June 24th Letter.

Hey Family!

Wow.  This week has been absolutely nuts.

First off... So sorry that I didn't write yesterday.  My district leader, Elder P was emergency hospitalized for an intestinal infection.  Poor kid is suffering hard.  He is back in the district working again but looks absolutely green and hasn't eaten since Saturday.  Pray for him.  Actually, better yet put him on the prayer roll. 

Well.  We have a few slight changes.  Due to the baptisms and future baptisms which we have been able to work here in our area is being broken in two.  We will be left with SE, but all of the aldeas below (where all of our progressing investigators live) will now be another area.  In fact, it will now be another branch.  We had two families progressing toward baptism down there.... But they will likely now be baptisms for the elders.  It's rough.  We literally will have to start over.  The part of our area that we are being left is super Catholic and we only have one investigator here...

Which brings me to my next point, we saw a huge miracle this week.  Our one investigator here in SE is named Luis.  We found L when we changed houses.  He is our landlord and as we were talking to him he mentioned that he listened to missionaries 15 years ago and almost got baptized... Including that elders helped build the house we currently live in.  Well we invited him to church and without any coaxing he actually showed up.  He has been coming for almost a month but is completely against the idea of baptism.  We were completely lost for how we could help him.

Well, last week while we were pondering it over we came to the conclusion that we needed to show forth more effort.  We decided to street contact a thousand people in one week.  We prayed and explained to God that we really needed help so that L would be able to get an answer.  We explained that this week we were going to contact a thousand people, and hoped that in return he would receive an answer. 

Sunday night we finished our thousandth contact as we rushed back into the house.  Monday after finishing P day, we ran to the house of L to challenge him to be baptized.  We tried in the morning planning a lesson, but just couldn't feel any revelation.  We prayed before knocking the door, and L responded.  At first he didn't want to listen to us, but eventually let us share with him. 

We just started off with a hymn and a prayer and began verifying like we always do... "how was church? What did you learn from the Book of Mormon since the last time we saw you?  What do you feel when you ask God if you need to be baptized?"

When we brought up the B word, he just sat there looking at us.  After about a minute he told us:

"Hermanas, last night I fell asleep reading the Book of Mormon.... I had a dream that Jesus Christ came to me.  He didn't tell me anything but I knew for some reason that He wanted me to follow Him.  But I don't know how.... I feel the answer is somewhere in the Book of Mormon."

 

We opened up to 2 Nefi 31 and read:

"y dijo a los hijos de los hombres:  Seguidme.  Por tanto mis amados hermanos, podemos seguir a Jesus, a menos que estemos dispuestos a seguir a los mandamientos del padre?  Y el pade dijo: Arrepentios arrepentios y sed bautizados en el nombre de mi amado hijo."

We then asked... "L how can you follow Jesus?"

"I need to repent and be baptized."

"Will you follow the example to Jesus Christ and be baptized this 5th of July?"

(long pause)

"Well hermanas, you are going to have to help me... But if Jesus wants me to follow him I need to do it."

WOW! God is so merciful.

So, I feel like Job when he said "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away... Blessed be the name of the Lord."

The Lord may be taking away the majority of our area, but he is giving us L.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Please pray that all will go well and he will be baptized on the 5th.

Please pray that we will find investigators in our newly divided area.

In other news, we had a conference today with Elder Alonzo. The conference was a tri zone conference and it really was incredible.  He taught us so much about how to study and liken the scriptures.

The most terrifying part of the conference? When I had to sing "I know that my Redeemer Lives" in front of a general authority.... All by myself.  But I didn't even throw up.... So I would call that a success.

Funny part of the conference was that the zone leaders sent us a message last night explaining the importance of taking a proper shower and wearing nice clothes and using makeup for the conference.... What are you trying to say, zone leaders?! I have been personally victimized by Elder T.  (You're awesome if you understand that reference.)

Well, hope this letter is better than last week.

Love you all!

Hermana Wise