Week 29

I´m back again this week with another sneak attack baptism of a person I´ve never mentioned before until now even though we've been teaching him since June. But I´ll catch you all up right now. His name is Nemesio. When we met Nemesio, we did NOT think that he was what us missionaries call ¨positive¨ (a person who seems like they´re going to progress and get baptized). He was super quiet and always had this blank, confused look on his face like ´Who the heck are you and why are you at my house´. 

To be honest, we weren´t really planning on coming back to him but then as we were leaving we asked if there was anything he needed that we could help him with (his wife is super sick and so he works and cooks and does all the laundry and cleans) and he asked us if we could bring him a bible because the one he had was literally falling apart and had tiny letters that he couldn´t read very well. He said ¨My dad taught me that its important to read the Bible but I don´t understand it very well¨ and we told him we´d get one from the mission offices and come back to give it to him. Anyways the story goes that the mission office was waiting for the order of bibles to arrive for 5ever so we passed by his house one more time to tell him that we were working on finding him a bible but then we also said ¨well hey hey hey, we don´t have a bible to give you right now but we DO have The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ and it will help you understand what you read in the Bible ;). So we left him with a Book of Mormon and then kept checking with the offices to see if the order of Bibles had arrived so we could go back and give one to him and FINALLY like a trillion years later (like literally a month later) the bibles arrived and we went back and he´d already read a few chapters of the Book of Mormon. He was still very quiet and confused but we started teaching him little by little using the Bible and The Book of Mormon and I gotta tell ya, literally in the span of a few weeks his countenance has changed from night to day. 

Now he is a HAPPY man! He laughs and has confidence in his ability to understand the scriptures and also like, trusts us?? His wife taught him how to read when they were 19 and I think that´s really tender. Also he´s a taxista (taxi driver) and always stops to wave at us when he sees us walking. Anyways. By checklist standards he could´ve gotten baptized weeks ago because he always keeps his commitments and comes to church and stuff like that but he wanted more time. Good thing our District Leader this transfer is GOOD and instead of pressuring us to baptize him before he felt ready just told us everyday to keep reading the Book of Mormon with him and helping him gain a testimony. We´d always finish reading in the Book of Mormon and then he´d be like ´Wow I really just know this book is the Word of God and that it´s important to keep the commandments and I´ve gotta get baptized.. just not quite yet :P´ and we´d leave just shaking our heads and laughing like ´Silly Nemesio, when are ya gonna getchurself gosh darn baptized´ cause I feel like you know someone's converted once you stop having to babysit what's going to be their baptismal covenant. So yeah we just wished that he´d make up his mind to get baptized and this week it FINALLY HAPPENED!!

And what a baptism it was. Apparently there is a hurricane passing over Florida and Puerto Rico and Costa Rica and Panama this week are experiencing all the shreds of it. Torrential rain isn´t new but I tell ya what, the wind this week was brutal. Anyways. The silly silly members flaked on the baptism because of the fake hurricane leftovers (and by that I mean it wasn't even raining when we had the baptism, just earlier on that same day) and only like 4 or 5 people showed up (about 4 of them having a part in the program). But it was OKAY because we sang Nearer my God To Thee and Nemesio CRIED. Never in my life would I expect to see a man like Nemesio cry. The whole baptism was very small and imperfect but very beautiful and special all the same. Patience and diligence really pay off. 

Also we used to teach the boyfriend of a member whose name is Carla but then they moved and we were sooo sad but she made a surprise appearance after the baptism and it was a happy time. She's one of the many people here that to me looks like a cool pirate lady. 

Every day I just feel like I´m in Pirates of the Caribbean. There's this crazy guy we always see that has dreds and also a bald spot who sits and talks to the dogs and he makes me feel like I´m in Pirates of the Caribbean. Anyways. This has all gone on too long but I feel like I should end with something more inspiring. 

One of our recent converts always tells us that it's important to start learning the culture of the Celestial Kingdom right now so we can feel comfortable when we get there and THAT I think is an inspiring thought. So there you have it. I love you all, God does too, have a great week.  

(Also I threw in a picture of some of the stairs in my area cause I feel like I haven´t complained enough that I´m going up stairs like that all day everything and I STILL don´t have buff legs ugh)