Once again i am amazed at how fast the time flies out here in the work of the lord, and i cant believe that today i complete 7 months in the mission. I cant believe i have been out here for over half a year, its gone by so fast, almost too fast. i still feel like i have so much to learn. its ironic how the more one learns in the mission, the more you realize how much you dont know and how much more there is to learn and progress. like i said last week, i feel completely different from the person i was than from when i left, but i still feel like i have light years to go y un monton to learn to be the kind of man i want to be and servant of my heavenly father. I was reading a talk by M. Russell Ballard this past week on the atonement, and my mind was completely blown away by the knowledge and foresight that Elder Ballard and the apostles in general have. i feel like in the mission my eyes are being opened to how significant and the grand importance of the atonement in my life and the lives of all people and the people i am teaching, but i dont understand todo, y i problamente will never know everything about the atonement. (oh sorry for writing some words in spanish hahaha)
Well the big news for this past week was that we had two baptisms! One of the duaghter of our other convert favio whos name is alicia. and we also had a baptism of the mom of one of the members in our ward named Rosa. It was kind of a crazy day because we had the baptisms at different times, and so we had alicias baptism earlier, and we got everything ready, filled the pila and everything, but when the baptism was scheduled to start no one was there. alicia, the members, no one was there just us, so we kind of started freaking out because alicia and favio live bien lejos so it wasnt like we could just go over to see if they were coming, so all we could do was wait. eventually alicia and favio showed up and some members as well, but one of the members who was supposed to bring some baptismal clothes didnt show up, so we were scrambling to find baptism clothes running all over and taking tuc tucs, but eventually we did find baptismal clothes. then the next challenge was that when it was time to do the ordinance, we had favio baptizing alicia his daughter, but he is a recent convert, so he was super nervous, and he went to baptize alicia, he jerked her into the water like he was killing an animal, and not only did alicia... dang it, i forgot the word in english, but she sustò and she didnt go all the way under the water. so she was freaking out and crying and didnt want to get baptized, i had no idea what to do or how to comfort this 9 year old girl, but thanks to the primary president, we were able to calm her down and another elder that was baptizing another person was able to baptize her. Our other baptism with rosa was tons better and was super spiritual with almost 10 investigators there. they were all family of rosa and we are super stoked because we know have some good references to work with in the coming weeks.
Another cool thing this week was that because we were preparing alicia for baptism, we went out to the house of favio in san miguel which is like an hour away on a dirt and rock road in the back of a pickup almost every day, and we were talking with favio our recent convert, and he gave us two references de familias! Both of the families are super awesome and had never heard of mormons before (which is always a cool feeling to be the first mormon to ever talk with these people) and are super positive and said they will be baptized. so pretty much our recent convert is bomb and has already given us a baptism with his daughter, and references of families which is more than the rest of our ward haha. we have this thing in our ward where we post pictures of our converts with members on the wall, and right now we have the picture of favio´s baptism, the baptism of alicia with favio, and if we baptize these other two families we will have 4 pictures of favio on the wall haha ¡¡¡¡que pilas!!!! On a side note, we are doing a new thing in our zone where we can only count people we contact as nuevos if we challenge them to be baptized, which means challenging people to get baptized in the first lesson, or even on the street when we first contact them. now before the mission i never thought i would be doing that because i used to be shocked when missionaries would challenge people in the first lesson, but here i am challenging people on the street haha its a really surreal experience, and a lot of people say yes, you would be surprised. the people are just really different down here and are really open about talking about religion and have a lot of belief in god and faith and the need to be baptized, its inanely different than in the states.
Well those were my main highlights of my week, i did enjoy riding in the back of a pickup flying down a highway at 60 miles an hour and now that i know more spanish, its really fun to joke around with the latinos, personally, the latinos are almost more funny and fun to be around than the americans, and our bishop is awesome, he is just really like a big kid and the way he talks in spanish is just hilarious. The bishop and his family have a kid serving a mission in mexico as well, so we talk a lot with the wife of the bishop, silvia, about what her kid is doing, and this past week we did a noche de hogar with them and we all bore our testimonies, and silvis started crying when she was talking about how grateful she is for missionaries and how they have changer her life and the lives of her family, every week i am touched by the spirtualnesss and the humbleness of these people that may not be the most intelligent in the world, but they surpass some people i know back home and even myself in thier humbleness. That is my weekly challenge for all of you this week. is to try to be a little more humble and teachable. try to be more patient with people or things that annoy you, and think about what you can learn from this certain person or certain situation to become a better person and a better witness of Christ. Sometimes when im frustrated with these people that dont understand what i am trying to explain to them, or something my companion does, i try to think of what jesus would do and be the better man, or simply just love people no matter what and humble myself and repent for the bad feelings or thoughts i have towards people and move on and try to learn something more. i feel that in this manner, recently i have a learned a lot more, and gained a lot more patience and i have had the spirit more in my life as i try to be like christ, humble and teachable. Thank you for your emails and everything, they were really full of good encouraging words and experinces. i am really gratefull for you all and for the opportunity i have to be here. the time really flys by, and i already feel like its flying by too fast, but im learning a lot and i hope i can be a better friend, brother and son afterwards. Sorry for not writing everyone specifically and not handwriting letters, its just that im really busy and tired all the time, but i hope to get some letters out soon. but until then keep strong and carry on!
-Elder Henderson
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