Amazing Week

  Hello Family!  This week was absolutely amazing.  We had a really good start to the week, and to top it all off, Cindy and her two kids (Michelle and Antony) were baptized on Saturday!  This has been one of the weeks in the mission where I know for a fact I am where I am supossed to be.

     So I want to tell a little bit about how Cindy came around to be baptized.  This is the first baptism I´ve had that we found them knocking doors.  (The rest are references)  Her husband Antonio attended us, and we didn´t even see her until like the fourth visit.  But when we did, she didn´t really want to talk to us, and was so sure that her church was the right one.  That was back in November.

     But over time, the whole family didn´t progress, so we stopped visiting them for a while.  But one time, about 3 weeks after we stopped visiting them, we were up by their house, and Elder Josec and I both felt the impression to visit them again.  So we did, and turns out the Cindy needed a lot of help from someone exactly then.  So we helped her out a little bit, and left, not thinking much about it.

      But ever since then, she started to warm up to us.  We never saw Antionio because he got a new job, and he always got home late.  But we started to teach Cindy again, and now she started to accept it.  She made the necessary changes in her life, and she just looked happier.  

     But there was one night about 2 weeks ago, where Antonio came home late, and was really drunk.  Long story short, he threw Cindy and her kids out on the street, and we just happened to pass by when that happened.  So we arranged for them to sleep in a member´s house for the night, and while we were looking, we had an amazing talk with her about the church, and how she loves it.  We talked a little bit about baptism, and she told us she would think about it.

     So now this Tuesday passed, and we had an amazing cita with her.  We felt the spirit so strong, and Cindy and her two kids agreed to be baptized!  Michelle, the little girl asked us, "How soon can we do it?"  So amazing.  So on Saturday, they were baptized!  So amazing.  They were so happy, and it showed.  Everyone could see how happy they were.  

      As for baptisms, this has probably been one of the most rewarding ones for me.  I saw their conversion from start to finish, and I was there every step of the way.  It has been on of the highlights of my entire mission.  And I´m so glad that I was a part of it!

      Wow, that took up a lot of space...  I just needed to tell you guys about her so that you can understand what I´m feeling!  

     As for the rest of the week, we worked really hard at the beginning of the week, because we knew that the rest of our time was going to be taken up by the baptism.  But we still had some really good lessons, and found some really good people to teach.  

     As for me, I´ve been feeling the Spirit more than ever recently.  That has been one of my goals for the home stretch of my mission.  It´s one of the things about the mission that is unexplainable.  It also is one of my biggest fears about going home, because I won´t have the same opportunities to feel the Spirit.  But we always have to be working so that we can feel it.

     I feel like this letter is really jumbled, but I hope you all get what i´m trying to say...  But if not, just act like you do!  Jaja but I hope that you all have a great week.  I love you all!  Until next time!

     - Elder Stuart

     P.S. This week isn´t really a scripture, but a talk.  http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/transcripts/religionsymposium/2003_01_25_bednar.htm  Read it!  It´s so good!

Happy New Years!

    Hello Family, and Happy 2013!  Time just seems to be flying, and look now, we are already in another year!  That sure was quick!  This past year was really crazy with everything that went on, but I have a feeling that this next year will be just as crazy!  Especially because I am going to be in the mission the whole year!  That is just crazy to think about!  But I hope that this year will be great for you guys, because I know that it is going to be great for me!  I hope that we can continue to feel the blessings of the Lord in our lives, and that we can remember him throughout the year!

    After we FINALLY got back to Pancà, we knew that we were going to have to work our butts off to make this week count.  So that is exactly what we did!  Even though everything didn`t turn out as we hoped, I felt good about it, because I knew that I did all that I could to make up for the time that we lost.  We ended up staying out until about 9:00 each night, which is really late for an Aldea (An area like Pancà)  We usually are supposed to come in at like 7:00, but we wanted to work more, so we stayed out later.  I hope that our extra work has payed off!  

     There aren`t really good stories for this week, because we missed a lot of the appointments that we had planed, so we really just went and visited a lot of the members and less actives here.  It was really cool, because one of the less actives that we have been visiting for pretty much the whole time finally came to church for the first time!  Even though it was to bless her baby girl, it still counts!  I was hoping that she would get up and bear her testimony about it all, but she didn`t unfortunately...  But we talked to her afterwards, and she seems really glad that she came to have her girl blessed.  So hopefully that means that she will come next week!  

     The President has issued a challenge for us as missionaries.  We are going to try and read the entire BoM before the next General Conference.  But not just read it, but to really study it.  We all have a notebook to but notes and feelings that we have.  I really like reading it and studying it this way.  I mean, I have read it before, but to really study it means that I am able to grasp more and more about the BoM, and I really like it!

     So this week wasn`t all that I hoped it was going to be, but hopefully this next week will!  Until Next Week!

      - Elder Stuart

     P.S. The scripture is 1 Nephi 8:30.  But it really is just better to read the whole chapter.  And if you can, look up Elder Bednar`s talk on the Tree of Life!