•Nunca termina...‏1/16/2012

This week has definitely been the craziest and most stressful week of my entire life. So I told you about Reyna Quiroz and her 5 kids, who we've been kind of teaching since a little before Christmas. Well they finally came back this last Monday so their fellowship Rocky from their old place in Mesa texted us "game on". We went over right away, and then had a lesson the very next day on Tuesday. We had a pretty busy evening so we went on splits and Rocky took me over to visit with Reyna. We also brought over the boys' primary president teacher, who funny enough, doesn't speak Spanish. Anyway, we read a little in the Book of Mormon and I started talking with Reyna about how much she needed the gift of the Holy Ghost. She was agreeing and she told me about all these times in the past that she had felt the spirit. She described exactly how it worked with her and as we talked about it she said she felt it super strongly. I invited her to be baptized on January 28th and she said yes!! She was getting all excited and started asking all these questions about how exactly baptisms are and what all the requirements are and everything. So she and her 3 boys (ages 11, 11, and 10) all said they wanted to get baptized. We found out later that evening though, that she was going to have to leave her apartment in a few days because she just couldn't afford the rent. She cleans houses and the people she cleans for are all on vacations - she doesn't start working again until the 24th of January. She said her main options are going to Mexico to live with her grandma (who's completely Catholic and totally against the church), move to this place in the branch in the Mesa Mission where she used to live, or figure out some way to stay close here where she wants to be. The problem in the meantime is there is simply no real way to get any kind of money. Her family wants her to go to Mexico, because none of them like the church. So she looked into some apartments and found one that would be close to the church but it would be a decent amount of money, and the bishop said he wouldn't be able to help with that much. So a couple days went by, and Friday we had a leadership meeting ALL day long, and it's killing me because the whole time I'm thinking about how we're going to keep her here local. This is something that is totally going to affect the lives and future of her kids. So we're praying super super hard and are really stressed out in the meantime, and people that told us they were going to check out apartments totally didn't. So we went over Friday night and found out she had found this place across the street from us that would help by giving the first month's rent free. She would just need to pay the deposit and some other things. So it was a way better deal and we also found out that there was only one of these apartments out of 140 or more that was open.
We were hoping the bishop would be able to help out but he basically said it was too short of timing and he would need to meet her formally in church on Sunday. But if we didn't do anything, she would be in Mexico on Sunday!! So we stopped by our former Branch President's house and told him about the emergency situation and he agreed to temporarily help us out so she wouldn't have to go to Mexico. He had had I guess similar situations when he was branch president.
So Saturday around 11:30 or so, we go to Reyna's house (oh and by the way this whole time her phone just does not work very well - it'll randomly freeze and things) and she had just barely woke up. When she finally came out she told us she had no choice and that she was going to Mexico. Oh and btw, the other branch president who she had known had offered a month's rent and a job over in his branch but I guess it was a really sketchy location and just not a good place to have kids. Anyway, she was just super desperate and exhausted and told us she was going to have to move. We asked her what if we had the means to take care of the deposit and basically told her to follow us right then to go to the apartments. She came, right there in her PJ's, and we found the apartment and got everything reserved for us to finish it all up today. She was asking when the soonest possible time is that she could move in and they said it was Monday, even though she had to be moved out of her apartment by Sunday. She said she'd do it anyway, so we left from there and prepared for our baptism that night (Karen Saldana - a sweet 10year old girl whose mom got baptized a couple years ago). We got to the baptism and realized that we had left the programs at home, so we rushed home and on the way Reyna called. She said the apartments wouldn't give her an extra day unless she had $800 and that she just didn't know what to do. We told her we'd call her back and the other missionary with me at the time reminded me that we had moved some sisters out of an apartment that morning and that we could probably store the things there until today, when we could move it all in. So we went over that night and told her, and arranged a truck and trailer to help us out Sunday morning at 8:30. Sunday we were packed with stake president meetings and correlations and church, but we still managed to get all of her stuff moved temporarily into this other apartment and then that night we went on splits so that one of us could stay with Elder Matheson for a few hours in the hospital (he had an appendectomy this last week) while the other went to translate for the Mission President's Fireside. Reyna was also supposed to meet with the bishop a while before church and ended up coming an hour late, but she brought her sister and her sister's kids to church! Her family's super not for the church and we were way surprised, but her sister seemed to genuinely like everything (she lives in Coolidge) and we have hopes that she'll come sometime. So Reyna met with the bishop and it looks like they're going to get baptized this weekend!!
We thought that was all over, but today we found out there's some more little kinks, so I'll let you know how it all works out next week. In the meantime, please keep Reyna Quiroz and her family in your prayers. We're determined to do whatever it takes to help them.
Oh and it was also really sweet what happened with Jeff and Kendra! We had an FHE with them Monday night at their fellowship's house and went over the Plan of Salvation. We talked about how the doctrine of Christ fits into it all and how important baptism is and invited them to be baptized on Jan 21st. Jeff first asked what the difference is between getting baptized in our church and other churches but thankfully the spirit there was way strong and we could feel all of the prayers people were saying for them guiding us. We were able to talk about it and resolve it amazingly fast and then he asked if it's okay to be baptized if he still has questions. We told him we're definitely here to help him with his questions, but we're never going to know absolutely everything. That's why we have to walk by faith. When we invited them again to be baptized they looked at each other and Jeff started to nod and begin to say yes and finally Kendra joined in and they looked back over at us. It was a really funny situation. They also asked a bunch of questions about what it's going to be like and they were all excited. The very next day Kendra faced some serious opposition from parents, so we told everyone to keep praying for them and it seems like everything went really well and she's still wanting to follow through. We're going to go to the Visitor's Center tonight and make sure everything's solid so keep them in your prayers!
Basically it's been the craziest week of my entire life... but we're excited and determined as ever to follow through :) 7 January baptisms here we come!!
Gracias por todo su apoyo,
hasta la proxima
Elder Carlson