Ricardo on his Baptism Day!
Baptism of Ricardo with his family
Pizza with members
Sleepover with elders on Transfer day
Breakfast with new missionaries at Mara's house
Elder Miller and Elder Holmes with Jeffrey and Elder Lopez. Middle two went home on Wed.
Elder Marin also went home on Wednesday.
Happy February!!
This week was a long week with very little sleep but we did a lot of great things! This week was highlighted by changes, new and old missionaries, three nights of sleepovers, and Ricardo's baptism!
This past Monday and Tuesday we had transfers/changes here in the mission! Here in the office we stayed exactly the same, once again! For the 4th change in a row, Elder Gallegos and Elder Franco are the assistants, Elder Ray, Elder Davidson, Elder Lopez (my companion), and I are still working in the office. We are going to hit 6 months together at the end of this transfer. This next change Elder Franco goes home and Elder Lopez is going to finish his 5th change in the office so we might see some shake up, but then again... we thought we would have seen some changes in the offices last transfer.... so we will continue working where the Lord has us!
With changes, we welcomed new missionaries to the mission and said goodbye to old missionaries that had finished their 2 years of service. I said goodbye to two ex-companions on Wednesday morning, Elder Holmes and Elder Marin. We also had missionaries sleeping in our house on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night so we ate a lot of Dominos pizza and slept very little!
My favorite part of the week was Ricardo's baptism this past Friday! Let's say it wasn't the smoothest baptimal service that I have had on my mission but it ended up being one of my favorites. The weather last Friday was really bad so we were nervous that very few people were going to go. Elder Lopez and arrived an hour early to clean the room where the service was going to be held and to check the font. We were lucky that other missionaries also baptized Friday morning so they filled up the font for us, however, they didn't tell us that church's water heater didn't work! So the water that was already in the baptismal font, when we got there, was super cold! We tried to turn on the boiler to heat up the water but there wasn't any gas to power the water heaters. Elder Lopez had to baptize Ricardo in very cold water!
Several other challenges soon presented themselves, including our mission President and his wife being the only people to arrive on time to the baptism, members that were assigned a talk that couldn't attend, and a piano that didn't work well. However, the best part is that many people eventually arrived for the baptism and it was a very spiritual experience. Ricardo may have gotten sick after his baptism.....because of the cold water..... actually he did and wasn't able to go to church on Sunday for his confirmation because he was lying in bed but that's ok! He will be confirmed this upcoming Sunday.
Experiences like these teach me a lot! Sometimes it seems like everything goes wrong but if we focus on the things we can control and do our best, everything seems to turn out well. That's how it went in Ricardo's baptism and it was all worth it when we heard Mara share her testimony with her son that the church is true and that they are closer to being an eternal family.
Elder Shipley
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