August 15, 2011

Dear family,

A good crazy week. The big push of this week were the two baptisms we had scheduled for Saturday. They were both doing great until we got to Thursday morning for the baptismal interview, and out of the blue, one of them was extremely sick (he’s better now). One down. The other one, Ramon (55 years old) was doing great though. Early he had had a hard time praying, but this last week he’s been reading and praying every day. Friday we passed by to make sure he had everything in order and as it turns out he even had his own pair of white pants. (Oh yeah, here they don’t have those nice baptism clothes that they do in the states, it’s pretty much fend for yourself.) We were happy because then we didn’t have to go asking around for a pair his size so we told him to bring them the next day. We also had a member lined up to baptize him, so we were pretty excited to just show up and see him get baptized. The baptism was for 7, and we got to church at 6:50 and there was.... nobody there. Just the ward mission leader (20 years old) outside playing soccer with a couple of kids from the church. Then we started to worry a bit. Ramon and his parents (his mom is a recent convert of 2 months ago, dad has Alzheimers) showed up and Ramon only had the white pants (his mom, bless her heart, thought that he was going to wear a white robe like when she got baptized, so she told him not to bring a change). On top of that, we called up the member who was supposed to baptize him, and he was sick in bed. So, we grabbed a taxi with Ramon, went to our house to get clothes for my companion, went to his house to get clothes for him, and went back to church. The good news is, he got baptized. He said he just felt wonderful.

The story doesn’t end there! As it turns out, Sunday was the voting day in Argentina, and all the politicians hired the taxis to take people to and from the voting booths. Therefore, it was pretty hard to get a taxi on Sunday to get anywhere else. Therefore, Ramon got to church right as we were singing the sacrament hymn :/ so he couldn’t get confirmed. He didn’t mind though, and we’ll confirm him next week.

Also, José gave his first talk! It was on honesty and it was great. An inactive sister that we are working with to reactivate also gave a talk and it was also great. Seeing those two talk really made my day.

Oh, and good news about Elder Angel, they found out that what he has isn’t a tumor (I don’t remember what it really is), so it won’t kill him. He’ll have to go home to get operated, but he won’t die.

Well, that’s about it for this week. We also had interviews with our mission president and it was great. He’s soooo awesome.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. A quick quote from President Hinckley to the members of the church:
“We are here to assist our Father in His work and His glory, ‘to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man’ (Moses 1:39). Your obligation is as serious in your sphere of responsibility as is my obligation in my sphere.” (Preach My Gospel 13)

The church is true! Magnify your callings and assist our Father in His work and His glory. I love you all!

-Elder Spencer