This week has been long and crazy and great. Ester got baptized and it was amazing. She has the cutest baby boy! What a great way to start my mission though. Baptism! The day that Ester was baptized, our 12 year old investigator Marcos came and told me he was ready to be baptized this month! I almost cried! He is seriously incredible. He loves to learn about the gospel and could teach you any gospel principle you wanted to learn. He walks to church every Sunday by himself and comes to every activity. I am so excited for him to be baptized. Did I mention that he´s TWELVE? What a kid!
Cool Story: For fast Sunday I prayed that people would have their hearts softened and that we would be led to those who were being prepared to receive the gospel. That day TWO people stopped US to ask about our church. One of them had done Skype lessons with the missionaries three years ago and decided that he wanted to meet with us. He even came to the baptism we had that evening! Then the other one was a Jehovah's witness and he accepted the pamphlet we offered him which is crazy because apparently they usually spit at you or something. While we were walking down the street, Hermana Colton was like,"that was crazy how those people were prepared and put in our path" and I shrugged and said "that's what I fasted for" and then a second later, I stopped, turned to her with my eyes as big as golf balls and with happy incredulity exclaimed "that's what I fasted for!" ha ha ha. It was probably one of the most immediate and visible answers to prayer that I have ever seen. What a blessing.
Nuther One Cool Story: We´ve been teaching a girl named Derlin. She is 19 and is a super great investigator because she reads whatever we ask her to. I've been here 7 days and met with her 4 times. We decided in our companionship planning that she´s ready for baptism but she needs to come to church a lot before she can be baptized, so we wanted to set her up with a baptismal date. Hermana Colton asked if I would invite her to commit to a date and I said I thought I could try when we met with her the next day. So we were in the lesson and had a great discussion about how to recognize the spirit. The lesson was winding down and Hermana Colton gave me "the look" and I knew that it was the time to ask. So I mustered up all my courage and started to ask. My Spanish was poor and my nerves made it worse, but as I asked her if she would continue to follow the spirit and prepare to be baptized September 13th, she began nodding and as soon as finished my nearly incoherent mumble she said, "claro" which is like "of course". Can you believe it!? Initially I was just relieved because I had gotten the scary thing over with and I hadn´t been rejected. And then I just felt the spirit sooooooo strongly. Right now 18 months sounds like a long time. But that feeling I had in that room is worth the 18 months. Derlin is worth 18 months. Of course! Of course she is! It was just a wonderful experience.
Funny Story: In our branch, we have 7 missionaries. 4 of them are elders. 1 from Puerto Rico, 1 from Honduras, 1 from Utah but he´s Mexican, and 1 gringo from California. When I first met them the two from the states were talking to me in English and it was cool. The other two spoke to me in Spanish and I found out that they don´t speak English. Elder Morales, the Puerto Rican one, seemed really contrite about how he couldn´t speak English and kept bringing it up. Whenever we started talking in English he´d be like "say it in Spanish!!" Later we were in room in the church and someone wrote on the board "he speak English" and he jumped up and erased it. I felt bad because it seemed like he felt super excluded when we all tried to speak English and he couldn't read it or understand it. Later in the meeting they asked me to speak for a few minutes on missionary work in Spanish of course (talk about hazing, right?) and as I sat down Elder Morales said, "I like to pray too". I just stared at him in confusion and then turned to my companion and innocently asked "does he even know what he´s saying?" and EVERYONE busted up laughing. He was just trying to trick me the whole time! He speaks great English! He´s a total prankster and has been proving to everyone how gullible I am all week. tsk tsk tsk.
I hope everyone is having a great week!
tell Everett I hope he enjoyed the world cup as much as everyone here
tell Brendan to get highlights
tell Parker to enjoy his job and keep up his Spanish in college
tell Dad I didn´t have time to read or respond to his email (or yours) but that I printed them off and will write you later!!!!
thanks for the pictures
Con Amor
Hermana Anderson
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