Okay, well hello everybody, lets see if I can remember everything that's happened.
Well, we had a baptism
yesterday! Wohoo! it was great. Aviana, I'm not sure if I even mentioned
much about her before, sorry. But she is a super sweet girl! she's
twelve but she doesn't seem like it. She's a lot more mature. She was
actually originally supposed to be baptised in December, way back before
I even got here, but things didn't quite work out and we were actually
glad because we didn't really feel like she was ready. She is just
twelve and there's only her and her mom and her mom isn't interested
right now. They had a super hard experience and her mom turned away from
God, while Aviana started looking for Him. So she was super prepared,
and needed this, but the worry was that we needed her to be ready and
strong enough so that she doesn't just go inactive. And while I've been
here I've seen her open up and grow so much! And she was baptised
yesterday, she was soo happy! She's so cute, she was scared and nervous
and so we said a prayer with her just before her baptism, but she was
super excited. it was wonderful to see. The baptism itself was really
kind of stressfull, because it was stake conference yesterday, and so we
had the baptism between the english and spanish sessions, and since
President Maulenda was there for stake conference, he went and watched
all of the baptisms inbetween. That was great, but it was that there
were seven baptisms that happened, two zones in the stake doing baptisms
between the conference sessions, so the brownsville zone was second,
and started a while after it was supposed to. And we forgot about
telling Aviana to bring a towel, etc. Which she was alright with and
just went with the flow. But after she got dressed and went back in to
where everyone was waiting, we ran to get her jacket cause she was cold,
and then when we came back the elders asked us to check on the sister
that had just been baptised because she'd been taking a while, but we
got in there and asked if there was anything we could do and she said
no, she was fine. So we went back and someone mentioned getting a bag
for the baptismal clothes, we found a bag but couldn't get the baptismal
clothes because the sister was still changing, and another sister came
in and was sorta chewing us out for the wet floor in the bathroom, la
dada da da. Yup, but our recent convert was changed and basically dry
before she got that far, so we were sorta in trouble for the last zone's
mess, and we'd felt bad about walking in and out of the room where
everyone was waiting, and there wasn't anyone there from the Young
Womens to welcome Aviana. So it was a bit stressful, but sweet Aviana
was still happy to be there. Woo hoo!
Okay, and stake conference
was super awesome! there were a bunch of missionary talks which of
course I'm all for. Especially for members to hear. Yeah, I realize now
that there is a lot that missionaries can't do, where they need help
from the members, I wish I knew all this before, although it would have
made it hard since I never saw the missionaries. But now that Manti is
it's own area . . .
One of the scripture
stories was Alma and Amulek, Alma went and did all he could, and he
wasn't a bad missionary. But the people wouldn't accept him. It wasn't
until he found a member, less active and that less active invited
everyone to come and learn untill they were converted and then by then
Amulek and member missionary fire! and then they went out to work, but
the people still didn't really accept Alma, but it was Amulek who
astonished them.
I think it was Elder
Martino, (General Authority not a little 18 yr missionary) that was
saying that they discovered a statistic. That every one out of 70 people
that we talk to will be baptised, so we just need to go talking to a
bagillion people, no problem. :D Yeah, but there's a better one, cause
I'm actually kinda getting tired of just talking to people. two of every
three are baptised when every lesson is taught in the home of a member!
The biggest thing we struggle with in this area is getting people to
church (as far as rides, for the english ward, the church is 20 miles
away!) and friendships, fellowshipping.
If we could go to member's
houses every day all day and just teach the people that are already
gonna be there, then I'd be the happiest missionary on earth! We talked
about how we really don't want "referals" from members. Elder Martino
said "don't ask for the addresses of their friends, you don't want
them!" Which is super true. We want the members to say "hey, I'm having
these friends coming over for dinner and we want you to come eat with us
and teach them a lesson!" That's golden, perfect, I'd be happy if there
wasn't food too, but it just makes it better. But then having the
lessons consistently. I know it's hard. I look back at life at home and I
know that there were very rarely nights when everyone was home at the
same time consistently. But I also know that the way I've felt with
Humberto and Aviana, is completely indescribable and makes up for every
heartache, trial, or down moment that I've experienced out here. Yes
there are stilll other things that need to be done, but it doesn't take
all the time. And you gain a friend!
Well, that's my admonition. Love you all!
Con Amor,
Hermana NJ Nielson
No comments:
Post a Comment