Okay, this week was the first one that kind of went by quickly. When I think back to last P-day, it feels SUPER long ago, but during the week we just did NOT have enough time to do everything! I´m not sure I´ll ever understand the people that say on P-day that they feel like it was just P-day though. Ay.
So we had our baptism on Saturday, by SOME miracle. We were crazy all week running around trying to do everything for it. We reviewed the questions for the interview like 20 times because we were afraid that it would be hard for her to understand when it was just the District Leader, who she´s never met, and her alone. The pre-interview didn´t go amazingly well, but she seemed to be much better during the last week. In the end, we were all present (Hermana Quiroz, me, the DL, his companion, her daughter, who´s the member who she lives with, and the woman who takes care of her, Yesica) for the interview and it went well. Coordinating the schedule for the baptism was another huge challenge. At first her daughter and son-in-law wanted to have it "early," so we planned it for 4, but then they told us they wanted it in the middle of the day, like at 2, no at 12, no at 11, no at 11:30. So we tell everyone 11:30. But then they´re remodeling our chapel, so they didn´t know if it would be done by Saturday morning, so we´re thinking about having it in the stake center. In the end, it was in our chapel, but we didn´t know until like 7 pm on Friday night, and this woman who said she would call a bunch of people to inform them never called. So the RS president, with the baptismal clothing, didn´t show up. We called her, she wasn´t home, so we went to her house to retrieve the clothing and her non-member husband begrudgingly gave it to us. They were planning on having 3 men in the font to help baptize her, but then they decided they needed 4, because she has a catheter and they needed someone to hold it up (?!??!?! what a horrible job!). So the whole bishopric, her son-in-law and her were all in the font, all in white. It was quite a job to get her all the way under the water with all those people, and she was crying and her son-in-law was telling her not to cry, and we were all trying not to laugh... a sight I will never, ever forget. But in the end, she stopped crying and was super happy, and when Hermano Donoso carried her out of the font and the floor was soaking wet with all the men standing there waiting to change in the one-person bathroom, she had the hugest smile on her face. Oh, our lives. I have a picture that eventually I´ll send to you. It´s priceless.
I don´t have much other exciting news from this week. Our zone´s numbers for the last week on contacts and new investigators are phenomenal. Our numbers for baptismal dates and baptisms are the worst in the mission. The whole freaking world "convive," which means lives together without being married. It´s a problem. But! HQ was studying the story of the house of Israel the other day and then we started talking about how Moses died instead of entering the promised land and we learned a super important lesson about obedience that I´m going to share with all of you.
So in Numbers 20:8 (I´m using all these scriptures from memory, so I hope they´re more or less right) the Lord commands Moses to speak to a rock to bring forth water. In verse 11, he smites the rock to bring forth water. In Deuteronomy 32:50-52 more or less, the Lord tells Moses that because of his transgression that day, he will see the promised land but will never enter it. In Deuteronomy 34:5 or 6, he sees the promised land and dies. But! He actually doesn´t die, he´s translated. We know this from a) a footnote and b) the Bible Dictionary, which informs us that because he appeared at the Mount of Transfiguration, before Jesus Christ was resurrected, he couldn´t have been a resurrected being, so he must have been a translated being (how lucky for HQ that I have the scriptures in English, because this appears nowhere in Spanish). So, the lesson we learn is that everyone, even the greatest prophet of Israel (see summary of Deut. 34) sins. And he repented, so he was translated and surely will attain/has attained eternal life. But, because of his (slight) disobedience, he missed out on a major blessing in his life, aka, attaining the promised land. So, if obedience brings us blessings, lack of obedience causes lack of blessings. We started thinking long and hard about what blessings we were missing out on for our little, tiny "lack of obediences" and recommitted to being obedient with exactness. It´s been great so far.
I hope you´re having fun on your vacation, and I´m still waiting to hear from McKay... I love you, have a good week! Oh, and my package arrived last week and I got it today! Yippee! Haven´t really looked in yet, but thank you thank you thank you! You´re the best.
