March 21, 2011
And I mean it, when i think of what happened this week i just get the chills. the other night I was writing in my journal just about my week and i started crying because i was so happy. Ya, i was crying just writing about it!!! But it truly was so wonderful.
The guy we have been teaching for forever, Cesar, was scheduled to get baptized on Saturday. he wanted to get baptized by his friend but his friend had to meet with the bishop a lot to be worthy enough to perform the baptism. Partricio (the friend) also had a little niece who was waiting to get baptized by him so when he was cleared last Monday, we went over and started teaching her to get her ready to be baptized this Saturday as well. A lot of conflicts tried to come in the way, but we kept cool, calm, and collect and had the baptism right on schedule :-) We had every little detail planned out--who was giving talks, who was going to fill the font, providing clothes, everything. On Saturday, we were eating lunch pretty far away when I had the distinct thought "go fill the water in the font" i turned and told Hermana Kusilek and she said "no we already asked so and so to do it" but i kept thinking it so i insisted (she probably thought I was so annoying) so we left the house and walked all the way to the church. Sure enough, no one was there and the font wasn't being filled. It takes about 4 hours to fill them and now it was just barely 2 hours till the baptism. so we quickly cranked on the water and were about to head out to do some more work before the baptism when the stake relief society stopped me and said "you can play piano right? we are having a stake relief society activity and need a pianist" i looked to Hermana Kusilek and we agreed to stay in the building and help with the activity. I played the piano for it, man i have been playing the piano A LOT more than I ever have in my life, thank goodness i learned that skill, and luckily the activity ended at 5:45 because the baptism was going to start at 6. Well, we run in there at 5:45, only to learn that all the water in the church stopped working. the font only had barely a foot of water that hit just below my knees, and the sinks and toilets and everything had no more water. Cesar walked in and looked and i could tell that this wasn't helping him feel less nervous. we thought and thought about what to do. then some other elders came from other wards to watch the baptism, and they said they had a big tank of storage water out in the back of the church. we grabbed some mop buckets and big bowls from the kitchen and ran back and forth dumping the storage water (who knows how filthy it was haha) into the font. it was SOOO fun. everyone was laughing and just had a great optimistic spirit and we kept saying to Cesar "don't worry! the baptism will go on!" miraculously, the font filled by 6:15 and we commenced the beautiful baptism. the spirit was so strong. like SOOOO strong. You could just tell they were so happy. He kept thanking me and saying "thank you for allowing me to be a member of your church!" he is really a great guy. It was stressful but so fun.
The next day just got even better. Cesar came to church in a new shirt and tie that someone gave him and he just looked sharp and happy. He was so excited to receive the Holy Ghost later that day. We were in a gospels class when someone knocked on the door and said "hermanas, you have an investigator here" we were so surprised because it is SOO hard to get investigators to really come to church, and we always call and visit like 8 people and then no one comes...but we go out there and Pedro Hector was out there!!! he is our investigator who is 88 years old and loves to cook, and it just a great old man. he looked at us and said "well, I'm here. I'm ready." oh we were just so so happy. he loved the gospel class and it only got better and better. Then it was sacrament meeting. I went and played the prelude music, and as i was playing i just felt the spirit SOO strongly. Like, it really just filled my soul as i was playing and i didn't even know why. when i stopped, i looked back at our investigator only to see something else catch my eye. This family was sitting in the row in front of us. Let me tell you about this family. They have been inactive for 2 years and the ward has been doing EVERYTHING to get them to come back to church. They have us over every week for lunch and love the missionaries, but just never come to church anymore and it makes us really sad. This week we went over and I was trying my hardest to talk as much as i could. they are just so sweet to me. I told them how i was assigned to give a talk that Sunday and that they should come and listen. Each week Hermana Kusilek invites them to church but just like the past 2 years, they never come. I just laid out the invitation that I was going to give a talk and left it at that. When I saw them there, they looked at me and smiled. I just wanted to cry. I was so happy for them. We had more inactive families come this week than all of our weeks. Cesar gave the opening prayer to the meeting, and just a few weeks ago we couldn't get him to pray in front of us in lessons. Fausto and LIno passed the sacrament again, and this week Cesar is going to receive the priesthood as well. My soul at that moment just got filled with immense joy. I was looking at all these people who I loved so much, and at their faith and love in the gospel. I gave my first talk here in Argentina that Sunday. I was pretty dang nervous, but Afterwards people told me it was good and understood the whole thing. made me feel a lot better. I just cannot explain it, the joy i feel when i talk about that Sunday is just greater than any moment i have had in my life. wow, I'm being overcome again just thinking about it. ill move on.
One time this week we were contacting and we stopped and talked to this group of young kids. they thought it was fascinating that we knew English. they asked us to teach them cool things to say. I said "here is a phrase you can say that is really cool--´I want to be baptized´" they practiced it and practiced it and then they kept running around saying that in English. we told them they need to yell that to the elders when they see them walking cuz its bad and they were like "ohh ok!!" haha we do whatever we can to help out with the work.
Sometimes when we go in peoples homes they will have the news on about what happened in Japan....it makes me so sad. I heard the missionaries are alright there, right? is Candice still going to go on her mission there? whats going to happen with Japan now? it looks destroyed. I am so thankful for all I have here. I am just so blessed to have a bed and blankets and food. So many people in the world are without that. Sometimes I walk by Villas and I just feel so much love for them and I wish I could help them out. The best I can do is just spread the love to God because i KNOW that blesses peoples lives, I've seen it already in just 4 months of my mission. Holy dang I've been gone for 4 MONTHS!!!
Well this was a long essay, mostly about just a few hours of my week. Life here is the best. I love my comp, i love my mission, i don't love the dogs, i love the people, and i love dulce de leche. I love you all as well!!!
Les quiero mucho
Hermana Collins
ah rats, i tried to send pictures. it didn't work. next time. maybe.
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