Valencia is being nice to Smiles

What a week of ups and downs. I got my new companion. He is a boss. I love him. He is pretty much a tall Elder Jones. Including all the dry humor. Good stuff.

I´ll start with the bad news, Orlirio and his family, that was supposed to be baptized this week, said that they would need money from the church. That is hard to work with, especially when the leaders don´t want to have to be constantly working with welfare. I hope they can be baptized for the right reasons.

Now all the good news, Noris, she is my favorite. This week I will try hard to get a picture of her to y´all. She works so much. she works sometimes 12 hours a day and is almost impossible to visit her. What a hassle. She came to church yesterday even though she was sick. She makes me so happy! We gave her a blessing and it was incredible! The spirit was so strong in that room. Noris and her Sister Vilma are from Ecuador and it is tough to be away from the family during this time. I told them that we would be their family this Christmas and you could just see the warmth in their faces when we said that. 

Huge miracle Sunday night, as we were walking home we walked past an apartment complex. I turned to Elder Smith. ¨Let´s do something bold¨ I knocked on the glass door to get the man’s attention who was waiting to catch the elevator. I signaled him to open the door for us. After a bit of a stutter he came and opened the door for us. We started to talk and he showed much interest in our message so we shared our message with him and he liked it a lot. After the closing prayer and on our way out he said ¨I didn´t want to open the door but the Holy Ghost told me that I should open the door.¨ That was such a wonderful miracle.

I am excited to talk with y´all! I am even more excited for the Christmas spirit that we are going to carry to our friends and the members in the next 2 weeks. What a great time of the year!

Please pray for our friends and that everything will be ok with them.

I love you all!!

May god bless you!

There was a talk by L. Tom Perry called finding lasting peace...... last conference.

It reminded me of you two and what you did for me as my parents.

Élder Smiley

Streets of Valencia

Elder Perkis, the other "skinny" misssionary

Chinatown African Christmas...what a blend of cultures here!