bonjour

CHERS AMIS, ((dear friends))

Why am I speaking in French you ask???  Well, my new companion is the absolute CUTEST thing from Paris, France!!!  Her name is Hermana Malterre and she is AMAZING and we have already seen so many miracles!!!!  She speaks a little bit of English but not too much so we end up always speaking Spanish together.  She's from Hermana Højholdt's group so I know her from the MTC and we get along great. She is a really hard worker and a really really good missionary.  I am already learning so so much from her.

This week was surprisingly marvelous!!!!!  Well, not really a surprise but I think I expected it to be a lot harder than it was.   It was incredibly sad to let Hermana Taggart leave but I think the mission will be in great hands having her up there in Malaga.  She is an amazing missionary and I learned so much from her in our time together.  Our last transfer together was so fun but it was like getting to live with your best friend, serving the lord, working hard, and seeing miracles every day.  I'm gonna miss that lady a ton but it's not too bad because I'll be seeing her today!!!!

Okay, story time:

There is a less active man (Alfonso) that I have been passing by so often in my last 3 transfers here and he is never home or "never has time."  On the last week with Hermana Taggart we passed by and just talked to him about life and he was SO NICE.  We got his trust and invited him to our St Patrick's activity and then his wife came out and we met her and their cute daughters and the mom said, "why don't you guys pass by this week and have a family home evening with us?" !!!!!  UM CLARO QUE SI-especially because the mom and three daughters are not members. So Hermana Malterre and I passed by and it was so so good.  We had some snacks and got to know them a little and then shared a way fun message.  We turned the lights off and had everyone draw a self portrait.  Of course, everyone's pictures were so ugly and so funny and then we turned the lights on and did it again and all the pictures turned out a lot better.  We talked about how Jesus Chris is the light of the world and how everything is a lot easier when we have his light in our lives.  The spirit was seriously so strong during the whole lesson.  We ended it with a family prayer on our knees and I have seriously never felt so much love for other people in my life.  The spirit was so strong and I'm positive we all felt it.  We invited them to do a family prayer together every night and they said they would do it!!!!  Alfonso has not been to church in like 25 years so please keep him in your prayers that his heart will soften and he will come back.

In other really exciting news, I got to spend the whole day in San Fernando ((when Hermana Taggart left me)) and I got to see all my friends!!!!!  It was so fun visiting all the people I haven't seen in months.  Madre mia I miss San Fernando so much. We had a correlation with the ward mission leader and Lorenzo and Andi ((who are now the ward missionaries)) and my heart just wanted to explode with happiness seeing how excited they are to help with missionary work.  God is so good to me :-)

I'm on my way to consejo right now so I don't have too much time but thank you all for everything!!!!!!  SENDING ALL MY LOVE FROM ACROSS THE OCEAN.

Avec amor,

Hermana Spangler

                                                          Matching shirts with my girl

                                                                      Gerrard!!!!!!!

                                                                       Mi Chanita

                                                           Some of my lovely jerezanas

                                                 We have a new missionary over here!!!!!

                                                                Hermana Malterre :')

                             The new and improved 4th transfer district--we have people from 

                                                  America, Spain, France, and Germany.