so after a few months of hard work and patience this past saturday we baptized after a dry spree of a few months. you cant even imagine how great it felt to finally be getting down into the water with somebody and helping them make such an important covenant with our Heavenly Father. ill admit it definitely amped up my batteries in regards to mission work haha. it was a really cool experience especially just being able to see the change in the ladies countenance after her baptism.
when we first met her she was a really sad and depressed lady, she had alot of problems with her husband and her daughters were a little rebellious, and various events that had occured in her life had led her to lose her faith and belief that God even exists. but slowly and surely we were able to guide here little by little with the assistance of the spirit to where she is now. and one of the biggest helps in helping regain the faith and belief in our Heavenly Father was The Book of Mormon. the whole time that we were teaching her every scripture we used to answer her questions and every reading assignment we left with her came from The Book of Mormon. through this book and the power of personal prayers she was able to draw closer to her Heavenly Father, and in return of all her efforts, receive the happiness and joy he promises us.
it truly is special being able to see peoples lives change like this. talking to her before her baptism and asking her how she felt she said that before walking to the chapel somethings happened that caused her to get a little bummed and angry and how she wanted to forget about her baptism and everything but then she just had the feeling that that was the wrong idea haha and that she needed to get baptized, and so she came to the chapel we talked with her for a little to get her animated, and then after her baptism i asked her again how she felt haha and she said with a big huge smile "good, very good, any bad feelings are gone"...if thats not a testimony builder i dont know what is haha.
and last night her and her daughter came to the christmas devotional and just sitting there talking to her i couldnt help but notice how much happier she was haha! and also we were talking to her daughter about her baptismal fecha in a few weeks and she was a little unsure about it because she doesnt know if she meets the requirements to be baptized, and then right there her mom breaks in and starts explaining to her daughter how she felt the same way about her own baptism and then how she came to realize that really she had everything required to get baptized and it was rad just seeing this convert of about 12 hrs bearing her testimony and participating in missionary work. i think thats a little bit of a close call out for all of you out there with years as a member of the church haha.
also aside from that weve really been receiving answers to our prayers in regards to finding new people to teach. we started teaching this one lady that cuts our hair haha and shes way rad, a little confused because shes bounced from church to church trying to find one that she likes and so good thing she found us because theres nothing better than the true restored church of Jesus Christ to clear up all the confusion and get us onto the right path that we need to take in this life.
also we got a reference from a family were teaching, and the guy is way rad, he decided that he needs to start trying to get closer to God and promised that God that if he'd heal his mom that hed join a church, and then days after making this promise we showed up in his life and im excited to start working with him. we still have a lot of work to do here in apatzingan, but with the baptism this last week we gained the wards confidence and there excited to start helping us out and to start seeing the ward here grow. we still have the goal of raising the attendance to the number set by the stake president so that we can create another ward here in apatzingan and then after that get the branch in tepalcatepec started and then having a branch out here and then one day a stake! im excited to hear one day that theres a stake here in apatzingan and be able to look back on the foundations that we made to help build up this part of zion.
i hope that you all enjoy this wonderful holiday season with your families and friends, but dont forget the reason behind all the celebration. i love you and have a great week!
much love from mexico,
Elder Maccarthy
No comments:
Post a Comment