Thank you so much for your prayers. We have people to teach!

To all my dear loved ones.
I want to thank you for helping us with your prayers. I will explain all of the miracles that we have seen this past week in this email. This church is wonderful. We are blessed. Thank you.

It seems that you guys are doing incredible and I am so thankful that Heavenly Father is hearing my prayers. I love you all sooo much. I am so excited to come back in the Spring right when it is warming up because it gets really chilly hear at night. Even though I miss the snow....it's been weird to be out here almost 19 months and just not see snow. I love Utah!

That stinks about the car...But I am happy that you were able to have the money to get it up and running again. Haha that car has tons of miles on it and it's just a part of our family (:

I am so grateful as well that you guys are having wonderful spiritual experiences because without those experiences it is very easy to become inactive in the church. Please always strive to have those experiences so that we may always be strengthened.

Elder Manley and I were so grateful last night for what Heavenly Father has done for us this past week. We have finally found AMAZING people to teach that are so prepared and ready to accept the gospel in their lives.  We also had many spiritual experiences.

This past Thursday morning after working a little bit we were walking back to our room. On the street there were 2 guys sitting on the corner and we wanted to talk to them. As we approached one of them was quite unhappy to see us and as we shook their hands to greet them the man started to raise his voice and just bash on Joseph Smith. He said that the Bible says no such thing as an American prophet, that he is false and so many mean things against our church. But before I could let him go any further I stopped him and said... "Look, you don't have to talk to us like that. We are just young men who teach about Christ and his gospel and ministry. We are from the United States and we came here to Peru to teach what we know to be true. Now if you have heard some bad things about the church that is fine because I have met many people who believe false things about this church. But we know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I understand that you may be confused about what we believe in. But listen to us that Joseph Smith was a prophet. We don't pray to him, we don't worship him. But he DID restore this gospel. There are true prophets today who guide us." We basically explained to him and his friend about the Restoration. It was sooo amazing to see the spirit work in them. He went from a grumpy man who hated us and this church to a man who really listened and had sincere questions. We left them with a pamphlet about the Restoration and now every time we walk by him, he says, "Hermanos!!!! Como estan!!!" with a big grin on his face. It was amazing.

Elaine, the 19 year old girl that I wrote you about last week, is really progressing. We taught a powerful lesson about the Restoration Friday morning and she was soo happy to hear the lesson and she had great questions and we were able to help her really well to understand. We invited her to the conference for the Sunday Morning Session and we picked her up and she was soo happy to be there. Her grandma didn't come because she had things to do but her grandma listens as well and is happy to see a change in Elaine. Before the conference started Elaine told me that she felt she really needed to come and that she was there for a reason. We hope to put a baptismal date with her this coming week.

We also met a 15 year old girl named Angeles. We knocked on her door and she told us that she always wanted to go to church but never knew what time it was at. When we leave her with stuff to read she reads them and knows it sooo well. She really loves this gospel and has told us that she wants to get baptized and that she already feels it is true. She is a really mature person as well. Unfortunately we can't just baptize her since she is only 15 years old. So while we were in the first lesson with her we invited her Mom to come out and she listened just great. We invited them to come to conference as well and they said to pick them up. Sunday morning we went to their house before we went to Elaine's house but they weren't home so we were bummed out. BUT they showed up!!! I can't even explain how happy I was to see them come around the corner and enter the chapel. They said that it was sooo beautiful and they learned a lot. So we hope to help them be baptized as well. But yeah let me tell you that it is very cool to be there watching conference with a non member. Sometimes they got bored though. But we just helped them understand as the conference went on. I really loved what the 70 talked about. When he said that sometimes we fear men more than God.  That is true. So let's not be like that!

Last night we contacted a referral that we got from missionaries. I asked her if she was the person from our referral.  She just about grabbed me and fell saying yes it's me. She explained that 2 days ago a man was killed because they wanted to rob his moto but he didn't give it up and so they shot him.The man was a friend of her daughter and so they are still kind of in shock for what happened. She told us how grateful she was for us to come over and she said that we came just at the right time. It was very humbling. She told us that she wished that the world was filled with young men like us. We promised her that if she follows this gospel, she may find the peace and comfort that she needs. I felt the spirit so strongly.

Thank you so much for your prayers. We have people to teach (: We are doing great things. I love you guys. He loves you. And I hope that you love Him!

Elder Smith