3/26/2012

Woohoo! Baptisms!

This week we baptised two of the people who went to church last week. Givanilda and Iaska. Givanilda is in her 50s I think, and Iaska is her 13 year old niece. Usually we have to wait 8 weeks to baptise people less than 14 years old, but we got special permission from the President to baptise Iaska with her aunt, because Iaska's mom doesn´t live at home, and she was pretty much raised by Givanilda.

We have a lot of other investigators who are progressing now. One is Adailson. He´s in his 30s, and is pretty sceptical. When we first talked to him, I just wanted to get out of his house quick, because he kept arguing about everything we taught, but instead of getting out, Elder Ortega taught the Plan of Salvation, and really answered all the questions that Adailson had. The more we came back, the more he accepted our teachings. Last Sunday he went to church, and ever since, he´s been a great friend. He´s always thankful for the time we spend with him, and we´re hoping to baptise him next week. He still hadn´t recieved an answer about Joseph Smith, or the Book of Mormon, so Elder Ortega promissed him that if he read, and prayed at night, then waited to recieve an answer, he would get an answer that he´d clearly recognize. Elder Ortega was nervous the whole day long because of the promise he made, but when we came back the next day, Adailson said, "I got an answer, just like you said I would. So I guess the next step is baptism, right?"

We had 6 other girls that went to church this week. Whenever we go to teach one of them, they go and call the others, and we end up teaching 6 lessons at the same time because they live in 6 different houses. One of them named Gorete said, "When you guys first started to teach us, I just listened because I thought you were cute, but now I really believe in the stuff you say, and I´m going to keep coming to church." Shes only 13 years old, so she´ll still need to come to church 6 more times before we can baptise her.

So, yeah. I´m feeling a lot better about my area now. When I got here 9 weeks ago, we didn´t have anyone who was progressing, and we had to work our butts off to find new people to teach, but now its paying off, and we have a ton of great investigators who are progressing really well.

I love you guys, and hope you have a great week. The Church is true, and blesses our lives when we live its principles.

Love, Elder Forsyth