FHE activity: water baseball!!Oh boy, no idea where to start. I guess at the beginning… Tuesday was awesome! We had 44 people show up to our FHE activity. That’s like double what have been there the last two weeks. Three more ward families showed up and they even brought 11 investigators or 11 people, I guess I should say. Two of them have turned into investigators, more of that in a sec. But yes! Our plan is working! The ward is uniting and we are having other successes too. We played water baseball, but it was hard because NO ONE here knows what baseball is. They all got so confused at the rules. We didn’t realize that would happen, so we simplified the game a bit. The bases were huge pools of water and I got to wear normal clothes for the first time out in public for… I don’t know how long. It was great. Afterwards, my comp took the liberty of getting everyone against me and soaked me with the pools of water. It was fun though… I miss playing in water. (We pass a pool every day here and I crave to go to Seven Peaks. It’s killer!)
We had our zone conference. We didn’t meet the new President, but had a great training. President and Hermana Da Silva talked about obedience. I forget after teaching all the basic principles of the gospel on a daily basis just how complex and deep you can go with something so simple as obedience. That’s why it’s so awesome to be counseled as missionaries. We go back up to our normal level of learning and studying. It’s weird, and different, but it reminds me of real life. I was so touched and motivated by their words. I think that’s the point. But my comp and I knew we had to come home and change some things. During planning the next day, we set more goals for ourselves. President gave us the promise that the harder we strived just to get out of the house one minute earlier or wake up exactly at 6:30 or whatever it may be, that the Lord would bless us even more. And we would see miracles in the work, so we set goals just like that… with the faith and hope that it would help us even more.
We had a lesson with Augustin and Jessica afterwards. We decided she would benefit from seeing the Joseph Smith movie. I still love it. I have the entire thing memorized in Spanish. As we ended, my comp bore testimony of what we watched and asked Jessica what she thought. She said she believed and kinda got choked up. So did I. Once again, I had an incredible spiritual experience of my heart wanting to pound out of my chest. It’s the second time in my life it’s happened. I couldn’t speak and everyone was waiting for me to talk. It was amazing, and the spirit testified to me once again that Joseph Smith really was a prophet and how grateful I am for him. Jessica cried with me that night and she now has her own testimony of the spirit. It was so strong you could have cut through it. We talked to them about their plans for marriage or whatever because if they don’t separate, we have to drop them. As much as they want to learn, they can’t be baptized and therefore we can’t teach them, if they don’t get married. They decided they want to get married.
Later that night we talked to a member. He informed us a cute girl who came to our activity, and the baptism, had grandparents who were less actives and that she had been to church many times. We felt impressed to stop by her house. We talked to the mom and her and we feel like she’s going to be baptized too. We taught them a first lesson and asked if she wanted to be baptized, she said yes. We’ll see about putting a specific date for her. She’s so cool. Renata is her name. One of the coolest girls I’ve met. She came to church on Sunday by herself too. So awesome! Another recent convert brought her sister to the activity and the baptism and she showed up at church too. She wants to get baptized as well! Ana is her name. Now after going from no investigators to so many, we will probably not have enough time to teach them all. I am starting to see the result of 1 Nephi 2:19-20. I also thought of mom’s letter from the package I got: "the Lord will open doors for you, when you think it’s impossible" and he has done exactly that. It’s amazing seeing his hand. When you think you can’t go on anymore, he shows you that you can. It’s been awesome.
Maira was baptized! Yeah! We had all our investigators with a baptismal date there and they all loved it.
Maira Baptism!!The best part of the week hasn’t even happened yet... Sunday. Maira. She usually comes with her grandma to church but at 9:05, when they weren’t there, we started to get a little worried that we would have a baptism without a confirmation, which is really no baptism at all. So we call. Nothing. We go to the house and she has just rolled out of bed. My comp says that it’s 9:10 and we gotta get going. She says she’s coming. We wait... she comes out and we leave. A few minutes later on the way to the church we get a call from her mom who is pretty intense. She yells and says we didn’t ask permission and neither did Maira to leave. I quickly hand the phone over to Maira and she starts crying as she’s in trouble. She hangs up and tells us she’s gotta go back home. What! You gotta get confirmed! Soo... we have to go to the house and talk with the mom AND the dad who is never there. She gets yelled at and we asked what happened. We apologized not realizing she needed to have permission. Her mom knew she was going to be confirmed that morning. Anyway, she got yelled at so much by her dad that she got in bed and wouldn’t come out. She was so upset and embarrassed. Her dad said all she had to do was ask permission and she could go. She got really stubborn and said she didn’t want to go anymore. In a house full of yells, her dad said that if she didn’t go to church today she could never go again. And he was serious. Oh my gosh. We just wanted her to stop being stubborn so we could go. Just ask! She wouldn’t. We were there for… not kidding… one hour trying to convince her to come to church and all she would do was yell that she didn’t care anymore. She didn’t ever want to go to church again and all sorts of nonsense. It was now 10:30 and the second class was going to end. We had to get to church to help our other investigators and besides we weren’t changing her mind. We told her we couldn’t come back if we left. She didn’t care. So we left without her. Her dad yelled at her and said she was never going to church again. Oh man. What were we supposed to do... we had done everything in our power. We read her scriptures, prayed with her, begged, tried convincing, I said so many prayers in my heart I couldn’t believe what was happening was actually happening. We left devastated and all my comp said is… "What do we do?" We did everything in our power. We can’t force her to live the gospel or to choose the right. That’s the worst thing about agency. I hate that. I just told my comp, don’t worry, something will happen and she’ll show up to church. Heavenly Father will take care of everything. If it’s supposed to work out, it will. I can honestly say, I had no doubt in my heart that that was true. We went to the end of our class with our investigators and after sitting for 3 minutes I got the idea to go talk to the amazing Primary President and see if she could go and convince Maira otherwise. Hermana Gonzalez, her husband is first counselor and I love spending every second with their family. She took her first counselor and they flew out of the church on their moto scooter. Welp in the meantime, class ended, and everyone gathered for Sacrament meeting. They started the meeting, we sang, we prayed and every two seconds we looked at the door to see if they were coming. The bishop and his counselors were mouthing to us asking where she was and if we were going to have a confirmation. We didn’t know what to do, but I knew they would show up any minute. The counselor got up to make his announcements and as he was standing at the pulpit, we hear the door open. Everyone looks over there and we see Hermana Gonzalez and no Maira! Oh my gosh, the door starts to shut and it’s gets pulled open again as Maira runs in. The counselor looks up and says, "… we had a baptism yesterday. Maira, will you come up here to be confirmed?" OH MY HECK. It was the most nerve wracking thing of my life. I have never had my faith tried in such a way, but EVERYTHING worked. My comp and I couldn’t stop smiling and giggling. It was incredible. I have never experienced something like that. But she is now the newest member of the church and she’s happy. I am so grateful for loving leaders who take over and do their part. Maira really looks up to her teacher. Wow. What an experience.
It’s been a good week… Trying, but our faith has proven worthy. Look at the miracles that come from just believing and trusting in our Heavenly Father. I testify, like Shaquel said last week, Heavenly Father knows us and has a plan for us. We do not need worry. He will take care of us. His plan is always going to be better than what our plan for ourselves would have been. TRUST! He will take care of everything. I love you all.
P.S. Package times!!!!! Oh how I love you guys. How do you know everything I need when I don’t even tell you! I love the watch. It’s exactly like my old one. Thanks grams Berg! I have been needing the things you sent. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
I love you all, ash
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