Yes, you read correctly. BAPTISM! This week was the week that Mayra was baptized! Everything was the same as the first time we had a baptism, except this time, the investigator showed up. She is a fireball. She loves the church and is always willing to do whatever needs to be done to be the best she can be. She was "golden" when we found her and is still "golden" today. She is setting a terrific example for her children, who were not baptized that day, but ahddfasl;kfas;lkgj ;lsadf SUPER EXCITING. First Baptism: Check.
Anyway, the rest of the week went kind of as follows:
We had the largest attendance at Sacrament Meeting that I had seen since I came here (35 people!) and we got a new temporary member of our ward! He is super cool and was a little bit less active, but realizes that he needs the Church in his life, so he just came back. Super cool.
Transfers happened on Thursday, so my friend Elder Casper went home after two years of hard work and we got a boatload of new missionaries. Also, there is a sister that came out from my stake (THE BEST STAKE IN THE CHURCH) and I met her for the first time out here in the field haha. The new zone leader in place of Elder Casper is none other than the fabled Elder Van Houten. He is quiet, but powerful, and he is a really cool and funny person. He has been out for a good while, but is a good leader.
What else and what else... Oh, so every week we have soccer on Tuesdays, and just like every other week, Fermin came. Fermin is a really cool guy, and is a straight up Ranchero. He is married to a girl named Amber and they have one very beautiful little girl. They decided to start coming to different ward activities and are fellowshipping really well with the ward. It is awesome. They are not currently married, but were looking to do it next month in a stinky courthouse. We recommended that they get married inside the church by the bishop, and they were like nah, that costs money. After we told them that it did not, they were all over it. They may very well be our next baptismal candidates, and they are so ready.
We were supposed to have a day this week where we went to the lake with the Branch. The branch presidency had planned it and all of this good stuff and we had gotten approved and rides and it was going to be so fun, until the scouts that went ahead to check out the lake said that it was gross. This was fine with us because we couldn't swim anyway, but I guess that must've been pretty disappointing for everyone else. Instead, we settled for a park day, except nobody could decide which park. We were told to go to one park, so we did (#OBEDIENCE) and there was this huge bicycle race going on. These people had gone 100-miles and finished in the park we were at. So, there we were, wearing our service clothes and nametags. We decided that we would go check it out. The people thought that we had just finished the race and were SO nice to us. They offered us free food and gave us damp towels to cool off and there was live music and it was really cool. We were like uhhhh well okay and our assignment was to wait there for an hour and a half and redirect anyone who came to that park by mistake. It all worked out pretty well.
These past couple of days have been, well, HOT. 97 degrees with 100% humidity is pretty crazy. I live though. It is hot. That is it.
Shoutout to President and Sister Shumway for their awesome service! T-Minus 9 days until both the mission and the mission president change forever to the Arkansas Bentonville Mission!!!
We are are in full preparation mode for a couple of things. Firstly, next week, the goal for our mission is to teach 40 lessons for the entire week, with 60% of those being member-present. This is a lofty goal. Our goal this week is to ramp up to 30 lessons this week, which will be difficult. We are so ready for it, though. We are preparing for the 4th of July as well. There is a family in our Branch, the Guardado family, who is the most American family that is Salvadoranian that I have met in my entire life. We are preparing to go to the temple that day with recent converts, and maybe doing some service that evening. EXCITEMENT!
Well, that is about it. Life goes on. If you made it this far in the post, props to you haha it takes determination sometimes.
Spiritual thought this week (on the word of wisdom):
"The Fall a Process of Physical Degeneracy.—A modern revelation given to the Church in 1833 (D&C 89), prescribes rules for right living, particularly as regards the uses of stimulants, narcotics, and foods unsuited to the body. Concerning the physical causes by which the fall was brought about, and the close relation between those causes and current violations of the Word of Wisdom embodied in the revelation referred to above, the following is in point. “This, [the Word of Wisdom] like other revelations that have come in the present dispensation, is not wholly new. It is as old as the human race. The principle of the Word of Wisdom was revealed unto Adam. All the essentials of the Word of Wisdom were made known unto him in his immortal state, before he had taken into his body those things that made of it a thing of earth. He was warned against that very practice. He was not told to treat his body as something to be tortured. He was not told to look upon it as the fakir of India has come to look upon his body, or professes to look upon it, as a thing to be utterly condemned; but he was told that he must not take into that body certain things which were there at hand. He was warned that, if he did, his body would lose the power which it then held of living for ever, and that he would become subject to death. It was pointed out to him, as it has been pointed out to you, that there are many good fruits to be plucked, to be eaten, to be enjoyed. We believe in enjoying good food. We think that these good things are given us of God. We believe in getting all the enjoyment out of eating that we can; and, therefore, we should avoid gluttony, and we should avoid extremes in all our habits of eating; and as was told unto Adam, so is it told unto us: Touch not these things, for in the day that thou doest it thy life shall be shortened and thou shalt die."
Sorry that it was a bit lengthy, but this is so true, and it particularly struck me when I read it for the first time.
Y'all are the bestest ever
DKONE
Elder Matthew Busi
Already being recognized by the free world
