This
week was a great one with two amazing baptisms! We were so blessed to have met these
two wonderful women and to have the chance to help them enter the waters of baptism in
our 4th week in a new area not knowing anyone! What a blessing and what a miracle!
It ended up being a beautiful baptismal service,
maybe the most spiritual one that I have had on my mission!
So here is Fausta´s story:
Her daughter and some other of her children were baptized when they were teenagers
while they all lived in Peru. I don´t remember how they met the missionaries, but
Fausta always told them I don´t have time to learn from the missionaries and I don´t
have time to be baptized. She always let her children go to church and encouraged
it. It sounds like her daughter, Cristina (the one that we know), would go by herself
as the other children became less active. Cristina went off to study at a university
in Peru and still attended a ward and even received her endowments, but then fell
inactive as well over time. Cristina then moved to Spain six years ago and her mother
would travel and visit her every once in a while. Cristina decided that she needed
to change her life and find the church here in Hospitalet. She found it on her own
and Hermana Farrell had set up a visit with her. Amongst all the changes, Hermana
Farrell never had the chance to visit with her but was able to remember to pass
on Cristina´s name to me.
My new companion, Hermana Rivera, and I went to visit
her and in the first visit we met Cristina, her atheist teenage daughter and boyfriend,
Cristina´s son (who is 7 years old), and Cristina´s mom, Fausta. We did a lesson
0 to get to know Cristina and hear her story. She thought we were there to visit
her and help reactivate her but as soon as we found out Fausta wasn´t baptized I
knew we had to invite her in that first visit. I nudged my companion and told her
that she had to do the invitation like we practiced during our studies. She asked
Fausta to be baptized and Fausta said no. She said maybe with time. We gave her
a Book of Mormon, unsure if she knew how to read or not and she accepted it. The
second visit I felt again that we needed to invite her to be baptized. I nudged
my companion and reluctantly she invited Fausta to be baptized. This time she said
yes! But she didn´t want to put a date yet. I talked to Cristina and told her of
our purpose and that we wanted to help her mom be baptized if she would like to
do it.
Cristina was overwhelmed with joy. In the third visit, a week after we first
met this family I asked Fausta to be baptized on the 26th of February. She said
yes! Thanks to Cristina talking to her and Fausta reading the Book of Mormon, Fausta
finally had received her answer that it was her time to be baptized. As we started
teaching her we realized the importance of simple and powerful lessons. Fausta can´t
sit there for a long time and she does not have a good memory so we had to adapt
our teaching. Thanks again to Cristina she learned everything she needed to learn
in order to be ready for her baptismal interview. We ended up moving forward the
date because Cristina has to work the 26th and so Fausta was totally prepared to
be baptized even a week earlier than her original fecha. It was a miracle the change
in attitude that she had as we visited her.
In the baptismal service, Cristina gave the talk about the Holy Ghost. It was neat
how she started crying and finally told her mom that it was her time. It was her
turn to be baptized and she wasn´t too busy and she had to be in Spain for this
reason...to finally be baptized in the true church of Jesus Christ. It was wonderful
to see the family come together during these times and to see Cristina´s faith and
testimony reappear as she received all of the lessons again and became newly converted
in the gospel after so many years. AMAZING.
It was a wonderful baptismal service of Fausta and Lupe. We were truly blessed to
have taught them. It was so easy! They were so prepared and so easily did they accept
all of the commitments and teachings. They didn´t really have questions and they
constantly bore their testimonies to us. It was incredible. My new companion´s first
two baptisms in the mission and the first two baptisms of the year in this new area/ward
that we are still white washing. The ward says that we are angels. It´s been wonderful
to make our reputation with the people so quickly and to have them trust us as their
missionaries.
Changes are happening throughout the world with the increased number of missionaries-elders
and sisters.
Pte Pace received special permission to have the two day sisters conference to prepare
the sisters in the mission to train. The day after the conference ended over 10
missionaries finally received their visas to enter Spain and enter the Barcelona
mission. Over half of these missionaries are sisters! How exciting.
I received a phone call from Pres Pace today informing me that Hermana Jorgensen
(!) is coming to Hospitalet tomorrow and will pick up her new companion that she
will train on Thursday. So she will be white washing and training (like me) in Hospitalet
Barrio 2 (the ward that I served in with Hermana Walker). I am so excited for her
to come and to help her get to know the area! After those last two baptisms we now
have few people to teach and will need to focus on finding new investigators. Luckily,
this will give me the time to show Hermana Jorgensen her new area and to introduce
her to some of the members that I quickly learned to love during the months of November
and December. I am so excited to live with her again and I am excited that she will
be in that ward. :)
Pres also informed me that 3 new sisters are coming from the states this week and
7 elders. Next week 4 elders from the states are coming. The following week (the
normal transfer week) 7 sisters are coming in!!!! And 2 elders. How exciting! So
many sister missionaries! Right now we have 23 sisters in our mission. 3 are going
home Feb 5th. And then 5 of us are going home March 20th. But how exciting that
almost every sister in the mission will be training a new sister missionary from
the states!! The work is moving forward and it is so great to be apart of it.
As far as my companion and I we will stay together through March. We are a great team and I love her so much. Slowly, she is learning a
little more English every day and she is always helping me with my Spanish, which
is wonderful. Besides the fact that we are both sick, we still have a lot of energy
and enthusiasm to work! There is a lot to be done in this ward and I predict that
in the near future they might either put a set of elders in this ward to work with
us or maybe another set of hermanas. Pte Pace says that almost every ward/branch
in the mission will soon have 4 sets of missionaries-Hermanas and Elders. How exciting
that we can help move the work forward!
Please, be a member missionary. Support the missionaries, invite them into your
homes, and trust them with your nonmember friends. We all have the desire to serve
the Lord but the missionaries cannot do it on their own. Help join us and join the
missionary force! :) It is an exciting work and the Lord´s hands are in every detail.
I love you and I love this gospel. Live it! Love it! Have a good week.
Love,
Hermana Johnson
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