Monday, October 21, 2013

Hurray for Baptisms!

Monday October 21, 2013
Hola familia and friends!
 
This has been quite the week. We have been working working working.... Holy cow... we are finding so many people to teach and there are only 2 of us to teach them! Well... basically 1 because we have to be at the same place at the same time always :) This week we were planning and we wrote down all of the people´s names that we were teaching and there were almost 30... Wow we are blessed to be in this area! I feel like the people are so humble and willing to listen. I absolutely LOVE teaching people in their little huts for houses, surrounded by green shrubery and rivers and dirt roads. It´s a completely different world. As Hermana Klein has said, it´s like camping in Sunday Clothes :) It makes me so grateful for what I have and for where I´ve been blessed to grow up. It´s humbling to see the little kids running around with hardly any food and in the same clothes everyday that are filthy and covered in dirt and holes. No running water, and cooking over fires. And then just a 25 minute bus ride to the other end of our area where we live and the houses seem like paradise in comparison!
 
 


 
We had the amazing blessing to participate in the baptism of our investigator P! Our prayers were answered!! Everything leading up to the baptism was soooo hectic... We thought that we had planned everything out that we needed to, but the morning of everything came crashing down... haha we found out that the majority of our priesthood holders had left for a youth activity (Super Sábado), there was no one to fill the font, no baptismal clothing, and no one to help.... so... we took matters into our own hands!
 
 
It's blazing HOT!!!!
 
 
We hurried ourselves to the chapel in the blazing heat (I don´t think I´ve ever experienced heat like that!), and then, dripping in sweat, started searching the churchhouse high and low for baptismal clothing. No luck... nada... So we borrowed a white skirt from the sisters that live above us and then grabbed on of my white tops. Then, we started filling the font and found out that there was a slow leak in the plug and the water wasn´t staying... Sooo, I was on my hands and knees in the water (in my skirt) trying to fix the plug to no availe. Soo... we improvised with a plastic baggy and my hair tie to try an plug it up and it finally worked.
 
 
Improvising a slow leak in the baptismal font!
 

Ahhh! Then we hurried and caught a bus to pick up P for the baptism.  Before heading to the church, we stopped at a recent converts restaurant to grab a quick lunch and we were able to have a really good chat with her and talked about staying strong and remaining faithful until the end. That baptism isn´t the end, but the beginning. I felt so much peace and knew that everything was going to work out. It may have been a stressful morning, but when it came time for the service all went well :) P bore a sweet testimony and I know that she is going to be an incredible assest to Heavenly Father as a member of this church!
 
The theme of this week was inactivos. It seemed like every reference we contacted turned out to be a member of the church that had long since gone inactive. Literally, I almost stopped being surprised when we would find out that they had already been baptized years previously. It made me really sad... I was studying in 1 Nephi 8 about the tree of life and I couldn´t help but feel like Lehi. He partakes of the fruit and then wants everyone else to do the same. He sees his family in the distance as if they don´t know where to go or what to do. He shouts for them and beckons them forward "Here!!! Here is the fruit! This is what you want, this is what will bless you!" - some choose to listen, whereas others choose not to. Then he sees multitudes of peoples who arrive and partake of the fruit, but then eventually became ashamed and embarrassed from the people mocking them and making fun of them in the building that they fall away and are lost. It´s sad to hear of those that were "feeling" there way after the great and spacious building with no direction. Then at the end of the chapter Lehi begs his sons to remain faithful, to keep the commandments and be blessed, and then he "ceases to speak to them." With so many people to teach and so many things that we have to do, I feel like this is the attitude that me and Hermana B need to have. We need to preach, teach, exhort, and invite with all our efforts and do all we can to help people find the way, and then allow them to use their agency to decide whether they will follow or not. Though it breaks your heart when they don´t (like I imagine Lehi´s heart broke over his sons), there are those that will - and these are the people that need our best efforts!
 


 
I love it here, have I said that enough?
 

Until next week!! Which,bytheway, won´t be until wednesday becauses of cambios (changes? I can´t remember what they are called). Can you believe I´m already almost done with my first "cambio"???

 
 
 
Les Amo!!!!!  (I love you)
 
Hermana Bennett
 
 
 
 

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