the gospel with the recent convert Joe sitting there with us! It was amazing because that was the first time Joe has had a chance to teach someone else about his beliefs! She was very interested and hopefully we will get to meet up with her again soon! 

    Another cool story is while we were walking to the church house to do a progress record, I was feeling a bit discouraged because we hadn't had a whole lot of success that day with lessons or contacting. But there is a basketball court near the chapel so we walked by and two guys were playing basketball. Elder Menlove and I decided to go over and ask to play a little game of two on two! They said sure so as we were playing they asked me what we do as missionaries. I told them that we find people on the streets to play basketball with and if we beat them they have to sit down and have a lesson with us(; They laughed pretty hard at that, until we beat them!! Haha some drunk guy showed up and started harassing us saying how we wouldn't win but I just kept telling him to sit down and be the cheerleader and watch me win. Lol, he respected us so much when we beat these guys in white shirts and ties! Anyways we were running late so we got there contact info and invited them to church the next day. Sunday roles around and one of the guys (AJ) walked into the last hour of church! Elder Menlove and I were just like this is a miracle!! He was saying how he wants to have that lesson we talked about and come to church again next Sunday! He had to leave fast but we set up a time this week to teach him so hopefully that all goes through! God prepares people in many ways! P.S. (Elder Menlove said in 11 months of being on his mission that was the first investigator to come to church!) 

    We had a lesson with our investigator Joss this last week as well!! We prayed and read from the Book of Mormon and he said he felt the spirit!! I was getting so pumped I could barley sit still... The lesson we had was amazing and at the end he said a prayer for us! Can't wait to teach him again and see his progress happen. 

    Another investigator that we taught was Peter. He's not progressing because he has some hard things happening in his life right now so we decided when we went over to just try and cheer him up a little. He loves martial arts so we went over and Peter taught us some martial arts. It was good to see him smile and have some fun. It made it so the short message we had with him was enjoyable and the sprit could be there with us. 

    Idk if I have talked about this before but there is this kebab truck that we walk past every night and wave at the workers so that maybe one day they will hook us up with a free kebab. But yeah we walked past it the other night and one of the guys (Abraham) came out of the truck and wanted to talk to us! He's from Kazakhstan and thinks we are way cool haha. He asked us if we wanted to get together sometime and talk a little more about what we do as missionaries and why we dress so "smart" every day! I was pumped cuz now our chances of getting a free kebab increased and we have a new investigator(;   Sketchy thing is after we talked with him some guy came up to me asking if I wanted to buy drugs from him! I laughed and said no but do you wanna here about the Book of Mormon. He got all mad and ran off but at least we tried to help the man! SAY NO TO DRUGS!  

    Last night a lady named Sheila in the ward that my dad knew on his mission here took us out to a buffet... That was another highlight of the week! 

I also baked a cake for Elder Menlove and I celebrating my parents birthdays this week!! Haha it was way good. 

Happy Birthday Mom and Dad love you both!!! Don't get to many gray hairs while I'm gone<3 

   

Love the work that is happening in Oxford and I love the happiness the gospel can bring to families(: 

 

Love you all. 

-ELDER MCSPADDEN 

Week #9 Oxford

September 7, 2016
Yoooo,

    Elder Menlove and I are staying here in Oxford for at least another transfer! I love it here in Oxford so I hope I can stay here for awhile! Elder Menlove was made the district leader because we had so many people move or go home! He was kinda mad about it at first because there is a lot more on your shoulders when your a district leader but he's chill now. He keeps saying that he's going to delegate it all to me so I have to do the work and he gets the credit, haha. Don't see that happening at all! 

    We went on exchanges this week and I was with Elder Taochy from France! When I was on exchanges with him we went and stopped by a potential investigator to teach a lesson. Her name is Carla and she's from Portugal. This ladies husband is a member but he's gone less active so we were teaching her about his religion. The husband was totally fine with us teaching her and she was loving the message about the Restoration and how the Gospel is so good for families. As we came to the end I had a strong feeling to invite her to be baptized! So I said,  "As you come to know of the truthfulness of this message will you prepare yourself to be baptized"? She said she would be baptized! We didn't set a date because she wants to learn more but that was a miracle in itself that she said yes and her husband approved! I'm way sad because I won't be able to see her progress but I'm going to try and get permission to go to the baptism if the new Elders have the chance to baptize her.   
    We went to a wedding this week of a member as well. She married a nonmember so now we have a new Investigator to teach. His name is Luke! Very cool guy and we will start teaching him hopefully when they are back from their honeymoon. We went and helped take down and clean up and that got us a lot of free food which was sweeeet. 

