September 26, 2011

Dear Family,

What a week... again.

Week 3 Miracle: Ok, so Gisela was doing pretty solid this week. We taught her everything she was missing and prepared her for her baptismal interview. However, as it turned out, she had had some somewhat serious things in her past and needed to be interviewed by the stake president. No problem. We scheduled the appointment for Friday night. Then came the opposition. Friday night comes and she was suddenly super nervous and didn’t feel ready at all. The night before she had had a small argument with her husband and wasn’t feeling good. She went into the interview and we prayed a lot while she was in there and she came out great, feeling awesome and ready for her baptism. We tell her everything she needs for the next day and then leave. Saturday, baptism day. She shows up alone 10 minutes before her baptism. We ask her what happened. Background: Sunday is their 3-year old son’s birthday. Here, birthdays are a huge deal where they invite the whole fam and go all out. Anyway, apparently the whole birthday preparation had been a big source of stress and they had another argument that night. She had asked her mom and husband to come, but they said they weren’t going to. We told her to go change and then ran to a telephone booth to call her mom and husband and tell them to come, praying for a miraculous change of heart. Well, it happened. Husband and her mom came. I have to really compliment the ward here, because it was probably one of the best attended baptisms I’ve seen in my mission. The entire ward council and their families showed up. It was super awesome and the spirit was amazing. Her mom was crying pretty much the whole time and afterward she thanked us for what we were doing to help her daughter. We told her that she was next ;) The next day was ward conference and it was excellent. The confirmation went great. I think one of the best parts of it all were Gisela’s descriptions of how she felt. When she was baptized she said that she felt like she was bursting with happiness, and when she was confirmed she said she felt like she was being filled with something wonderful. Sounds a bit like the fruit Lehi tasted in 1 Nephi 8.

The gospel is completely true. This week we get to listen to a prophet of God. Pay close attention. I love you all!

-Elder Spencer