Baptizing without Water

Exciting News

Eduardo and Mía got baptized!!!!! 

I don't know how many remember Mía the younger from previous episodes. The Mía who was 11 years old who we were teaching who couldn't go to church and ergo couldn't be baptized. Well on Friday she got baptized! The other hermanas were working with her and helping her go to church and so she got baptized on Friday and brought all her friends to her baptism it was so cute!! 

And of course, Eduardo got baptized this Friday and it was the most beautiful and stressful experience! Eduardo was very pleased to tell us that even though his wife and other daughters said no to going to his baptism, his youngest daughter and grandson said yes and accompanied him on that special day! 

So everything was great until an hour before the baptism and there's 0 water in the whole church. I will say if anything is a Testament to this being the true church, it is the things that happen before a baptism. 

So there's 0 water in the whole church and the first counselor comes and he can't fix the problem and he has no idea what's going on until he climbs up into the attic of the church (which is so well hidden I didn't even know they had one.) 

And he sees that someone turned the key to shut off the water tanks, ergo there wasn't any water in the church. Guys, Satan literally works so hard because how on earth could someone use a key to turn off the water in the attic of the church when the only peopls who have keys are the president and his counselors??

So 40 minutes before the baptism the font finally starts filling (with freezing cold water, and it's the middle of winter here just so you know) and so for the time of the baptism the font is less than halfway filled! We're like, okay, maybe we can wait for the font to fill a little more? No. The water in the church cuts off again and everyone is waiting so finally they say, we're just gonna do the baptism ans hope for the best. 

So basically Mía the Younger gets baptized just fine because she's an 11 year old whose not very big. But with Eduardo they try 3 times and they just cannot submerge him in the water! And it is just so cruel to dunk a 70 year old man in freezing cold water so finally we close the font so no one can see and he gets baptized lying down in the water. 

Well even though Satan was working hard that day Eduardo came to church that Sunday the happiest I'd ever seen him. He told us it was the day he'd dreamed of and he's so excited to keep learning more about this church because he just knows it's God's true church!

What a happy day!!

Anyways that was the most exciting part of my week so I'll leave it at that for now and go right to my spiritual thought. 

Pensamiento Espíritual 

With Eduardo finally being baptized it's made me reflect on the fact that Eduardo is a 70+ year old man, and yet he is so humble and teachable. He is such a perfect example to me of how the Savior wants us to be. In Doctrine and Covenants 50:40-42 it says, 

"40 Behold, ye are little children and ye cannot bear all things now; ye must grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth. 

41 Fear not, little children, for you are mine, and I have overcome the world, and you are of them that my Father hath given me; 

42 And none of them that my Father hath given me shall be lost." 

In this life we are all little children. No matter how old we are, we are God's little children and the little brothers and daughter's of our brother Jesus. 

We need to be like little children, always learning, humble, and trusting in our father and his wisdom. If we do these things, then not one of us shall be lost. 

Anyways, I'm just so happy Eduardo got baptized and it's such a testament to me that God prepares people if our only desire is to trust in him and his plan. 

Some seriously talented artists on my mission

Celebrating with our Mission President

Getting my new trainee

Baptizing Nationzz 😎

Buen dia gente! This week was a good one. 

Baptisms!

First and most importantly our friend Eduardo is getting baptized next week so I'm going to need a lot of prayers that everything goes well!! He is so ready and so excited! 

When we were doing the baptismal interview questions with him his testimony was so powerful! It's crazy how fast he changed from telling us that the Bible says the Book of Mormon can't be true, to testifying thay Joseph Smith is a prophet of God and he restored the true church! 

This week when we talked about baptism with him he was so scared and hesitant because he said his family wouldn't support him, and he didn't want to hurt his wife and kids by doing this without them, but then as we talked more about it he said that God was calling him and he couldn't say no. 

So on Friday he will be getting baptized!! 

Also our friend Mía said she's ready to be baptized on May 30th! She's going to ask her parents permission and we're going to fast all together because she really wants her parents support in this! But she said she's so sure that May 30th is the day because as she prayed about what day to choose she received the answer May 30th!! 

Pray for Mia!

So prayers for her too because she is so determined to be baptized!! 

One of our friends Leandro also accepted a baptismal date! He's still very hesitant because he doesn't know very much about God or churches, but he wants to follow the example of Jesus and be baptized so we're helping him prepare to be baptized in June! 

Conference

We had our zone conference this week! It was fun to see everyone and receive so much inspiration from our Mission President! Also we received the flu shot so this conference was a bit of a downer, but we survived. 

Pensamiento Espíritual! 

