Dear All,
I hope you all had a fantastic Navidad and that all of your
dreams come true or something inspiring like that.
I had a pretty solid week; I don't know if I have ever eaten
more in my life. On the 24th, we ate with 6 different families. On the 25th we
ate with 3 more. And on the 26th we were still eating leftovers from Christmas
parties. It's a good thing I like tamales because if not I probably would not
have eaten anything this week. (Funny joke: Why do Mexicans make tamales on Christmas?
I'll tell you why later)
But yeah the highlight of the week definitely was the
baptism that we had.
So this lady, she's 72 years old. She was a Jehovah's
Witness for 20 years. She was one of those that go house to house and go to
their meetings like 9 times a week and stuff. Hardcore. But then she went to the
temple, because she is the Bishop's neighbor and his family invited her. In the
temple, she started talking to missionaries. She told them right then and there
"I want to be part of this church". Holy cow. Wow.
So we start teaching. She literally fell in love with Joseph
Smith. She didn't believe that he was a Prophet, but she said he was the most
handsome guy she had ever seen. And my beloved companion started throwing wood
on the fire, saying things like "Yeah, you're right. And doesn't my
companion look like him?" So that got weird fast.
But the point is this. The JW came to visit her one day. They stole her Book of Mormon and all of the pamphlets that we left her. So we gave
her more. She progressed amazingly, stopped drinking coffee, went to church
even with a broken foot, stuff like that. But she still didn't feel like she
had a testimony.
So comes the day of her baptism. We talked with her the
night before and she told us that she still wasn't sure but that she would pray
and ask. We noticed that she had no idea how the Lord could respond to her
prayer. We had taught her, and felt like we had taught her well, but she didn't
really understand that part. So we helped her, it kinda dawned on her, and she
commited super well to pray about the church.
The next morning was the interview. My companion had the
impression to go and visit her and read her a talk from President Monson before
the interview. Good thing we did, because as soon as we left the house, we
noticed that the JW were out doing their visits. We knew we had to get to her
house before they did. And we did. We were reading her the talk when they
knocked on her door. It was the moment of truth. I was so nervous I was
shaking. We told her that she could do what she wanted, answer the door or keep
listening. She thought a second, and then said, "Eh, ignore them. Keep
reading." I was so happy. They knocked again and her son yelled, "She
can't right now, she's busy!" And they left. Holy cow. Wow. What a
miracle. And then the DL (district leader)
So that baptism was going to be at 3pm. We had announced it
in Ward Council and we had literally told the Bishop 5 minutes beforehand. We
get to the church, the font is full, the sister was there with her
fellowshipper, and no one else showed up. 3:30 came and still no one. 3:45 and
still nothing. The sister was about to change her mind, when the ward secretary
showed up. Who knows why he showed up. We decided to call President Garcia so
that we could have permission to baptize her without a member of the Bishopric,
but when we asked him, he put us ON FREAKING HOLD. I cannot express the stress
and confusion that I was feeling in those moments. SO. We call him back. Turns
out he had a better idea. He called the stake president and told him what was
going on, to which the stake president responded: "Don't worry, I'll get
everything moving," and then president Garcia told us he was on his way to
be there personally. 5 minutes later the entire Bishopric literally came in the
chapel running. We kinda sat there like "Oops did we do that?" but
whatever. The point is she got baptized and it was an amazing service.
Completely improvised, but super awesome.
So yeah. Mission complete. Holy moly. That was nuts. I will
never forget that image of the bishop and his counselors and their families
literally running in the door of the chapel. If only we all had that kind of
enthusiasm all the time.
Love you guys, it was awesome to see you and I can't wait
until Mother's Day.
Los quiero mucho,
Elder Rawlings
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