September 26, 2011

¡¡¡Hola familia!!! 

This week has been crazy!! Our zone has been having a slow transfer as far as baptisms go. So at our last zone conference our zone leaders challenged us to have 50 interviews for baptism last week. I don’t know if our zone made it but we have been interviewing like crazy. My Companion is a district leader so he gets to help out with the interviews. I have had 1-2 companion exchanges close to everyday for the past week. I had one companion who did not know our area or our investigators. So I have had the privilege of navigating and somewhat trying to lead on the lessons. It’s been a good growing experience for me. I've learned what I need to work on improving, and how to deal with some of the people here. Some of the other missionaries I've been on exchanges with just take off somewhat with what they think the investigator needs before I explain it to them, and don’t give me any room to talk. But I've learned a lot; like how to navigate in Mexico (which sucks) and how to somewhat lead a companionship through the day. 

 Mariana Castañeda Ruis (younger) and Maria de Jesús Ruis Gusman (not so young).

We had 2 baptisms this week! Their names are Mariana Castañeda Ruis (younger) and Maria de Jesús Ruis Gusman (not so young). We have been teaching them since I got here (give or take a few days), and they have been a fight every step of the way. Mariana (catholic) was who we first initially contacted, and had problems from the second lesson when she didn’t get an answer (mainly about the Book of Mormon, and didn’t feel any different during sacrament) so we explained and testified and explained and testified some more, but got nowhere. So after many prayers her mother came to visit for a few weeks. And she was what we needed. She is also catholic and just loved our lessons and made remarks like how beautiful our lesson is and how awesome we are stuff like that. When she was there Mariana never had many doubts.

 So we tried to commit her to baptism (her mom wasn’t there by the way) and she said she’d have to pray about it first. We said ok and ended the lesson. Then we had the talk given to us by our zone leaders and the assistants to the president so in one of our exchanges I took our ZL to interview her. The interviews here are really more of a one on one lesson where they talk about the interview questions with a district leader, zone leader or a branch president. And because it’s a one on one setting the missionary can really dig in and find what’s holding the investigator back if they’re not interested, or get them exited if they lack the desire to do it. So in the interview my Zone Leader found out that she had some issues in the past and wasn’t letting herself feel the spirit, and committed her to a baptism by faith, and she accepted. The next day we committed her mom to baptism and got her an interview.

The day before the baptism she called us at about 6:30ish and told us that they didn’t want baptized. It just so happened that Elder Figueroa and I had a exchange scheduled from 7:00 to 9:00 and I’m not that competent teaching when it’s to explain random questions like why do we need the Book of Mormon if we have the Bible and both teach the same thing, why do we need a Prophet if I can receive revelation from God on my own, stuff like that. Mainly because I don’t have the vocabulary that strong in not the 4 main lessons we teach and second I know nothing about the bible. So I was a nervous to go and try to re- convince these two women to be baptized in about 14 hours. So we get there and right after the prayer my temporary companion starts to explain why we have the Book of Mormon and throws out all the scriptures in the bible that he can think of and testifying. This somewhat helped Maria out but I knew that it wouldn’t help Mariana out because we had already explained it using the same references at least twice. But he just kept going and didn’t let me talk. That is kind of the problem when I have an exchange with a Latino; they think - he´s the new guy and does not speak Spanish that well so I’ll just take care of the lesson. So after a while of trying to butt in I just straight up raised my hand and asked if I could say something. That gave everyone a somewhat of a laugh, but at the same time gave me a chance to talk. So I explained how baptism would give her the opportunity to start to grow a testimony (relating a testimony to a plant and our soul to a tree). And after that I testified that only through baptism could she be forgiven of all her sins and feel joy and hear the Holy Ghost. During that testimony I was filled with the spirit for the first time. Now I understand and know what that means - it’s an awesome, powerful feeling. After my testimony we talked a little more and they ended up being baptized the next day. Mariana still was a little scared or nervous but thanks to her mom she got baptized.

Love you forever

Elder Sorensen