Week 24 - The week of Changes and Baptisms

December 16, 2018

Week 24 - The week of Changes and Baptisms

Note 1: I did receive changes, and not just any change, I got banished into a very far corner of the mission. CONCEPCION DEL URUGUAY, ARGENTINA!! I get to tick off a third country since I left my house which is fetching awesome! Now I just need to go to Quarai, Brazil and I'm all set. Haha! My comps name is Elder Linares and he's from Bolivia! I've only heard super great things about him. He has almost 20 months in the mission.

Note more important: YES THE BAPTISMS HAPPENED!!! It was so incredible. I baptized Michelle (who has 5 names so that made it a little interesting) and Elder Rojas baptized Marilyn. The bishop confirmed Michelle and our ward mission leader confirmed Marilyn. It was so incredible to finally see these people that I've been teaching take this important step in their lives! The best part is when they gave their testimonies at the end of the service and all the things they said were incredible.

Marilyn: She talked about the time she spent as basically being Atheist and all the times she had rejected missionaries before, or Jehovah's witnesses, or other preachers of other kinds all the times before. One day she had a crazy prayer experience to make her believe in God. It took years but one day we knocked her door and we open with the "Do you believe in God?" (to know if we teach Restoration or Plan of Salvation) and then after that, all the contacting questions made her think a lot. She read and prayed like we told her, and she said she is beyond sure that this is the right path for her in her life.

Michelle: She also didn't believe in God before. She's had lots of struggles in her life already even though she's only 20 years old. Within the last year and a half, both her parents died and she had to get out of Venezuela due to conditions there. She said that the one thing that grabbed her attention was the temple work and saving her dead family members and being with them forever. I'm so grateful that not only do we believe it, but we honestly know it. Just like Elder Holland said "I can't imagine a place like heaven without my family" (or something like that).

This week I went to go work on getting my Uruguayan ID a little more ready, and it was really fun to meet up with a lot of other missionaries there and share stories and jokes and such. There weren't a lot of missionaries from my group there, but there was Elders Peterson, Torgerson, and Read and I. Those 3 are some of the funniest guys I've met, I think the funniest thing was Elder Read "explaining the Old Testament." With all the weird things that happen in that book, just imagine a guy my age that is incredibly sarcastic just going off on the entire Old Testament. I almost died laughing.

Well ever since I've started my mission, the importance of developing the attributes of Christ has always been on my mind. Every change I pick one and set goals to develop that attribute at least a little more during the change; but recently I've been going through PMG in order and I'm in Ch. 6 right now which is the attributes of Christ. I read something about Charity, which is in Moroni 7:45 which made me think a lot. I kind of noticed that Charity is basically the culmination of all other Christlike attributes. I also noticed something really cool in verse 48 about our ability to become like our Father in Heaven, and really it is by having Charity; and it's because if we try to develop Charity, we're becoming like Christ, and if we become like Christ, we become more like our Father as well.

Remember: "The best people make the best (anything)" - Elder Hernandez

Well that's pretty much it -
Nos vemos!

-Elder Martin