I had an awesome week!
Saturday, we had a baptism!!!!… but he never showed up. It was because he has a wound on his chest that can’t get wet and if it does he could possibly die, so he was too scared to come. I didn’t realize how dangerous it was until we went to meet him that night. I told him it would be all right, but I said it kinda half-heartedly. He totally shut me down and said “No, it’s not. I can’t get baptized.” I was pretty bewildered and didn’t know what to do. So we said a prayer about it and we left.
We saw him at church the next day and I sat with him and asked if he could get baptized today. He said, “No.” I decided I would talk again with him. I felt pretty stressed because it takes 2 hours to fill the baptismal font and his baptism was going to be right after church. I needed some peace. I prayed suuuper hard about it because I was scared for his health as well. I have never felt so much comfort in my life, it was an obvious rush of the spirit and a direct answer to my prayer. I heard in my head that everything was going to be perfectly fine. I knew instantly that he would get baptized that day and that he wouldn’t get hurt.
I felt the need to do something more. After sacrament, I sat and talked to him personally once more and promised him that God would not allow anything bad to happen to him. I saw his countenance change just a smidge and he said that he knew I was right and that he was going to get baptized on that day. Such a cool experience.
Well the time came and we put on so much tape (like 30 layers) and sent it. I baptized him and brought him out of the water so fast I nearly gave him whiplash. Everything went perfectly, not a drop of water within 6 inches of his wound. I felt the Spirit so much and it felt sooooo cool to do the baptism in Spanish. I will never forget this experience. (Francisco told me after that the wound is a bullet hole, wow, the guy is 75 years old and I have the greatest love for him, nutty world over here.)
Also, that night I read a scripture in Alma 17:10: “And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted.” I can personally testify that the Lord will always give us comfort if we are asking and looking for it.
Other stuff this week:
- We have been starting to knock on more doors and it’s been working in one area real well. I really want to find more great and progressing families and I feel like we can accomplish this by knocking doors especially in a certain area where there are some people that really have close to nothing. So we’re gonna bring em the gospel! I seriously love this work.
- Sunday morning, we called a wonderful lady who is investigating the Church to see if she was coming to our Sunday meetings. She didn’t answer her phone, so we walked to her house, which is very far away. We called to her outside the barbed wire fence around her house for what seemed like 30 minutes before she FINALLY stuck her head out the window and said “Cinco minutos, por favor.” And then we were on our way to church! I felt the urge to leave so many times while waiting, but I literally physically couldn’t, so I just kept waiting until she came out. And it worked!!!
- I ripped my suit pants on some barbed wire… luckily I am really good at sewing. Ok so my pants look really bad.
- Pues, not much else happened except I’m super sunburnt cuz we played futbol for 4 hours today with like a million niños.
- The Popocatépetl Volcano erupted a few times last week.
Love you guys and read Alma 13:20 and really ponder how much the scriptures mean to you.
I love everything about my life right now! I am keeping a journal for my scripture study and I have already used 3 pages in 2 days, and I’ve only read 5 pages of scripture, hahahah. I love the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon.
Love,
Elder Turner
