January 5, 2015

What a week! Holy cow! I have a few things I want to talk about, but I'm going to start with the most stressful/exciting: Baptisms!

So  we have an investigator, Wilber, who got married last week and was going to be baptized on saturday. We were all ready and prepared for the baptism, then we found out on tuesday that he got super drunk at his wedding and they found him the next day passed out in the street. Not exactly what you want to hear less than a week before the baptism. So we were freaking out because we had no idea what to do about him, especially since he himself hadn't confessed (We heard it from his sister-in-law) Tuesday night we called his wife, Ines, and explained the situation to her and that he may not be able to get baptized right away, and she agreed to help us try and get him to confess. So wednesday night we went over and talked about the baptismal covenant and repentance and Ines kept dropping hints to him but he didn't want to tell us anything. We got another appointment with him on friday, the day before he was supposed to be baptized, and I wasn't actually there because we did divisions but they just flat out told him "We know that you drank and it's possible you might not be able to get baptized tomorrow." Well we talked to the zone leaders and president and got it worked out so that he could get an interview with one of the zone leaders on saturday morning, and if the zone leader felt good about everything then he could get baptized that day instead of postponing it. Saturday came and they were in the interview for about an hour, but afterwards Elder Monson told us that he was good to go. So he and Grover, another investigator, got baptized yesterday! It was such a crazy stressful situation, but in the end everything worked out fairly well. The Lord was really looking out for us and answering our prayers, and it was such a blessing.

That wasn't the only blessing we've had this week though. There's a couple less active families we've been working with since I got here that we're really trying to activate again. On Tuesday we went to visit one of them, Guillermo and Antonia. They're amazing members with such strong testimonies but they've been inactive for years because their son had to come home from his mission for health reasons and after he got better the stake president wouldn't let him leave again. Well last week Guillermo ran into some Jehovah's Witnesses and he had some questions for us about some of the things they had said. We spent an hour there on tuesday answering his questions, an hour and a half on wednesday talking with him, and they went on friday too. It's like meeting with those witnesses just sparked a fire in Guillermo and he's been going crazy studying the gospel since. Yesterday he came to church for the first time since I got here, and he was so excited to be there. He got up and shared his testimony in sacrament meeting, made comments in sunday school and preisthood, and he told us next week he's going to bring his whole family. We were so excited for him, and seeing him here is such a miracle.

One last thing - On friday we did divisions. Our district leader, Elder Cueto, came to Llavini with Elder Thompson and I went to his sector, Azoguine, and was with his companion, Elder George. Elder George and I got in the mission at the same time so neither one of us are super experienced. I was a little worried about that, and then I got there and figured out that despite the fact Elder George is only ever with latinos he can not speak spanish to save his life. So we went out and I was basically leading the whole time. It was weird and hard for me, but it actually helped me quite a bit. I proved to myself that I can actually teach and take charge. Needless to say my confidence raised quite a bit.

Well that's all I have. Hope you guys are all doing well!