I'd like to share a little scripture I was reading this week in 2 Nephi 33, which says, 

"7 I have charity for my people, and great faith in Christ that I shall meet many souls spotless at his judgment-seat" 

I love this scripture because at times there are moments where one feels that it's not worth it everything that we do. That some days no one answers the door or no one ever progresses. But I love this scripture because for me it shows Nephi's experience with this. 

In a lot of his writings Nephi laments the wickedness of his people, but here he says he has charity for them, and he knows many of them will be saved thanks to the things he has taught and written. In our lives there are so many people who come to know Christ through our words and actions. 

If we are doing our best to be charitable, loving, and a little more like Christ every day, our efforts will always make the difference!

Councilors

I'm sleeping next to mold - But at least there are LEDs...

Illegal Divisions

Amount of illegal Divisions I did this week: 1 😎

Nah, just kidding, my illegal divisions were approved by my District Leader and the higher ups, my zone leaders. But basically our District leader asked us to do divisions with hermanas who aren't our Sister Training Leaders. So here in Tres Arroyos with the other companionship of hermanas we did a little division for a day. 

Me and the Hermana Ramirez had a bomb day, we found 8 new people to teach and had a member named Sasha accompany us to walk around and had some bomb lessons with her. 

In our area my daughter, the Hermana Villagrán, also had a lot of success and all in all they were awesome divisions. 10/10 - would do divisions again. 

Divisions (They don't exist anyone) 

Speaking of Divisionsssss, we have officially decided divisions don't exist in Tres Arroyos. Basically in a city every missionary has a part of the city as their area to work, for example, before Tres Arroyos was divided in the middle and I only worked on one half of the city. 

But the Elders moved houses and when they asked how to handle the new division, I jokingly said, lets just not have divisions and everyone goes where they want. And he said, okay, all in favor? And everyone was in favor. 

So basically limits don't exist here starting today and we're about to have a really weird transfer. 

Tarjetas 

MILAGROSS! The miracle for this week is a little game me and my daughter Hermana Villagrán have been playing. We have little cards as missionaries that we pass out with our number and directions to the church. Hermana Villagrán had the idea to write little phrases of encouragement on the cards for people. 

I added that we could put questions on the cards and have people pick one randomly and we have had unlimited success with this game, it's unbelievable. Every single card a persons picks has been something they've needed. 

Story time! 

We stopped these two guys walking and asked them to pick a card. Guy number one, (lets call him James), quickly gives his cigarette the boot as we start talking to him, and pulls the card, "what aspects of your life to you want to better?" 

Well he says, "My bad habits." Then explains to us that he is actually a member of the church, but he hasn't been active in a long time. Then his friend pulls the card that says "You can do it." 

To say James started crying in the middle of the street would be a lie, but we did receive a very thankful message that night. And on Sunday he came to church then went to a Young Single Adults activity 😎

Less active members who renewed their covenants this week: 1 

Spiritual! 

I don't want to make this too long, but I will say I have seen greatly how through small and simple things we can be instruments in the lord's hands this week. Through this card game, many people have received answers from God specifically for them. 

We knocked a house looking for a member, but instead found a woman who moved here from Necochea and had already been talking with missionaries and had a Book of Mormon. We found a less active member in the middle of the street who gave us her direction and an invitation to pass by her house. 

When we put in a little effort, our best effort, we see the Lord magnifies it so much more than we ever could. 

Metas y planes (Goals & Plans)

There's not too much to say this week because we were too busy working like crazy. 

Goals

We had a very good week, we managed to beat a lot of our goals. We found 18 new people to teach, we had 13 lessons with the help of the members of the Branch and we put our friend on date to be baptized!

 Our friend Eduardo who used to be part of the Seventh-Day Adventists now has a hankering to be part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! He accepted a baptismal date for the 16th of May and is preparing a lot by praying and reading the Book of Mormon. He has started coming to church every week and he says that coming to church feels like coming home. 

Prayers Needed

This week one of our friends also was part of a car accident so lets get some prayers going for him. 

Not much to say this week, I just encourage everyone to focus on goals and plans. 

Spiritual Thought

I want to share a little small verse of Doctrine and Covenants section 38 that says, "but if ye are prepared ye shall not fear." 

I want to share this part because in my week I've seen how true it is. My companion and I decided this week that we were going to be ambitious and try to reach more people than we have before. So we made goals, then plans, then back up plans, and we followed through with faith that we could do it. 

For example, one day this week we decided we wanted to find 2 people in an hour, our plans weren't working so went to our back up plan. Then we stopped in the middle of the street and prayed. The next door we knocked we found someone. Then after that we stopped again in the middle of the street to pray and we found someone else. 

When people have faith that God will help them, they act. We put high goals and reached them because we trusted that the lord was preparing people for us to teach, and we made plans for how to find these people. 

But that's just my little endorsement for making goals and plans. I hope everyone has a super great week! 

Pizza?

Not Positive everyone is in a seat belt...