Almost one more month gone!

        I'm all smiles reading your letters.  It doesn't ever really matter what you all write about, just that you exist and you're my family and you're so good at writing every week.  Really, I'm so blessed. Not every missionary gets to hear from their parents and siblings every single week.  Good job, keep it comin'!

This week was really interesting.  It was one of those weeks where we pounded the pavement, knocked on doors, and talked to absolutely everyone, and couldn't seem to see results.  But as I was looking back over the week last night, we saw so many miracles this week.

One of our miracles is Carlo.  He's 14 and such an incredible person.  I really just feel blessed to know him.  He's an amazing example of being humble and teachable.  He hasn't been able to progress as much as he could  this week because he often has to help his family out, but I have high hopes for him.  He's really opening the door for his family to accept the gospel.

Another miracle this week was Ausencio.  He's not even our investigator yet, but he will be soon!  A few nights ago we went and knocked on the door of a former investigator.  As we were knocking on the door, Ausencio, who lives there too, came up the stairs.  He didn't seem super interested, so we just waited for the former investigator to come to the door.  We asked the former investigator about some of the things he learned a year ago when he talked with the missionaries.  Ausencio started listening.  The former investigator told us he wasn't interested, but Ausencio stuck around.  At first I was wary and wanted to get away because he is what we call "BIEN Catolico," or "REALLY Catholic" and seemed to just want to fight about the Bible.  Sister Bram explained very simply and clearly about the Apostasy and Restoration of the Gospel, and we both bore our testimonies of the Book of Mormon.  His interest perked and he told us to bring him a copy of the Book of Mormon the next day.  We went with the book, showed him how to use the footnotes and study the Book of Mormon with the Bible, and talked about praying to receive answers.  He started reading right away.  We started another conversation with another person in the house, who really did just want to fight.  All the while, as we were trying to keep contention out of the house, Ausencio was flipping through the Book of Mormon and reading  passages.  It was amazing to see a literal change of countenance as he read from the Book of Mormon.  His speech became reverent and I could tell just by looking at him that he could feel the Spirit.   He even defended us against his friend, who was trying to attack us for not drinking coffee. He told him to speak respectfully to us, and then he promised that he would read the Book of Mormon and pray. Truly a miracle, to see the power of the Spirit working on someone and opening his heart.  I'll let you know what happens with him!

I love this work.  I love seeing the changes come in peoples' lives. Success is coming to our area, in different ways than we've expected.  The changes in peoples' lives truly come from the Spirit!