Elder Dana Sorensen - December 10, 2013
We've seen a lot of miracles this week

It´s great to hear that you´re all having a lot of fun for the holidays!

We´ve seen a lot of miracles this week.

On Tuesday night, we had a Noche de Hogar (family home evening) with a less active family. Through "coincidence" and a series of events, we arrived late and ended up meeting with the entire family, something that the Hermanas have been trying to do for months. It´s great to see how the Lord has plans for every one of his children.

You said you wanted some more pictures. Here´s one in the metro station. My companion did indeed roll his eyes. We got stuck there for a half hour last night waiting for the train, and we were the only ones there. Not all stations are that fancy.

The biggest news this week is Estrella, our investigator and mother of our recent convert Alejandro. She has been working on quitting smoking and coffee. By herself, she went from 5 cups a day to 0, and 10 cigarettes a day to 5. So Tuesday night we set up a plan with her to quit smoking (smoking one less daily cigarette every three days). And, we committed her to be baptized on the21st of December! She didn´t feel quite ready but we were confident that she would feel so by then.

The next morning, on Wednesday, we visited her again. She had had a spiritual dream during the night, and she now feels confident and ready for baptism. She also decided that once her pack of cigarettes ran out, she wouldn´t buy any more. And, because she had already quit smoking, she decided to move the date of her baptism up to the 14th! So many miracles in so short a time. But guess who´s baptizing her? Her son, Alejandro, who was baptized less than two months ago!

We´ve been visiting her every day. She is soaking up the spirit like a sponge. We´re just teaching and reviewing the last few things before her baptism. She is so prepared. Just two months ago she wanted nothing to do with the church. Alejandro´s baptism (an amazing baptismal service), and a session of general conference opened her up to all of this.

Yesterday we had Zone Conference. I always come away from conferences like that with a new commitment to work harder, be better. It was a lot of fun, and included a Christmas devotional where we basically sang every single christmas song in the hymnbook. It was very spiritual. We ended it with a video slideshow of every single baptism from this year. It was amazing.

I´ve started reading D&C since I finished the Book of Mormon. It´s great because it´s written directly toward missionaries of our day. As a missionary it´s interesting to see how all the scriptures are so focused on missionary work.

I´m about out of time. Thank you for all your prayers and support. They really make a difference.

Until next week,

Élder Sorensen

I'm sorry to hear about Dad.  But it's great that it's treatable.  I'm also glad that the gospel brings so much peace in situations like this.

I didn´t get the package yesterday from zone conference. That means it hadn´t arrived yet as of last Friday. Spain mail is super slow during holidays though. A senior couple will drive up and get everything before Christmas to bring down here to Valencia.

This is the paella some members made for us as zone conference. It´s huge. That fed over thirty missionaries with about half left over. It's a traditional Spanish food, meaning it's pretty bland. But it's alright. Sometimes the latinos spice it up a bit.