Anxiously waiting to hear about Chase´s mission call...
So we had our baptism on Saturday, by SOME miracle. We were crazy all week running around trying to do everything for it. We reviewed the questions for the interview like 20 times because we were afraid that it would be hard for her to understand when it was just the District Leader, who she´s never met, and her alone. The pre-interview didn´t go amazingly well, but she seemed to be much better during the last week. In the end, we were all present (Hermana Quiroz, me, the DL, his companion, her daughter, who´s the member who she lives with, and the woman who takes care of her, Yesica) for the interview and it went well. Coordinating the schedule for the baptism was another huge challenge. At first her daughter and son-in-law wanted to have it "early," so we planned it for 4, but then they told us they wanted it in the middle of the day, like at 2, no at 12, no at 11, no at 11:30. So we tell everyone 11:30. But then they´re remodeling our chapel, so they didn´t know if it would be done by Saturday morning, so we´re thinking about having it in the stake center. In the end, it was in our chapel, but we didn´t know until like 7 pm on Friday night, and this woman who said she would call a bunch of people to inform them never called. So the RS president, with the baptismal clothing, didn´t show up. We called her, she wasn´t home, so we went to her house to retrieve the clothing and her non-member husband begrudgingly gave it to us. They were planning on having 3 men in the font to help baptize her, but then they decided they needed 4, because she has a catheter and they needed someone to hold it up (?!??!?! what a horrible job!). So the whole bishopric, her son-in-law and her were all in the font, all in white. It was quite a job to get her all the way under the water with all those people, and she was crying and her son-in-law was telling her not to cry, and we were all trying not to laugh... a sight I will never, ever forget. But in the end, she stopped crying and was super happy, and when Hermano Donoso carried her out of the font and the floor was soaking wet with all the men standing there waiting to change in the one-person bathroom, she had the hugest smile on her face. Oh, our lives. I have a picture that eventually I´ll send to you. It´s priceless.
I don´t have much other exciting news from this week. Our zone´s numbers for the last week on contacts and new investigators are phenomenal. Our numbers for baptismal dates and baptisms are the worst in the mission. The whole freaking world "convive," which means lives together without being married. It´s a problem. But! HQ was studying the story of the house of Israel the other day and then we started talking about how Moses died instead of entering the promised land and we learned a super important lesson about obedience that I´m going to share with all of you.
So in Numbers 20:8 (I´m using all these scriptures from memory, so I hope they´re more or less right) the Lord commands Moses to speak to a rock to bring forth water. In verse 11, he smites the rock to bring forth water. In Deuteronomy 32:50-52 more or less, the Lord tells Moses that because of his transgression that day, he will see the promised land but will never enter it. In Deuteronomy 34:5 or 6, he sees the promised land and dies. But! He actually doesn´t die, he´s translated. We know this from a) a footnote and b) the Bible Dictionary, which informs us that because he appeared at the Mount of Transfiguration, before Jesus Christ was resurrected, he couldn´t have been a resurrected being, so he must have been a translated being (how lucky for HQ that I have the scriptures in English, because this appears nowhere in Spanish). So, the lesson we learn is that everyone, even the greatest prophet of Israel (see summary of Deut. 34) sins. And he repented, so he was translated and surely will attain/has attained eternal life. But, because of his (slight) disobedience, he missed out on a major blessing in his life, aka, attaining the promised land. So, if obedience brings us blessings, lack of obedience causes lack of blessings. We started thinking long and hard about what blessings we were missing out on for our little, tiny "lack of obediences" and recommitted to being obedient with exactness. It´s been great so far.
I hope you´re having fun on your vacation, and I´m still waiting to hear from McKay... I love you, have a good week! Oh, and my package arrived last week and I got it today! Yippee! Haven´t really looked in yet, but thank you thank you thank you! You´re the best.
Anxiously waiting to hear about Chase´s mission call...
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