Baptisms!!

(I love that he can barely conjugate any more and throws in Spanish words now and then.)

So i am going to tell you a story from yesterday. I was walking around in the streets trying to visit a couple of new investigators i have, and everything wasnt working all. Every single one of our plans were falling through on us. And As we were walking i got a thought that i need to visit a family, im asked not to use names so i will call them the Lincoln Family, so i had the thought that i need to visit this family. But i did not want to do it, because they absolutely love it when we come over, and give us a ton of food and stuff, but it is always a huge waste of time.

i was think ´´I get less time to work on Sundays, and i am going to take advantage of every second of it´´ so i told my companion about the thought, and he told me that he wanted to visit them. And so i said ´´Ok before we go over we need a solid plan so its not just wasting time´´ And we couldnt think of one so i just kind of blow off the thought keep walking through the streets. And all of my plans are still falling through, and i am getting tired of it. And my thought that i need to visit the Lincoln Family was just relentless. So i say to myself ´´Fine i´ll go visit this family´´

And so i tell my companion, and he is down to go there. And so we walk to their house, and they are just super excited to see us, and they start running around getting food and stuff ready when my companion says ´´Do you guys have any firewood we can chop´´ And just so you know my companion is super quiet in spanish and so i at first was a little taken off that he was even talking, and that he wanted to chop firewood when we were both already dead tired because we´ve been walking up and down hills all day long. But the mom says ´´Actually Yes i do´´ She then told her son to show us where it was and to help us with it.

And a little information about this family. They are all members except for the son. So he shows us where the firewood was. And i have never seen more firewood in my life. There was a TON! And so my companion grabs and Axe, and starts chopping wood. And so i was sitting there with the son. And i had the thought ´´Invite him to be baptized´´ And i thought to myself ´´Well it is literally going to take forever to cut all this firewood so i might as well take advantage of this time´´ So i start talking to this boy and it starts out with just talking about his school, and then just a couple other random things, and then i ask him if he read a pamphlet i gave him a little while ago, and he told me no.

And I honestly wasnt too surprised because every time we have passed over there i have tried to teaching him but his family always makes it really hard, and he normally doesnt like being there so he normally just leaves. But I realized that this boy could not leave us because he had to help us with the work or else his mom would be mad, and so i knew he wouldnt leave. And also little known fact i am a missionary, so i thought to myself ´´well if your not going to read the stuff yourself i am just going to teach you everything!´´

So As we were working i was teaching the restoration to him, and he was amazed at it. And it was as though he had never heard it before, even though missionaries had been coming over to his house for years now trying to reactivate his family, but then i remembered that he would always leave when i would try teaching him with his family around. And so i realized that it probably was the first time ever that he actually listen. So i taught him. And after teaching him everything. I invite him to be baptized and he says no. And so i think to myself ´´well thats fine because your stuck here with me so i am just going to teach you until you dont have a single doubt left.

And so i secret agented the doubt out of him, and taught him about it. And then little by little he starts running out of little doubts, and got to the point where he was going to pray for a specific date to be baptized and that he is willing to read and pray and do everything in order to find out if what i was teaching was true. And as soon as i finish teaching. the mom comes out and tells us to come inside to eat. So we go inside and i just scarfed down everything super quick so we could get out of there fast so we could leave him with the spirit.

And after we left it was super funny i was walking away with my companion and he turns to me and says ´´Wow you just murdered that man with teaching´´. He actually used different words than that but they are words you dont like mom, so i decided to misquote him, but that was the general message of his statement. (thank you, son)

But this week was pretty good. I had another investigator call me saying 'Hamilton I got my Answer!!!!!' (He found me on facebook like a month ago and ever since then he was called me Hamilton) And so i went over to teach him and he was super excited about being baptized and wanted to get baptized next saturday (because i am baptizing his brother that day!!!!) But i had to explain to him that he needed to go to church and stuff first, and so i set him up with a date on the 12th as well to be baptized. And he was happy and he said that it will be good for him because now he has more time to study the book of Mormon before he gets baptized. It was a good week. Actually really slow but we did some good stuff haha