Week 20

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

This was a fun week. The highlight was that the drought of baptisms I have been experiencing has finally ended. We were blessed to witness the baptism of one of our investigators, Hermana Janeli, this Sunday. It was probably the best baptismal service that I have been to so far on my mission. Everything was well planned and there was relatively little we were running around doing at the last minute (except for finding the sacrament table cloth so Janeli could use it as a skirt. We thought that the one she had might be a little too thin).

 Anyway, her decision to be baptized was pretty cool. Last Sunday we wanted to know if we have a fecha fija (a set date) for her baptism. I called her that night and asked if she wanted to be baptized and she said she still didn't know. I told her to pray about it and that we would visit her the next day. When we arrived, she said that she had some news for us. We braced ourselves for the worst, but she said that she prayed about it and felt a lot of peace. Then, that night she had a really impactful dream that she was being baptized. She said that she was going to follow that answer and would be baptized on Sunday. I'm definitely grateful for that miracle.

This week was also especially interesting because it was la semana perfecta, the perfect week. The goal was to have every companionship baptize during the week. Also, we that a series of mission wide competitions every day, focusing on some aspect of missionary work. We competed as either districts or zones, depending on the day. I must say, it really got my competitive nature fired up and we went pretty crazy. On Tuesday the competition was for which district could have the greatest number of families contacted (present, teach a principle, testify, and extend an invitation to a husband and wife). Our previous record as a companionship was 35, but we thought we might be able to get 50. However, our zone leader said that if anyone contacted 100 families, he would buy them a prize. I couldn’t let that pass, so sure enough, we talked with a ridiculous amount of people and got our 100th family just before we entered the house.

The other companionship of elders in our district also did well and we won the competition in the entire mission that day. The other day of note was Friday, when the competition was for which zone could invite the most people that day to their baptismal service on Sunday. We printed out hundreds of invitations. Actually, it was pretty funny, because in the afternoon, when we had returned to the store to print and cut out several hundred more invitations, Janeli walked into the store. I'm not sure how she would have felt to know that we were inviting every person we saw to her baptism, but luckily she didn't ask what we were doing. Anyway, I personally invited 320 people. And no, I'm not just rounding to the nearest Jimmerism, as is often the case, I worked very specifically for that number and then had my companion contact for the remaining 10 minutes we had as we walked home. We won that one too. Anyway, it was a fun week and we were able to be even more motivated to work hard.

Ok, sorry, I'm not sure if any of that is interesting to anyone other than me. In all, I'm really enjoying the mission, even though it's harder than anything that I've ever done before. It really is true that on your mission, the lows outnumber the highs, but the highs outweigh the lows. Even though it's so tough to be here in a third world country, having left behind my family, friends, and all the comforts of home, it's worth it when we get to see the gospel change people like Janeli's lives.