Hey yall its me again! I have had an absolutely amazing week!! However it has also been one of the most stressful and crazy weeks of my life! So as yall know we as a mission have a goal of baptizing 300 people this month. This being the last week of the month it was super hectic. Mostly because of baptismal interviews. It would take a long time to explain but basically it was a lot of running around to different areas and doing a bunch of different interviews for a ton of people. Normally we go back to the house at 1 in the afternoon to eat and study and dont leave until 3. But a couple days this week we left super early and didnt have time to go back so we just kept going from 10am until 9 at night. It has been exhausting and I basically just fall right into bed when I am done with everything. But it all definitely paid off!! I tried to send pictures last week but it didnt work but if I can send pictures this week then I want yall to virtually meet S****, J**** and W****. They are three amazing people who we found the first couple days we were here. I will try to give a very brief summery of them.
S**** was actually a new investigator of the missionaries before they left (remember that there was like a 5 week period where there werent missionaries here) But he still continued to go to church, although he wasnt super interested in getting baptized because he was super catholic. His cousin S**** is a recent convert and she was the one who introduced him to the church. Basically after talking to him for a while and him not wanting to get baptized, we had a great lesson with him where is cousin just down right called him out and said Ï know you know that this is all true or else you wouldnt have stopped attending your church to go to this church every week. It was super awesome and he finally accepted a baptismal date and it was super awesome to watch him get baptized!
J**** was an oooold investigator of the missionaries. Well not that old but like it was like 6 months ago. She loved the church and started to go a lot. But then her husband left her with her two kids and she had to pick up a job and it required her to work on Sundays. But after a while she realized the church was more important so she left her job and found us and told us she wanted to get baptized! She is super awesome and her kids are adorable!
And last is W**** (la niña) She had been going to church for a little while with her brother but she was only 7 years old. Her brother stopped going and she tried to go but it was really hard. She is actually the neighbor of J****, and her niece I think, and when she saw us talking to her aunt she told us that she just turned 8 and really wants to get baptized!
All of these people are super amazing! I love this work and really can say there is no better feeling than to see someone you grow to love get dressed in white and enter into the waters of baptism. On Saturday we had another Noche Blanca so our whole zone baptized in the same night in the same place it was super awesome and a super spiritual experience!
The last thing I want to talk about is something I realized this week when someone asked me a question. A question that I have actually been asked a ton here but it didnt hit me until just now. The question was simple and sincere. We were walking down the street and a man stopped us and asked when we meet, we told him that we meet on Sundays at 9am. He then asked if there are any other times because he has to work on Sundays. We told him there werent but he was always invited on Sunday. It was a very basic conversation and one of which we have a lot. A lot of churches here (and I am assuming everywhere) have meetings other than Sundays. And thats awesome! But I think a big reason for that is to give people a chance to still come to church who cant come to the other services. And something that hit me as I was walking away is something I have heard throughout my life but it just came right into my mind. It said ¨God is no respecter of persons.¨I used to feel a little sad that we didnt have other services that people could attend who couldnt come on Sundays but in that moment I realized that I shouldnt. Because from the beginning it has been a commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy and that is the reason we have our services on Sunday. While of course God cares about each and every one of us individually, there are no special cases. We are expected to make the sacrifices necessary to keep his commandments and if we do that he promises us more blessings than we can receive. It is the same with all of his commandments. Of course we have our physical needs but how many things do we change or complain about or try to do the least possible just because it is convenient for us? I know I have done that a lot. But I also know, both because I have seen it in my life and especially in the lives of the people here who are willing to sacrifice so much to follow our Savior, when we are willing to make the sacrifices necessary, to leave our job on Sunday, to pay a full tithe or offering, to repent of the things we need to, of course it is going to be hard and a challenge, we dont receive the blessings until after the trail of our faith, but when we do have that faith and trust in the Lord, we will be blessed with more blessings that we could have ever thought possible.
Thanks for letting me ramble a little bit! I love yall so much and I cant believe January is already over! This month absolutely flew by!
I hope yall have a great week!! We will talk next week! :)
Love Yall!!
Elder Robertson
