Monday, June 10, 2013 - "Enough for One Night...."

Hola Mi Familia! Well, this has been quite a week for us and I have a few little stories. Our sweet lady! Dang it! What can I say about her? Well...like I told you all last week with the little scare...that she found her long lost brother that told her she was baptized when she was 15. Well, I talked with the Elders in the offices and they were able to look up her name to see if there was membership record....and sure enough, there was. :( This was pretty disappointing. She is already a member although she doesn't remember a thing of her baptism that apparently took place 30 years ago. So there won't be a baptism for her.... :( I guess it is good that God sent her brother to tell her and let us know so that we didn't go through and baptize her again, but it is just a little sad that we won't be getting her wet again. Now we will just be working on a less active member and getting her good and active and helping her learn everything she needs to know. That is all that I have to say about her right now.... A new man that we met, I don't know if I ever talked about him, but he is the husband of a less active member. He and his wife are a young couple with a little 3 year old girl. Since we arrived we have activated the wife and now they go every week to church. We have been teaching him, but he has been kind of hard. We haven't really been able to figure out what he needs and how to help him. He says he hasn't wanted to be baptized yet because he wants to feel the same excitement and longing for our church that he has for his Catholic church. We haven't really known how to help him. A lot of companionships have been visiting him for a year or so and we were getting ready to just stop visiting him when he had an experience this week. Last week in the Gospel Principles class we were talking about baptism and someone began to talk about the Catholic church and how horrible it is that they baptize babies and another person began to chime and say things too. The teacher left homework of reading Moroni 8 that talks about why we don't baptize babies. Well, when we went to visit him this week he told us of how he felt really offended in the class and he felt like many were bashing his beliefs and he was uncomfortable. He said he had been thinking a lot about what they were saying and then read Moroni 8 for the homework. He said that same night his wife had a nightmare and when she told him of it the next morning, it scared him. He didn't tell us what the dream was, just that it scared him. Well, the experience with the class and his wife's dream really made him think a lot this week and he has been thinking that maybe his religion and beliefs are wrong. He said he has been reading the Book Of Mormon and praying a lot this week and he says he feels that it is time to get to know more about the church and the Book Of Mormon and maybe get baptized. I could just feel his hurt as he was telling us through tears that he is beginning to realize that what he has known all his life and his beliefs are wrong. I can't even imagine how he feels--to realize that what you have grown up with and known is wrong. It is like someone telling us that what we have known and do in the church is all wrong and an abomination before God. Well, we kind of jumped on this and put a baptism date! This will hopefully be a for sure baptism for the 22nd of this month, in 2 weeks. It is sad that it took an ugly experience to realize what is the right path, but super fantastic that we will be helping him clear his doubts and get baptized! This week we also received a reference from a member for a family of 8....6 kids and 2 parents. We have met with them only twice, but seem hopefull....8 baptisms...how crazy would that be! This morning we played soccer. But not just the us elders, but against the Selection of Agua Prieta Youth, which is basically like the best of the best soccer players in Agau Prieta. And you know what...we won! How crazy! It was kind of fun and exciting! Well, last night was just kind of a long night for us! It all started when I mentioned to my comp that one of the Elders told me that someone before us had left weights in the house to exercise with, but we didn't know where they were, so he wanted to look for them. We have a few things in our house like ton of blankets and mattresses from when there were 4 missionaries in this branch, but now it is just us, they have things from the other house that are just being stored here. So my comp began to take out everything to look for weights to use for exercise. Well, upon removing the mountain of a million blankets, we find that one of the blankets has a medium small hole in it that looks like it has been chewed open. After removing all the blankets, we find at the bottom on the floor little pieces of paper and what looks like mouse poop. My comp begins to get curious. Apparently when I told him about the mouse a week ago, he didn't believe me, but with this evidence he began to believe me. So we go on a mouse hunt and start moving the things around and away from the walls. My comp moved a dresser and he saw the little monster and it scurried away. Culprit found and the search really begins. We open the door and start to make noise (our poor neighbors) and try to get the mouse to make himself known again. We find it and we almost have him out the door when he makes a move for the opposite direction where we had neatly folded the blankets and all again. Ugh! How annoying! We had to pull everything away from the wall and take out all the blankets and mattresses again to find the little monster. I am at the door ready to give him a hit out and my comp is looking for him (being the fearful one that I am I gave him the finding duty!). My comp bends down to look for a few things and begins saying " Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh". the mouse was apparently behind him and then it came scurrying in my direction. He runs for the door and I help by giving him a little wack! Well, we successfully found the little monster that has been haunting my dreams for the past week! Mission accomplished and job done! Well, I love and miss you all tons and hope that you are well. Have a fun week with the Aunties, mom, and send them my hellos! ¡Yo sé que vive mi Señor! Con Mucho Amor, Elder Joyner