1-3-11

Mom,

This week was pretty boring! Our New Years we didn't really do much as we were asked to be inside the house by 6:00pm so we ended up studying, writing letters, and making hot chocolate.

The baptism went great on Saturday! Here's the whole story.
We have been teaching Gabriela and Nora for more than a month, so last week we all talked about what we were going to do to get this thing together during PEC. Friday rolls around and we have the program for Gabriela and Nora ready to go so we called Hno. Javier (WML) and he said "I'll call you back when I get home." Great... we waited until 8:30 and he still hadn't called, so we called him back and he was home he said "Yeah, I'm home... but I don't have the program." What on earth? So then Saturday at 4 he planned on meeting us to do the program. Didn't show. We called him and he said he was on the way and ended up getting there at 4:30 and I gave him the program, his response was "I don't have a key to that office." I was dumbfounded. WHY??? I couldn't figure out why he didn't just tell us this in the first place! We would have gone to the library and done it ourselves!! Anyway, we're trying to get a hold of someone that has a key and the other elders were in a lesson so finally I called the 2nd counselor and his response was "There's a baptism? Who is getting baptized?" By this time I'm pulling my hair out! Not only did the bishopric not know, but neither did the young womens or relief society. So I ended up driving down to the 2nd counselors house to get the key from him and I'm blazing down Webster ave. -- Red and Blue lights -- Great... Just my luck! So I get my wallet out and roll down the window, he asks "Hey bud, there a reason you're driving so fast?" I said "Yes, we have a baptism tonight and it's very disorganized so I'm flying down here to get a key from someone to open the building." He said in response "Ok, well, just do me a favor and slow down... and use your signal... and stop at the stop signs." WOO! Let me off. PHEW. So we get they key and fly back (safely of course) to the church. We open the door to the clerks office and hno. Javier turns on the computer and said "That's all I know how to do, turn it on and off." So we ended up doing the program anyway. Sometimes I wonder why we even ask other people to do things, anyway -- Elder Goncalves said something really funny to him, Elder G. is very open with people and he turned to Javier and said "Javier, Dios te dio una cabezita... usala!" (Javier, God gave you a little head, use it!) With the program finished and the people there, we did a lot of calls to invite people, we ended up having 60 people and 6 investigators there! It ended up being fantastic. After the baptism Nora said "I feel something right here, (pointing to the middle of her chest) I don't know what it is, but I know it's good. It was the ending to a great and crazy day! Sunday we confirmed them members of the Church and now they're doing amazingly. Nora's son Jose even said to her "mom, I want to be like the Elders, I want to serve a mission." So we're going to give him a baptismal date tomorrow for two weeks from last Saturday!

Even though it was the craziest day of my life, it's days like that that make it all worth it. Seeing someone content and happy and feeling the spirit in such abundance. God lives, Christ lives, and I feel so blessed to have had the chance to help someone find out that eternal truth. As Nephi tells us, is this the end, my beloved brethren? It is not... We endure to the end.

I love you all!

-Elder Conner Allred