Email received January 27, 2014
Dear family,
Wow it sounds like a lot has happened lately. I really love this area. It is a way amazing but also truly humbling area. I am trying so hard to be a more humble person. i was reading a lot about the sons of Mosiah and also Nephi and Lehi the sons of Heleman. Mom I don't know if you remember this but i remember this time when we were very little and sitting on your bed reading from the book of mormon. I remember you reading the part about Nephi and Lehi in the prison. we were looking at the pictures of it, I don't know if you remember reading the book of Moromon with the pictures with us nightly, but i remember you telling me that Nephi and Lehi reminded you a lot of me and Zack. How amazing it is for me now to be a missionary like Nephi or Lehi and knowing that my older brother and best friend is doing the same thing. I really am honored to be a part of this work and there is nothing in the world i would give it up for. I am so grateful to have grown up in a home where the book of mormon was taught, where legal and more important eternal marriages are key. Here in the DR they don't really believe in legal marriages. Its just a piece of paper to them so whats the difference. The family truly is under attack. I was very happy yesterday though because i walked into a house in the poorest part of my area for a first lesson with some contacts we had and saw that they had framed their marriage certificate and hung it proudly on their wall. To me that gave me a lot of hope. They were poor but moral values to them were maybe more important than the food they needed that week so that they could get married. It does not matter the commandment god always provides a way for us to keep it. I know its true and i have truly seen the windows of heaven open up to me down here. Mom i will be honest with you i did not want to leave elder Mortensen or Bani. When i found out i would be going to the capital i was even less excited for some reason. I started moping about it for a little bit at a noche de hogar (family home evening) and i said a silent prayer in my heart to give me peace about leaving. The spirit chastised me pretty hard. I heard a very clear and direct voice ask me why i was so sad about leaving, i had done the work that the lord had called me to do in Bani and for elder Mortensen and now he needed me to buck up and get going on to buenos aires because he has a very important work for me here. I was very humbled by that to be honest. I know maybe that sounds all a little bit prideful but it really happened. I know i am here for a reason. I know i was called here for a reason. I am living currently 30 minutes away from my area for reasons i really don't want to go into to many details about to save you some scary feelings. Its up hill both ways and when i say hill I'm not talking about the grass mound in Aunt Diana's back yard but i mean hills. They are so steep and i don't know if i have ever been so tired in my life but its just simply not important. You really are blessed with strength beyond your own on a mission. The lord gives you daily exactly what you need. I don't know anything better than this. I was reading a conference talk given a little while ago by jeffery r holland in the which he said I don't think any youth has or could ever love their mission as much as i loved mine, to that statement i gladly contest. i love serving my mission more than anything in the world. i love these people more than anything else in the world. I have kinda become dominican as well. JAJA thanks for the compliment about working out its actually because I accidentally shrunk my shirts a little. The washing machines here are unforgiving. I have only wrecked one pair of pants in it though. Well i love you guys and i hope you have a great week. Keep working hard and doing whats right.
Con love,
Elder Spencer W. Hulsey
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