RAFAEL!!
Okay so something we do in the mission here is we seek revelation from the Lord at the start of every month to see how many people he is preparing and if we work diligently, how many baptisms we will have in that month. We get them as both zones and a mission as a whole. Well in our zone this past month of February we had the promise of 21. That was kind of a high number considering the most this zone (which is also a stake) has baptized in one month is 19, (which actually happened when I was in Lotes y Servicios at the beginning of my mission.) The problem is this past Sunday we had only found 18 of the people that the Lord was preparing in the month. All 18 of them had been baptized but we knew that the Lord keeps his promises and we knew that there were three more people and we had three days left. So we went crazy working with the people we had. Long story short we had a HUGE miracle happen. His name is Rafael.
Here is a little back story on Rafael, he lost his parents when he was young and when he turned 10, he basically lived on the streets. When that happens you usually get caught up with the not so friendly people and he hasn't lived the most Christ-like life. He had never done anything horrible and has never gone to jail but he definitely didn't have the best friends. We have been working with him all of this transfer and he has grown so much. A few years back he wanted to change his life so he bought a little tin shack that is like 10 feet by 10 feet and he started selling bread in the morning to earn a little bit of money for him and a little kid who he started taking care of (kind of a long story, it's basically the kid of the kid of an old friend but doesn't have a dad so Rafael took him in.) Well as fate would have it he got wound up in a sticky situation and got attacked and with a little accident with a machette and a really bad infection he got his leg cut off. (this happened a few months ago.) He didn't know what to do because he couldn't go around on his little motorcycle and sell bread anymore but he needed to earn money.
There was a big tempation to start getting in touch with some old contacts and maybe getting into some stuff like selling drugs and what-not but he decided that he never wanted to go back. So every morning he started to wake up at 5 in the morning and go sell water bottles down in a really busy intersection to make just barely enough each day to feed himself and his "son." His leg was healing so he couldn't get wet but he wanted to get baptized. The water here isn't the cleanest and if he had an open wound it could get infected pretty easily by whatever is in the water. We went to go visit him on Wednesday (the last day of February) and shared some scriptures out of the Book of Mormon and he sat there thinking for a long time, he then told us that he knew he needed to get baptized and he knew that God would protect him and his leg and he wouldn't let his leg get infected by the water. He asked us when the soonest baptismal service would be, we let him know that the ward that meets in our same building was having a service in an hour and he immediately got up, when we asked what he was doing he said "well one hour isn't a lot of time, I have to get ready!" We got him down there and we got everything ready and he got baptized. He was so happy and so in peace. And with some other miracles in some other areas in the zone he ended up being the 21 baptism in our zone in the month of February.
The Lord is preparing so many people and we can't wait to go find them and help them. He went to the doctor a couple days later and the doctor said that the wound had miraculously healed was faster than they were expecting and looked completely healthy. God. Is. Good.
We aslo had interviews with President this past week and I always love those! My interview was pretty simple and basic this time but President really is a man inspired of God. We talked a lot about desire. Both our desire to help people and the desire that our investigators need to have to follow Christ. What is our desires to one day return and live with God? What would we be willing to do to get there? We talked about an example about what would happen if you lived in a house by a lake and looked out the window and saw that your mother was drowning. What would you be willing to do? Would you be willing the say a prayer? Or would you be willing to do more? Would you be willing to call someone on the phone for help? Or would you be willing to do more? Would you be willing to go yell out your door to someone? Or would you do more? Would you be willing to throw a life preserver to her? Or more? Would you be willing to jump in and save her even if it meant risking your own life? Most people would, I know I would.
It is this same desire we need to have to be saved. It is this same desire we need to keep the commandments of God. If we don't have it yet, work on it, ask the Lord to give you that desire. I was studying in 2 Nephi 28 this week and there is so much truth about our day. I have heard so many times here "I know that I am a sinner but I believe in God and I know that he will save me someday." Of course he will! If we do our part. No unclean thing can live with God. I have stopped to check myself many times on my mission to really see where my desires are. Everything starts with our desires. It is something I have studied a lot on my mission.
After a lot of challenges The family of Randy and Ronny and Ruben (the super less active guy) got everything arranged to go to church for the first time in a rreaaaalllllyy long time! Like 20 years! It just so happened to be stake conference where they basically only talked about family history work jaja. It was still awesome and they loved it! We went back to their house afterwards to eat and he told us that he isn't sure why he ever left. While he was there a ton of hymns started flooding back into his head and he started singing them all! Randy and Ronny have baptismal dates for the 17th of this month! We just have to work a little with the wife who is super hard to find! God. Is. Good!
There are so many people here in this country who are so awesome! We have been working with the Branch President who says that the branch doesn't need a whole ton to become a ward! We worked it out and made some plans but if all goes well and we keep working hard then we should be seeing some awesome miracles VERY soon!!! GOD. IS. GOOD!
Guys, the gospel is true. This church is true and this work is the work of the Lord, BUT HE NEEDS ALL OF US! I don't have a ton of time left but I know that I've got to work my tail off in the time I have left!
I LOVE YALL A MONTÓN!!!
Love,
Elder Robertson
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| An awesome pig we ran into and contacted |
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| This is a pic from zone conference |
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| An orange chicken attempt (turned out alright) |
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| some comp bonding on our patio last night |
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| some comp bonding on our patio last night |
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| Our Zone |
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| Rafael Baptism |
