Hola Buenos Dias!
It has been quite the
week for meetings...We had all kinds of ward correlations, transfer meeting,
stake president meetings, leadership meetings, and any other kind of meeting
that exists I'm sure. We didn't hardly have a chance to go outside this week! It
was a solid week though, and we saw some good things happen in the zone. It's
still "Miracle May" and people are still finding people that are
accepting baptismal dates, so that's a plus :)
We totally have a
baptism this weekend! Valeria Hernandez, who we just met a week and a half ago,
is getting baptized this Saturday and she's so excited about it! She's been
really wanting to get baptized and in her prayer yesterday she thanked God for
letting her "finally" get baptized. She was super busy this last week
with work every single day, so we're having to really condense everything we
teach her so she'll be ready for this weekend. I guess she's moving to live
with her dad in England for half a year, but there's a church right across the
street so she'll be good. She's really put a lot of thought into this and is
100% committed even though she's still learning the basics. Her friend at
school will be able to baptize her, so that'll be an awesome experience for
him. It's funny - we're actually going to have to do the baptism in the morning
because she's going to this Mormon prom that evening (she already found a date
and planned on this way before we met her... her date isn't a member either)
and she wanted to make sure she had enough time.
This week was a little
interesting - we were a random three-some for half the week with some different
missionaries. Elder Corbett, who's going home with me, stayed with us Monday
and Tuesday (before transfers Wednesday), and we had some fun experiences with
Mexicans and spanish work. We actually went to the trailer park to teach this
guy named Jacinto, and when we came in his truck was there loaded with these
spiny massive leaves and palms and such. We offered to help and they actually
let us get dirty and helpe them toss it all into the dumpster. It was fun
because we were all up there in there truck and I was shoveling it all off with
this pitch fork as they watched us and we taught them a little bit. At the end
of the conversation we found out that the guy we were helping wasn't even
Jacinto at all! He was his brother, who looked just like him, and had gotten
here from Mexico just the day before. We felt pretty silly... It was way fun
though.
We also had an elder
who's waiting for his visa for the day on Wednesday (he's been in San Luis,
right by Yuma for the past couple months), Elder Larson from Alpine Utah, and
it was funny to see him in this lesson that we were teaching to Javier Luna. So
Javier is an incredibly intelligent guy, who we teach at a level way higher
than anybody else. He understands a lot, and has a lot of questions, and that
day we taught him the Plan of Salvation thoroughly. I know Preach My Gospel
says to not teach people everything you know, but I feel like with that lesson
we basically taught him everything we know about the plan. He was hungering for
that knowledge and just needed to know. He was way interested in the spirit
world and we invited Elder Larson to teach him about it, but he didn't really
know what was going on still (it was a pretty deep involved lesson) and didn't
even know where to start...so he had to pass on it.
We also have a ray of
hope with Mason Walker! He's this black guy we've been teaching whose not-yet
wife is an inactive member. We've been really really trying to get him to church
but it has just not happened once yet. He seems really sincere and like he
wants to change but then he never, ever makes it to church. Apparently there
have been 3 weeks in the past month that somebody close has died, and that has
prevented him from coming to church. We don't mean to be insensitive (we
sympathize with him) but how many more friends are there? Anyway, we stopped by
yesterday and found out that his 20-ish year old daughter is staying with them,
and she's way legit. She said she knows she's going to get baptized sometime
(her grandparents were members) and that she's going to do what it takes to get
the family to church! She knows her dad well and I think she'll be key in
getting this whole family back to church. So there's definitely some potential
there. That's about it for this week. Nothing has been too crazy or out of the
ordinary. More than anything, I feel this crazy sense of urgency and want to
baptize the whole world before I go home :)
Thanks for all you do
- pray for "Miracle May"! Love ya,
~Elder Carlson
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