Hi,family and friends!
This week there are transfers. I will stay here and be with the Hna. Rodriguez, another compañera from Guatemala, and the Hna. Barrios (for reasons of health) will be going back to Lima, but with the Hna. Reyes, my former companion! It’s a small world in the mission. I am grateful for the Hna. Barrios, who taught me very important life lessons. She is very active and taught me to make decisions and then to act and not to be wishy-washy. If you are going to do something, do it now! Decide and act! She is very proactive and exactly who I needed to be with during this transfer. Tonight the ward is throwing her 2 farewell parties!
I received a letter from Hna. Avalos, who told me that, not without much difficulty, the family of Rosa and Amador (in Lima) were married! And baptized! The whole family is going strong (although not without difficulty. There is always opposition up until the last minute). Now, the goal is to help them prepare to be sealed in the temple in 2012. And, I am thinking of the Hna. Avalos this week because she is leaving the area and moving to her second area. I know that the ward is in tears at her farewell and that she is going to bless many lives in her new area. She also told me that Yonel, the young man that we were teaching who almost finished his training to become a Catholic priest, was baptized the 1 of January. He received a very special witness from Heavenly Father in answer to his prayer and was baptized.
We are working with activating the Tanchiva family, and two of the grandkids, Renzo and Yaritza, are preparing for their baptism in February. We told them directly, “If you want to be baptized, you have to be prepared. Do you think the soccer teams who play in the World Cup just show up on game day and hope everything will work out all right, or do they have to practice and prepare ahead of time? It’s the same with your baptism. We and your parents are your coaches, helping you, but you are in charge of the preparation.” I thought the soccer analogy was appropriate for the kids, and they are actively working to prepare for their baptism. For their baptism preparation they need to pray 5 times a day (minimum), read the pamphlets and the scriptures, attend church, listen to us (with their parents present), and repent (live the commandments).
I love teaching those kids. I loved sitting with them in sacrament meeting and explaining the scriptures to them. The kids here just love church and Primary and will show up in hordes, but without the support of their parents teaching them in the home, they can’t progress. (There is also the concern that some parents just send their kids to church as a free day care.) It is so sad. I just hope that we can rescue some of these children, because they are so innocent and full of love and everything that Mosiah 3:19 (in the Book of Mormon) describes. I remember when Bishop Dort said that little kids want to be like their parents when they grow up, but that the parents would do well to follow the example of their little kids and be like little children, full of love, patient, humble, obedient, etc.
The ward is hosting a reception for Rosa and Jose, who will be married this Friday. Some members of the Relief Society are heading over to her house that same day to help her fix her hair, do her nails, and to pamper (and most importantly, to fellowship) her. Rosa will be baptized the following week. For years the missionaries have taught her and invited her to be baptized and married and she said, “I was always hard of heart and didn’t want to.” But, years later, she has softened her heart. When they announced her marriage in church, she just smiled and got all excited. She is 34 and has been living with Jose for the past 15 years. She says, “I never thought I would get married.” Her husband is excited, too. They are cute.
I thought of our other “eternal investigators” in other areas that we visited and often thought, “No pasa nada” (or, nothing is happening). But, the conversion is a process and it is slower for some people. It isn’t always super quick as we might hope. Some conversions are like microwaves, and other conversions are like Crock Pots. In reality, the conversion is a Crock Pot process for the rest of our lives, with the continual input of energy, effort, and submission on our parts and on God’s part to change us until we are “well done.” Sometimes I want the process to be like a wok. It is much faster that way.
On Wednesday we were forbidden to leave the apartment because they are fumigating the city to combat the dengue fever. But, the same is scheduled for the next week as well, so we will be under “house arrest,” as I affectionately call it. We are teaching a lot of people who have or have had dengue. It usually is treatable but there is a type of hemorrhaging fever that kills quickly. We have mosquito nets and are required to use repellent. I hope I can hang on 3 more months without catching the dengue. We joke about walking around the city wearing our mosquito nets in order to avoid mosquitoes. (Mosquitoes are unavoidable, especially in the areas where we teach. We walk on these bridges with planks that threaten to break with every step, especially if we eat a lot of rice at lunch time!)
Sorry I write so much. I hope you aren’t bored. Have a great day and make good choices!
Love, Hermana Christensen
