Well this week was pretty good, a lot of crazy changes happened. The foremost of which I think is we had an emergency transfer. I'm still with Elder Lui but now we had an old fried join out little duo and formed yet another trio! Elder Phelps is back! Not sure if any of you remember me writing about him about 6 or 7 months ago but he was my first companion in down town. He was covering the YSA area with another Elder who went home and so they merged him with us and now we cover 2 stakes together. It basically means we can go anywhere we want in the south half of the mission, Muw-hahahaha! since we're covering such a big area now we got their car too! It's kind of funny with all of us stuffed together in a one room apartment.
The other awesome news is that our baptism went through! We baptized a 17-year-old kid named Vincent. He was a member referral and we've been teaching him for about 3 weeks. He was super prepared, and extremely real too. When we taught him about the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity we were worried that he wasn't living them and when we committed him he seemed a bit hesitant. We told him he could tell us anything and we wouldn't judge him and asked what we be holding him back. His response was "I don't know, I'm a kid, we screw up. It's, like our job". That got some good laughs.
At the actual baptism though we were pretty stressed out. We went to go him and his friend who was baptizing him, both of whom are super skinny and short, but there was no clothes that fit them. So we went over to the stake center for our YSA meetings and checked there and luckily found some small clothes there. We left just before sacrament meeting ended around 2:10 with the baptism starting and 2:30 and got here at 2:28. Guess who was waiting there for us? Good ol' President Weidman! It was a bit embarrassing but he didn't seem to care too much. We helped the boys get changed out and started around 2:35. It was pretty stressful with all the back and forth non-sense.
Oh, and when he was actually baptized, the other elders we asked to fill the font filled way too low, so he basically had to lay down in the water.... 4 times! We went over how to do it and everything and gave him 2 or 3 copies of the prayer but he was a bit nervous. Before he baptized him the 1st time he actually tried to do it with his left hand to the square (rather than his right) be we managed to fix that up. The first time he messed up the prayer a bit and didn't manage to go all the way under. The 2nd time the bishop said his foot came out and told him to do the wrong prayer. The 3rd time he did said wrong prayer and we had to whip out our white hand books and correct the bishop. Finally the 4th time he got it all right though. He won't forget that anytime soon I bet :).
What else.... Oh, Elder Lui ate a June bug with a YSA girl we go visit! She was smashing em' all over the place and her mom dared Elder Lui to eat it. He said he would and picked up 3 of em' and pretended to eat them and they all started screaming and laughing like crazy (It was us Elders, 3 YSA's and one of their moms). He showed them that he didn't actually do it and then the girl called him out, saying that if he ate one she would. After about 5 mins of debating who should eat it first we finally got them both to do it at the same time and they almost both threw up! It was pretty great, gotta give them props for that.
Other highlights, we went to the temple with 2/3 of the San Fernando mission and their President. They had some deaf missionaries so we did an ASL session with them and that was pretty cool, super old school. We actually filled out the rooms too. They seat about 300 so that was a feat in it of itself! It was packed, never thought I'd see that. Never thought I'd be here for 10 months either but the Lord has a way of surprising you.
For spiritual stuffs I think I'll go over something we were talking about last night. We were talking about random stuff and somehow ended up on the subject of how the future doesn't seem too bright for the world. If you give revelations, D&C 29, 130 or other sections a read we now there are troubling times ahead. A lot of people get discouraged when they see that. When they see "The jaws of Hell gape the mouth wide open" they falter and don't want to continue. I don't let that happen. If we live life in fear it will kill your spirit, for fear is the opposite of faith. Moroni says:
"....Behold, I speak with boldness, having authority from God; and I fear not what man can do; for perfect love casteth out all fear."
I like to substitute the word "love" for "faith" here, because the two are practically the same, but that's another rant. In 2nd Timmy 7 it says:
" For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
And to round off the quotes I'll go with a song we listen to a lot:
Be strong in the Lord, and
Never give up hope
We're gonna do great things,
I already know
God's got a plan for you, so
Don't live in fear
Forgive and forget
But don't forget why you're here
Ha! trick play! I've got one more from the play Ceaser:
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once"
This one takes a bit of explaining. If you sit there and live in fear, you'll stress out over whatever it is and worry about it all the time. If you enjoy the time you have though and live without the fear then you can enjoy all the time before it, rather worrying your life away, or as it is put here "die many times".
That pretty much says it all right ther'. I know this church is true and I know that God has called me to His work. I hope you all have a great week and keep on keepin' on. I'll write more next week!
- Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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