    Awhile back I said how we were teaching a guy from Sudan and he went on holiday forever so he just texted us and said he's back in Oxford today so hopefully tomorrow we can teach him! He loves the message we share so hopefully we can make that next step to baptism. 

    This last Sunday the recent convert James (the hacker) (19 yrs old) came to church!! He's such a cool guy but I think he just hasn't felt comfortable with coming because all the YSA students left. Now they are all back and we have become way tight with him so he's more willing to come. Couple days ago he invited us over for dinner and it was way fun to talk and chill. He likes us a lot and we get along so it has helped with getting him to church and different activities. 

    In this months letter that our Mission President sent out, he sent a really cool story that I want to share with you all! In my mission prep class with the Doman's we talked about it as well. It's something that just gets me so pumped, haha. Elder Menlove and I are trying to memorize it right now: 

                                          FELLOWSHIP OF THE UNASHAMED 

“In 1980 a young man from Rwanda was forced by his tribe to either renounce Christ or face certain death. He refused to renounce Christ, and he was killed on the spot. The night before he had written the following commitment which was found in his room: 

“I’m part of the fellowship of the unashamed, the die has been cast, I have stepped over the line, the decision has been made- I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I’m finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed vision, worldly talking, cheap giving & dwarfed goals. My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I won’t give up, shut up, let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up for the cause of Jesus Christ. I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till everyone knows, work till He stops me & when He comes for His own, He will have no trouble recognizing me because my banner will have been clear.”

    I remember in mission prep the Doman's would make us say this loud and proud like we were missionaries. I'm now a missionary and it means a lot more to me. I am a Disciple of Jesus Christ and I'm proud to say so! I love this gospel with all my heart and I'm going to try my hardest to share its greatness to all the people here in Oxford! 

BE GREAT! 

Love you all!

Elder McSpadden

Elder Mahrt from Vernal Utah, heading home. My first District Leader, he's a stud!

Service in the Rain!

Bus Riding Life!

 Just got done playing basketball with the 17 year old from Congo! He's way good and headed to Reading to play which is south of Oxford.  I'm bummed he's leaving but excited for him to do what he loves. 

Cool streets in Oxford! I love it here, Oxford England is amazing and I will always love the people I meet and serve!

"Forget Me Not Way" What all missionaries hope for while they're gone for two years! 

Week #8 Oxford

August 31, 2016
Hello!!

    This week was pretty good but nothing really exciting has happened, all of our investigators are either out of town or not answering us back. It will be a lot better because school is starting up soon and Oxford University is about to have soooo many students. 

   We went on exchanges this week and I was with Elder Mahrt the District Leader who leaves back home in two weeks so it was nice to see how he does things! We were able to teach Peter the man who has had problems with the law and is having a hard time being happy. So it was nice to share a nice uplifting message with him to brighten his spirits. We teach him every week and he never wants to progress much more than he has which is hard for us but we will keep on trying different ways to have the spirit touch his heart. 

    The other night we were walking back to our flat and this man named Craig stopped us on the street saying he knew us and wanted to hear what we had to say. I was pumped because this was the first person who had talked to us all day so we started talking about what we do as missionaries. Half way through he stopped us and started giving us this whole story about why he is homeless and how he's a good man and doesn't drink, smoke, or do drugs but he was smoking and you could smell alcohol on him, haha. After that he went on for 10 min about why he's homeless we asked if he wanted to learn more about the Book of Mormon and how it could help him. He said maybe but first do you have some money I can have? We said no and the man just walked away. Now we always see him on the streets and we say hi and he calls us his smart looking friends! I tell this story because after this I was way frustrated about why this man didn't want to learn more about the gospel, but Elder Menlove just said we planted a seed, became his friend and now he knows who missionaries are and what the Book of Mormon is. Then when God wants him to learn more he will allow it. We can't control peoples free agency but we can plant that seed by making friends and having a good reputation. 

    Elder Menlove also met a lady from West Africa while he was on exchange and she said for us to come by the market in Oxford city center to get some food. So we went by today and she hooked us up with some good African food! Such a nice lady so hopefully we can find a way to reach her as well! 

    I had the chance to give a talk in our district meeting about diligence and it's something I need to be better at. But one thing that stood out to me while I was studying is that diligence is steady, consistent, earnest, and an energetic effort in doing the Lords work. I know that as a missionary I need to be diligent in the work or I won't be an effective missionary. I love England and especially Oxford right now and I want to be that tool in the Lords hand to help others. This gospel is true and it brings so much happiness to people's lives!! 

  

Love you all! Have a good week(: 

      Elder McSpadden