January 2, 2012

Dear Family,

Wow, talk about a crazy week! New Year’s here in Jujuy is like WWII. Haha!! Seriously though, there were soo many fireworks. I normally sleep like a rock, but man, oh man, not even a bear in hibernation could sleep through that.

This week actually went great! We have this investigator named Micaela. She’s the 18 year old great granddaughter of one of our members. She was a reference and she seemed nice the first time we talked to her, but the first time we tried teaching her we heard from behind the door "if it’s the Jehovah’s witnesses tell them I’m not home." Haha. When her sister answered the door to tell us that Micaela "wasn’t home" we informed her that, all the same, we aren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since then, Micaela saw us in the street a week or so later and told us that she actually did want us to teach her, so we’ve been teaching her and she’s progressing so great. She was usually a downcast shy girl, but ever since she’s been reading the Book of Mormon and praying, she’s totally changed, she's always happy, and she was so excited to give us a reference to go teach her aunt. She’s going to come with us and have a lesson all together. The gospel really changes lives! Put it into practice and it does wonders.

This weekend I got super super sick with a nasty stomach/intestine infection. On Saturday I was knocked out. I couldn’t even stand up. Between the medicine that the mission Doc had me buy and the bills I had to pay this month, and being right at the end of the month, I was completely out of money. One of the key things I needed to recover was Gatorade, and lots of it. The problem is, here, Gatorade is really expensive, like 3 times the cost of other beverages of equivalent size, and I had no money. Well, God worked a pretty huge miracle and on Saturday and Sunday I had an investigator and a member offer me big bottles of Gatorade, which is really uncommon for someone to just have on hand at home. It was just what I needed right when I needed it and it couldn’t have waited until Monday, when I would have received my monthly allowance.

I know that the Lord knows and loves each one of us. He provides miracles for us always. We need to recognize them and thank him for them. I love you all so much!

-Elder Spencer