so after the president took the other companionship out of apatzingan elder nielson and i have been running this place, and we definitely have had our hands full haha i'm starting to realize that apatzingan is alot bigger than i really thought haha. its been quite the experience having to pick up where the other elders left off at, but we've got a lot of really great people were teaching right now.
as of just this past week we picked up two new families so that was pretty cool to have happen. on monday, it being new years eve, we went over to the house of some members to eat tamales, tostadas, buñuelos and a bunch of other great food, the members here treat us so nicely haha especially since the other companionship got taken out, i think its because they're afraid they might take missionaries out of apatzingan permanently and so there treating us extra nicely haha. but anyways so we ate with them and it was pretty fun, watching the kids light off the fireworks gave me ganas to do it, but were not allowed to so i restrained myself haha. we had to be in home early because it gets crazy here and then we hardly slept at all because every 5 minutes someone would start shooting haha and not just like little firearms, but big boys haha. so i hardly slept that night but i was expecting it so it was not too big of a deal haha.
also the unthinkable happened this past week. there were a couple days this past week where it was so cold outside that we actually wore sweaters when we left to go work in the mornings. i never thought that there would be a day where it'd be cold enough to wear a sweater in apatzingan haha but ya it was chilly for a few days but now its back to the good ol' blazing hot apatzingan that we know and love. elder nielson is actually sick right now with the cold because of the weather change and i've been having to give all the lessons for the past couple days because he hasn't been able to talk haha but he's getting better now and his spanish is a little bit more understandable haha.
we've also seen a few little mini miracles you could say during the trans-course of the week. the first happened with this one investigator that's been being taught for a good while by the missionaries and has received all the lessons and is reading the book of mormon praying daily coming to church every week, the "eternal investigator" as they are called by missionaries ahah because they do everything they're supposed to do but they never say yes to get baptized. and she was one of these "eternal investigators" of the other elders and well just this past week she finally accepted the invitation to get baptized!
it was actually a way cool spiritual lesson. we showed up and were talking to her about the third missionary lesson, which covers and talks about the gospel ofJesus Christ, she already knew all the stuff we were teaching her and well when we got to talking about baptism the inevitable question popped "why havent you been baptized yet?" after listening to her tell why she hasn't done it yet the thought came to me to share a scripture with her, Alma 7:14-15 (my favorite to share with these "eternal investigators") and well i shared it with her and it did just the trick, the Spirit spoke to her in that moment and she then said to us, "you know i've always said no to all the other missionaries that have asked me that, but with you two i feel something different". she accepted to get baptized right then! it was a way cool experience, we were super stoked about it. just goes to show you the true power of the scriptures.
we are just waiting for her family to get back from out of town and once they do she said she wants to get baptized, so we're hoping and praying they get back soon haha. also this past week one of our investigators that we've been inviting to church since the beginning of december finally came to church this past sunday and to be honest it was a nice little surprise that the Lord gave us haha because all week he had been telling us that he was going to come to church, like he had said for the last 5 weeks, and then sure enough he showed up in sacrament meeting on sunday after having walked all the way to the chapel from his house in the outskirts of apatzingan. so that was another cool little miracle that happened this week.
we got a pretty busy week ahead of us though, we have 3 baptisms lined up for this weekend so were pretty stoked about that and getting everything lined up good for it. i'll be sure to let you all you know how it went in the following weeks email. also hoping maybe have a couple more things to talk about haha my mind kind of drew a blank and couldn't think of anything that had happened this week haha so sorry.
but i hope you all enjoyed your new years celebration and the last week of your vacations and that now you are back to work and school and all that good stuff. have a great week everybody and until the next one!
much love from mexico,
Elder Maccarthy
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