March 20th 2013

Hey family!! This week was GREAT! I love the ward that I am serving in. All the members are so wonderful and most of them are willing to help. I feel very close to them and I am glad to call them my friends. I really hope I can keep in contact with them after the mission. It is such a blessing to have email and Facebook these days. There were so many members at our BAPTISM on Saturday!

That's right, we had another one!! And it was very special. It was one of the best baptismal services I have seen on my mission. I felt the spirit very strongly and I know that the members and families that were there did too. Im grateful for the opportunity I have to be able to serve here in Brazil and to know the people I have met and to have made so many wonderful friends here.

We had a family home evening on Monday night and we talked about the temple and eternal families. I almost got emotional when I bore my testimony, because I just love this work so much! I have no idea what I am going to do when I get home. As much as I joke about going home, I am really going to miss my mission. This has been the best experience of my life. I am going to miss all my recent converts, all the members that I have gotten to know better, and all the other missionaries. I am going to miss being able to just feel the Spirit all the time and be able to testify and stand up for righteousness and for what I believe in.

I love the temple! I love our Prophet! I love the Book of Mormon! I love my family! I can't wait to one day become a husband and father and be able to teach all these things that I know and love to my future family. I feel so blessed in everything I do. Even though there are always hard times, we have to keep pushing through the bad so that we can see the good. I think of a flower growing out of the ground. It has to push so hard to get through that rough soil. But once it sees the sun shine, things are so much better. it is like that with our lives.

Love you guys so much! You are the best!

-Elder Spencer Eastwood

PS: The pictures are from our baptism. One is me kneeling in the middle of the road asking the Lord for direction and guidance, (I really did that and my comp was smart enough to take a picture...I loved it!) And the last attachment is of a quote that I love from Pres. Hinckley!