FUN AND EXCITING WEEK

Elder Davidson in our apartment

Hola!

This week was a very fun and exciting week! Lots of stuff happened! 

This week I went on my first exchange with my District Leader Elder Sorensen. He is an awesome Elder and loves his mission so much! When I was with him I really gained a fire to do better as a missionary because I realized how awesome the Elders in my district are and I wanted to be more like them! Luckily I got to start out with such a great district that likes to work hard and also have fun!

The Oxnard District - Elder Davidson, Elder Sorensen, Hermana Brown, ME, Elder Barlow, Hermana Winn

This week we extended 3 baptismal invitations to 2 of our investigators and someone we found while tracting and all of them said yes! Who knows what will happen after that and if they will even get baptized but it made me so excited because they are all such amazing people and it makes me happy that they are reaching out and making decisions that give new opportunities to grow in the Gospel! One is super cool because she owns a custom Pinata shop and always gives us free candy! She also said she would knit a beanie or a scarf for me for free! She is such an awesome lady and luckily I think that her testimony of the gospel is growing, little by little. Another wants to wait for the rest of his family to think about baptism because he wants all of them to join the church. So if his whole family gets Baptized that would be 5 new converts right there! That would definitely be a miracle for me in my 1st transfer in the Mission field!

Thanks Dad for the letter! I freaking loved reading it. And I could surprisingly understand all of the Spanish you wrote in it!

So this has been a really good week! Thanks to everyone for their prayers because I can definitely feel them! Love you all so much!!

Elder Ward

Oh and go watch meet the Mormons.. IT'S AMAZING!!!

THE LIFE OF ELDER WARD

OK Well here we go!

The contents of my 1st package - Thanks Mom!!  I literally flipped!  My comp didn't understand why this cereal is so great....Oh, but it is that GREAT!

 So this week has been a good week. I met a ton of new people this week and was super excited to share the gospel with them! I forgot my weekly notes so this letter might not be the longest. We have a new investigator and he is literally a real life, fast and furious car racer. His car has 800 HP and has two huge tanks with NOS in it. Sadly I can't get a ride in it on the mission so I will have to say what's up after the mission. But he has actually been investigating the church for 12 YEARS!!! Super crazy, so I hope we finally get through to him and get him and his family baptized. 

In other good news I also had my first General Conference in the mission field!! 

Here's a quick little tender mercy of The Lord, up until the first talk the whole thing was in Spanish, which would have been terrible because I cannot understand hardly ANY Spanish, but right before the first talk, the audio cut out during the song and it flicked over to English. I was so happy and glad that it switched over or I wouldn't have gotten anything out of conference. But I had a ton of personal revelation and a lot of things that I felt applied to me.  I am very grateful for that.

This week was Elder Davidson's birthday, so we had some fun parties!! So yeah, that has very roughly been the life of Elder Ward the past week! 

Love you all!

HOLA FROM VENTURA CALIFORNIA!

Well there is a lot that I want to say! Too bad I only have an hour! but here we go... 

I got to the Mission on Monday,  I had dinner at the Mission Presidents house, President Felix, and we had a ton of connections! Monday night I slept at a member's house. Tuesday we had breakfast at the Mission president's house again and then we went off to transfer meeting! So my first Companion's name is Elder Davidson. He is from American Fork Utah and he is awesome! Glad that me and my first comp could be such good friends, it's a lot easier to focus on the work when you get along with your companion! We have 2 other companionship in our district, Elder Sorenson and Elder Barlow, Hermana Winn and Hermana Brown. The whole district is killer and they are all huge examples to me. Sadly almost every lesson we have I always look like a deer in the headlights because I still don't know any spanish, but it'll come, Poco a Poco. We have visited a lot of people and I am still trying to remember all of their names. But I have been kept busy tracting and visiting non-members and less actives. It is really fun to get to know all of these people. Even if i can't understand them most the time. The Spanish I can speak is pretty much limited to bearing my testimony and simple sentences, but I get by. The mission has been really fun though despite my lack of Spanish. I attended a baptism on Saturday, it was the other elders.  I have had amazing food from the members, and I have walked a lot and biked a lot as well! Sadly I forgot my camera, I would share some sweet pictures that I have but I guess that will have to wait till next week. And I am at emails at about 11:30-12:30 because that is our scheduled time at the family history center. AAAAAAAAANNNNDDD yeah... This is my first email out in the field so it might be a little lacking. But if anyone wants to send me a letter send it to this address...

