MAKE EVERY ONE COUNT - CONSECRATED PERFORMANCE

Last friday night a huge storm came to Iquitos.  I havnt read official reports but the people we teach have told me it got up to 80 mph winds(now that i think about it probably kmh).  Anyways roofs went flying.  Not all of them but a good amount.  So we went out in the morning with our pata de cabra(not sure what that is in english but its a tool used to pull out nails.  like the back side of a hammer but bigger) and hammers.  First we went to the Del Castillo family´s house to take apart the roof that fell and get all the branches of the trees that broke off the part that hadnt fallen.  As we did, i noticed a man watching us and i felt like i should talk to him.  But i looked at the top of his house and his roof looked fine so i just kept working.  At the end he was still there so i went to talk with him.  His eyes watered a little when i ask if we could help him in any way.  His house was very narrow but really long.  i had only seen the front part. The back had flown up but was still barely attached by a few nails.  Me and one of my comps, Elder Huari, got up on the roof and pulled it down into place.  (Just to understand it a little more, roofs here are made of metal sheets called calamina that are nailed into a wooden structure below.)  anyways after bending it back into place we needed to nail it down.  But no body had nails.  So we found all the old ones we could.  Lets just say we needed to make every one count.  It sounds a little rediculous but right before i would hammer in a nail i would ask the Lord to "consecrate my performance"  Usually i mess up and bend all the nails, but this time the Lord just made it happen.  i didnt mess up a single one.  We literally had the perfect amount of nails to get the job done.  Not one to spare, but it all worked out. It may sound crazy but i know the Lord helped us out.  After we got down we went to another house.  This one didnt take much discerning to see if the guy needed help because his roof was literally caved in.  We took it apart and built a little structure in the back so him and his daughter could sleep that night.  It was such a pleasure to serve all day.  Last night we went back to the houses of some of the people we helped.  They received us gladly and have now heard the glorious message of the Restoration.  It was an amazing weekend.  Also we had stake conference here and an area seventy, Elder Espinoza, came to preside.  He talked about the culture in the church and the culture of the world.  Now matter how bad the culture in the world gets, the culture in the church does not change.  I really liked that.  Hope all is well at home

un abrazo

Elder Smith