Hermana Hilary Harper: Brisas

Wow! This is already our last week of the transfer! And TODAY I completed 11 months! Next week I'll most likely be writing in a new area with a new companion. That's just my guess though, I very well could stay a little longer. The anticipation of leaving is already making me sad. It is good though, because after a while you start to be more friends with everyone than missionaries, and that's not good.

This week made me think of, what's become one of my favorite scriptures, Alma 27:26, because we had our first baptism here in Brisas!

"Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold, the Lord comforted us, and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success."

It was definitely a fight, but we got Leonardo baptized! Its crazy the obstacles that come up right before a baptism. Thursday night we had a correlation meeting with Roberto (ward mission leader), and other ward members and Roberto told us that on the group message board for the ward, someone had posted that Leonardo had an accident. I guess there was a bus of people that got hit by a train because the bus driver was being dumb and trying to beat the train. Leo was on that bus, but we were able to get a hold of his dad and found out Leo was fine. He was on pain medicine, but was alright. It made me remember in my last area when Jesus was about to be baptized, and a few days before he got this super awful bug bite on his back that was HUGE and infected and he couldn't submerge it in water. In the end, God always wins though and we always have our baptisms!

Saturday we had the baptism and we went during the morning to check on them, because ALL our appointments fell through! We got there and the sister-in-law was doing the mom's nails and Hermana Paula (member that lives with them) was out buying clothes for Leo. It made me so happy that they were all excited about it because they all haven't been to church in like 10 years! When they all got to the baptism that night they were all super dressed up and it was fun. It was a little sad because we had only two other members there (who showed up as it was ending) besides the Ward Mission Leader, Bishop, Young Mens Pres, and the other Missionaries. We did have an investigator there, Conchi, who showed up all by herself though! That was pretty neat. The service was pretty short, but good. What made it good was that all of Leo's family was there. Haha my companion had to give a little talk and found out on the spot, so I think that freaked her out a little, but she did good!

Leo's Baptism

Ohhh...and something cool...we have 2 new potential investigators that came out of Leo's baptism. Leo´s biological dad (Freddy) and his sister-in-law (Rubi) want to take the lessons. Nothing ever happened with either of them before because Russel, Rubi's husband, told us she didn't want anything to do with it, and Freddy seemed a little special. It was funny because the night before the baptism Freddy approached us and asked if he could get baptized with his son the next day. We explained that it’s a process, so he said we could come by Tuesday to teach him. He can't read or write though, so we'll have to figure something creative out for him! With Rubi, she just told us she was really curious with everything especially because her husband and in-laws are all technically members. I'm excited for all that because I really love their family!

Also, we had one funny experience this week that I wanted to share! Its just funny because sometimes our life feels like such a joke. We were in a taxi on the way to the stake center and were talking to the driver about Mormons, like always. Right about the end of the ride, I got a phone call, so I answered and it was this guy we had gone to months ago, but we dropped him because he drank too much and kept blowing us off. His name is Roni, and first thing, he asks why we hadn't visited him in so long, and before I could really answer, I think he heard the taxi driver say something, so he started asking me if our boyfriends were ok with us talking to him. Haha! I was just like, "we're MISSIONARIES, we don't have boyfriends!" And the taxi driver started laughing so hard. Haha that's why I feel like sometimes were a joke, luckily not to everyone though!

On thing I want to end with is a question that an investigator (Jessica) asked us. We were answering her questions about the plan of Salvation and she was trying to make sense of everything and asked, "well, why didn't God just send us all at once to be tested!" I had never thought of that actually, so I had to think for a second, but then it hit me, its because families really are just THAT important. We always say that to everyone, but it really is true that we needed families to make God's plan work the best it could. A lot of times we forget that too, but our families really are huge blessings.

Well, that's all for this week!
Love, Hermana Harper