2/20/12

Well, this week has been just about as hectic as weeks get. We BAPTIZED, without even knowing we were going to until the day before, first of all! Here´s her story.

Her name´s Margarita. She´s Isidro´s mom (that really awesome wedding guy that just returned to church after like 20 years....by the way, I ordained him to the office of an elder on Sunday! Woo!). Isidro REALLY wanted us to teach her, but he had his doubts about if she would ever get baptized. We started teaching her (quite a while ago, actually....at the end of my transfer with Elder De Jesus!) and she took everything well, but she didn´t seem like she was progressing very much, so we stopped teaching her. Then, one day, we visited there with Isidro. He told us that we shouldn´t give up. So, Elder Cruz and I started to teach her again. We challenged her for a baptismal date. Everything seemed swell. She was a little hesitant about the baptism, but she agreed. Then.....it happened! Our zone leader, Elder Rabe, called Elder Sanders, the district leader. He´s like "Hey, do you have anybody you can baptize this weekend?" (it was Friday). Elder Sanders said, "Well, we have this one lady in the other area." "Perfect," Elder Rabe said. "Baptize her tomorrow." We all four went to her house, sang a hymn, and challenged her to be baptized the NEXT DAY. More amazing than all of that? She said yes!

We went forward with it, and Isidro baptized her. We were all absolutely thrilled. She came to church the next day and got confirmed, and everything went on without a hitch. But then, today, we got a call from Isidro saying that we needed to come fast. He told us his grandma wasn´t doing so good. (this is the MOTHER of Margarita by the way. I think she´s like 98 years old.) We all rushed over there, but we were too late. We learned that she had just passed away. We talked to the family and shared with them Alma 40:31. We called a ton of people from the ward. We barely had time to get everything done (actually, we´re going straight from here to her funeral.). We started talking about how it was probably inspiration that Elder Rabe had challenged us to do it a week early. Maybe she was just waiting for Margarita to get baptized so she could pass on. It´s been a super stressful day, we´ve been running around with chickens with their legs cut off. But above all, I´m grateful for the plan of salvation. It´s amazing to know (and I mean, "to KNOW") that no matter what happens, I will be able to see you all again. I´ll be able to meet Dad. Thanks for being awesome in the gospel. Like Thomas S. Monson said, "If you´re gonna be a Mormon, be a good one!"

Love you guys. ¡Sonrisas!

Elder

Me, sitting on the bus on the way back from La Paz.....in front of a TV screen in which they DID play a movie! AHH!

The way we figured out to not watch!