2415 Madera Circle, Unit 55

Port Hueneme CA 93041

Love you all! And Happy birthday yesterday Joshie!!

Super Sweet view of Ventura California - This was taken on my first day.

START SERVING

September 23, 2014

Elder Ward with President and Sister Felix

Hola Familia!

Right now I am in the mission!! Exciting Right!?   I am currently in the Stake House for an orientation with all the new missionaries.  Last night I stayed with Brother & Sister Overton, they were so nice to let me sleep there!  I slept so well because of the crazy travel day I had yesterday!  So my P-Day is on Monday obviously and I will then tell you the area I'm serving in, my comp and where I live.  All the good stuff! Sorry this letter has to be brief.  Another thing is you need to send mail to my address.  I'll give that to you on Monday.  I seriously love it here already!  The weather is perfect and I can't wait to get started and start serving!!

Love you all so much!!!

Elder Ward

Elder and Sister McIntosh were at the picnic area waiting for
our arrival as they had picked up lunch for us.

The missionaries are given an experience to remember upon 
arriving in the mission. President Felix is talking about 
committment and having "both feet in." 

At the mission home for dinner

Getting more instruction from President Felix and the assistants

CALIFORNIA VENTURA MISSION

Dear Brother and Sister Ward,

Thank you for sending Elder Spencer Craig Ward  to the California Ventura Mission.  He  arrived today smiling and in good health. 

A blog has been created for you to view periodically.  We hope you will enjoy finding your missionary.  The blog is:  thecaliforniaventuramission.blogspot.com 

You may expect a letter from your missionary soon, along with a photograph of him  with Sister Felix and me.

We welcome him  into the Lord's service and thank you again for sending such a valiant missionary.

Sincerely, 

Dell C. Felix President, California Ventura Mission

TRAVEL PLANS

Hola,

Just received my travel plans last night, I have special permission to email you about them. I am serving in the California Ventura mission until I receive my visa, my plane leaves SLC at 6:00a on Monday so I'm leaving the MTC at about 2:30a.  I am taking trax to the airport. My guess is that I will probably be able to call you around 4:00a or something.  Love you so much!! 

Elder Ward

My district guessing our destinations

MTC - WEEK 5

September 17, 2014

OK! I’ve gots lots of stuff to tell ya! The main thing is that I am not going to Argentina right off the bat. I did not receive with my visa and I am going to receive my temporary assignment on this Thursday or Friday. I was super bummed when i first found out but now I'm pretty excited! I mean who gets to say that they served in TWO mission areas during their mission?? Yeah not too many, but I will still be in the states for sure which will be good, I will be able to still receive packages and mail a lot faster. Other things that have happened was one thing that was super funny is that the rest of the district is across the hall from us and they ran out of toilet paper and they came over to our apartment and stole our last role, and then we decided that we had to settle this like men. We played a game of rock paper scissors to see who would win the last roll. I obviously won and my companions were so excited, it was actually extremely intense and epic!!

We also were privileged to listen to Richard G. Scott talk to us on the Tuesday night devotional and it was AMAZING!!! He talked about just simply prayer, but the talk was so powerful because you could tell by the way he talked he had a extreme testimony about prayer. I was probably about 20 feet away from him which was cool.

One of my ties broke (the little strap on the back that holds the small part of the tie in place) and I totally sewed it back together! I was proud of myself because that was the first time I have ever sewn anything in my life, and I did a pretty good job I must say so myself!

The only time I needed to get into my ARG bag was to get out my umbrella, but other than that it was a FLAWLESS packing job! Love you so much mom! and I probably won't be able to email for 2 weeks because I will miss the field email day because I will traveling on Monday or Tuesday but I will be able to in 2 weeks on Monday! love you so much mom!!

On our shuttle bus

Suckers from mom

Elder Alexander

My district at the MTC map