Another transfer and that always reminds me I haven't written. ALOT has happened this transfer so I will need to upload a few posts. First and foremost I have a great story for this month. We have the best missionaries! Very faithful, obedient and work very hard. What a tremendous privilege it is to work with such incredible young people! I have included a few pictures and you can see the light in their faces! Such an exciting time to share the gospel!
This is a note we received this last month!
This week has been a high point in the mission for sure. It was the last week before transfers and we knew that we were going to be separated. We sat down to plan on Sunday and took a look at our list of investigators. Honestly, we were a bit down. We worked really hard this transfer. And I mean that. Every morning studying hard for our friends, leaving early and walking in the heat all day, coming home late every night, listening to all the council we were given, praying and fasting for our friend's. We really gave it all. As we looked back on it and realized this was our last week, we were disappointed that we didn't have a baptism this transfer. We had so many people who we had taught and prepared, they just had to say yes. We had no one on date for this week, but we felt like we could get a baptism by the end of the week. We resolved to somehow give more than we had been giving and get a baptism this weekend. We identified the three most likely candidates to be baptized and made plans for each one of them then got to work.
We passed by the first, then found out she was out of town for a few weeks. Then we passed by the other, and he told us not now. We passed by the third, the Carballido family. They have two kids named Ian luca and Jonàs. They're were found forever ago by elders who are already home and everyone in this area has been trying to work with them since. When we stopped by them, we didn't exactly get a warm welcome. The entire family walked outside and calmly ignored us as the walked outside the gate, got in the car, and left without a word. I turned to my comp and said "well it's not going to be them" and then we continued on.
Days past and we kept just trying to grind it out. We did a fast and made the huge mistake of trying to do it during the day time. It is really hot out here and we went out and tried to work the whole afternoon without water and felt like dying. At the end of the day we both downed a liter and a half of Gatorade in two seconds and promised never to do that again.
But something happened during that time. I am not sure if it was the fast, or the prayers, or the hard work, or just sheer luck, but something changed in the heart of the Carballido family. It was Friday, we had almost given up on the prospect of having a baptism because there was such little time left and we hadn't even scheduled anything. We went to a dinner that they had for the Barrio and that's when it happened. We went around saying goodbye to everyone before we left and on our way out, hermana Carballido asked us to come talk to her for a second. We have no idea why or what changed, but she asked us if we could baptize her children tomorrow. It was a huge miracle for us. Elders have been trying to baptize them for years and suddenly we were good to go. I sent a baptism photo to one of the elders who taught her but is already home and he almost didn't believe me.
