Todo bien!

This week was so great!!! I loved Specialized Training! It got me SO PUMPED to work really hard and my faith was strengthened so much! 

A miracle for me this week was yesterday. After church we did Zapato Misional. It was so amazing to be with the members and the other missionaries in our district to visit less actives and investigators in their homes to sing and to share testimony. I felt the Spirit and I just felt a lot of love in the room when we did that. Elder Smiley in one of the homes asked me to bear my testimony so I did. It was really good that he did that. 

The members in Valencia 2 are SO AWESOME. We have member lessons all the time because of them. They invite US to go out and teach their friends with them. It´s so great. There´s a recent convert, Richard. He´s from Nigeria. He is the sweetest man. Our ward mission leader, also from Nigeria, told us a story about him. Richard had been reading the Liahona before bed once about miracles happening to various latter day saints. He had a dream that night that he was riding his bike, and someone gave him money. The next day was sunday and Richard didn´t have enough money to come to church but he rode his bike and someone gave him some money and he could ride the bus to church!! How amazing is that! The strength of the members here, especially Richard strengthens me so much. Richard is very giving and likes to give us gifts. I asked my comp, ¨Why does Richard give us stuff, when he doesn´t even have enough money to ride the bus to church?¨and she said ¨that´s just how Richard is¨. He´s so FUERTE! 

I admire my companion a lot. I´m so glad to be with her. I know that I´m very lucky to have her. We work hard. We work full days. We try really hard. She likes to correct my pronunciation. It humbles me a lot because sometimes I don´t think her own pronunciation is very good so why is she correcting mine? But I know she´s just trying to help me and it teaches me to be very humble. If we go over time at lessons, we end up running back to piso to make it in before 10. Usually after we have eaten with members so I´m like super full and hating that we´re running. But she looks at me like do you want to be obedient or not, so we keep running. 

A personal miracle I had was that I wanted to try really hard after Specialized training to EXPLODE out of bed in the morning instead of groaning and murmuring in my head like ¨is it really morning already¨.  So I´ve been working on that this week and I actually notice a huge difference on the day. Our alarm goes off and immediately I pull off the covers and go into prayer mode and it really helps because I start the day off on my knees instead of feeling tired. It reminds me that I´m here for God and not for me. It just starts the day off right.

Also my companion told me that Elder Smiley shaves every morning. Even though he doesn´t have any facial hair. But because it says it in the white bible for elders to shave everyday, he does. He´s like ¨well I just have to be obedient¨. I love that. He´s my inspiration. 

Está todo bien.

Con amor,

Hermana Birch

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