Surprise

1st Baptism of the mission!  Elder King, Nelson, Elder Hurtado

Dear friends and family,

Super crazy, probably undeserved miracles went down this week, so I'm just going to dive right in.

Tuesday

We were all ready to help Freddy move, but he never called, so we missed that opportunity. So sad, I was beginning to feel like I was in an Elders Quorum back home haha. We dropped by Nelson's but he wasn't home so, we went and visited the Espitia family. We are trying to build some faith in Sister Carmen, because she really doesn't get the whole concept of "blessed for obedience" thing. She is very worried about her health because she has bad knees and apparently the cold (that is like, 60 degrees here) damages her knees and she can't walk. We dropped by Eogenio's place and Talked to Wendy, the oldest daughter who is kind of investigating. Fun fact, Eogenio means Genie. Go figure.

Wednesday

We went to teach Nelson the last couple of lessons and give him a new date for baptism. About halfway through the lesson he tells us he will be gone almost the entire Month of May, making it basically impossible to baptize him until about Mid June. But as we got talking, he told us he feels super ready and he wants to get baptized before he goes. I basically went through my entire range of emotions in that lesson as we told him we would do whatever we could to make it possible for him to be baptized. We made the long walk back to ward council, where the High Council was giving some training, making it somewhat difficult to explain in detail the needs of our investigaters. The meeting went really long and eventually we had to leave early to be home on time.

Thursday

Companion exchanges with Elder Vergara. Unfortunate, as the day was pretty much a bust. Nobody was home, which is surprising here in the coast. But we did get to our appointment with Nelson, where he had his interview for baptism and everything checked out. He has tremendous faith and it's really amazing how this all played out. Me and Elder Vergara went to an appointment with the Torro family, but they weren't there either, so we had some Arepas rellenas, arguably the best form of arepa. I'll look you up a picture to give you an idea of what it is.

Friday

We spent friday scrambling to get stuff ready for Nelson's Baptism, calling members left and right, working on getting the agenda ready, calling more people. We had an appointment with Wendy, but she wasn't there, so we just invited everyone else in the house to the baptism.

Saturday

More preparations for the big day, a few commitments fell through, the brother that was going to baptize him had some family matters, so I got to do it. We had the baptism and it was a wonderful experience. The spirit was very strong and I really can't describe how great it is to dunk people without them getting angry at you haha. But in all seriousness, probably the best experience here in the mission. First Baptism!!

Sunday

In church we had the confirmation, most of Nelson's family made it, which was wonderful. Eogenio's wife, Radel also accompanied her children to church. We haven't seen her in church for a while, so it's good to have her coming again. It was through her that we found Nelson and his family, so I'm really glad that she decided to come. I just hope that her Husband starts coming again

So, to recap, Really awesome week, next week will be better hopefully. We have stake conference next week and as far as the mothers day call, I'm planning on calling in the afternoon. I'm still working on all the details on my side, but be ready by 2:00, that'll be the earliest i'll be calling. It shouldn't be much later than 3

The lord blesses righteousness, even if it's just a little.

Love you all,

Élder King