Erika's Baptism

erika´s baptism, with her family that are members

with her mom and sisters

thanks to gee, ma, jmag, sis. patiño, sam, rachel, renee, and carrie for the emails!  loved all the photos and the stories of everyone´s adventures. 

saturday erika got baptized.  her great grandma and mom´s cousin are converts, so it was nice to add another church member to their family tree.  we were hoping that her dad would be able to come (we´ve never met him.  he works ALL day long in the house of some relative making sausages) but he couldn´t.  we went by her house to pick her up (she lives FAR from the chapel) and everyone was asleep (the service was at 11 am).  we woke her up, she woke her mom up, and she said her mom and siblings would come later in remis (taxi).  the service began and still her family was not there.  hna mortensen and i were a little stressed/sad, but then they ran in at the end of the opening song!  well, her mom and sisters.  but we were glad they made it.  it was a good little service.  it´s tradition in guemes for the missionaries to make banana bread for the refreshments at the end.  it´s the only time members have ever eaten it--at baptisms.  most everyone loves it.  but i´m always surprised by a handful of people that don´t (like erika´s mom and sister).  we were planning to baptize erika´s cousin carolina the same day, but during the week she decided to wait a little longer.  we´re also hoping to be able to teach her mom and siblings and the family of carolina a little more--they can be a little illusive and hard to catch, though we get in a few lessons with them each week.  still can´t get any of them to church.  they have hard lives and i KNOW the gospel can help them.  they have had good experiences with the church in the past, so i know it is all about right timing (like, heavenly father´s timing).

haven´t been able to teach liliana (gobelli fan club mom).  she´s kinda avoiding us.  it makes me sad because i know that she knows we can help her.  we´ll see what we can do this week.

thursday, hna mortensen said that she felt we should visit romina.  romina is the daughter-in-law of eduardo (the baptism that never happened).  romina wasn´t on my high-priority list because the last time we had a lesson scheduled with her, no one came to the door, even though we heard them all inside.  but i believe that my comp can receive spiritual impressions too, so we passed by her house.  we had been inside for only a few minutes (like, hadn´t sat down yet), when her neighbor pokes her head in.  she sees that we´re missionaries and asks if we know people that might need some clothes.  we can think of a few families we´re teaching that could use some hand-me-downs so we say, sure.  well, turns out that´s she was moving and couldn´t bring hardly anything with her.  so we inherited 6 HUGE trashbags FULL of clothes.  miracle.  and that was why we had to visit romina that day.  pretty cool how the spirit works, eh?  and plus, we found out that romina wasn´t home the last time we had passed, but her sister in law was and she didn´t want to answer the door for strangers.  so she got removed from my black list.  and that she still was interested and even wanted to come to church with us.  double blessing.

recently, we miraculously found maria.  one day we decided to knock doors because we never do and sometimes you can find good people that way.  so the only person that agreed to a lesson was maria.  but, in her own house, because we knocked the door of her work (she babysits some kids in their house).  so a few days later i felt that we should visit maria at home, but had a little bit of a hard time finding it.  someone else answered at the address that she gave us.  but as we were leaving, i noticed there were a few little houses/apartments in the back.  so we clapped those, and she was home.  met her elderly mom that she lives with.  found out that her daughter is the friend of another investigator (who had also given us her name as a reference, but that we could never find).  taught her an AWFUL first lesson.  like, the worst of my whole mission, i´m sure.  and then we could never find her again.  passed by her house ALL THE TIME and she was never home.  then, amazingly, we found her at rodrigo´s house (remember him? my favorite little kid).  she just started working for his dad, adrian.  coincidence?  nah.  we had a second lesson with her and adrian that went way better.  but still haven´t been able to find her very much because she works like 7 jobs.  (single mom that has to pay for a ton of meds for her mom).  then this weekend we heard that her mom got bit by a dog, so sunday morning we stopped by before church.  and it was so sad.  because the gma was not only bit by a dog, she got attacked by a dog.  ripped open her arm--broke a few bones, lost a lot of blood, has a ton of stiches.  and she couldn´t stop crying when we visited her.  bad memories, lots of pain.  what do you say in a situation like that?  so we sang a hymn (where can i turn for peace) and asked if she would like a priesthood blessing.  i felt like we should ask adrian to participate in the blessing--after all, maria knows him, and he is returning back from innactivity and JUST received the melchezidek priesthood.  it was a good experience for all, i think.  maria really appreciated it, adrian felt good and needed and when we stopped by this morning, the grandma looked a ton better, was in good spirits, and had been able to rest.  priesthood power is real!

the church is true!

hermana magnusson