This week Claudia was baptized! Part
of me feels like I haven't mentioned her before, which is a pity because she is
a treasure! And her family is amazing.
Hermana Laguna and I started
teaching her about 2 months ago because she had showed up to church with her
10-year-old daughter saying her daughter wanted to be baptized. Pretty handy,
I'll say. Her older children, Luis and Yesenia, had been baptized in another
ward 10 years ago, but after a few years they all sort of slipped away. She
hadn't been baptized because she wasn't married and her man didn't want to get
married. Well, to keep the story shorter, two years ago she separated from him
so she could get baptized and they moved to Francke in a house in the backyard
of a house (never to be found!) Nevertheless, the Lord knows his children and
takes care of them pretty darn well, so after two years of never having the
courage to go to church in a new ward, her 10-yea-rold daughter had a random
desire to be baptized, thus giving Claudia the courage, now having someone to
accompany her.
So she showed up to
church, we visited her the next day and Clyda was already bored with church
stuff, but Claudia was found!
She came a long way and now (to keep
the story still shorter) her whole family has returned, and we are teaching her
mom and Yesenia`s boyfriend!!!!
It was a glorious
day and the ward has really done a fantastic job of taking care of her. The
bishop invited her family to a family night in his house tonight and yesterday,
Claudia asked if she could go with us to teach our other investigator, Nancy,
who was sitting next to her in the Principles of the Gospel class! Woo!
Ok so that's a
teensy bit of Claudia.
Friday was supposed to be the
baptism of Claudio too. Unfortunately, we got a call an hour before from a very
exasperated Claudio saying NO. The owner of his carrito that he sells
salchipapas and completos was supposed to come by the same hour of his baptism
to basically end it all. End his job. Which meant he would be leaving Francke
the next day for Entre Lagos (an hour away) and try to find a job there and
live there.... So he just mentally wasn't comfortable with the idea of being
baptized. We talked to him on the phone for a while and his no turned into I'll
think about it and call you later. Well, half an hour passed and we were thrown
off big time so we prayed.
The words that
clearly came to our minds were, ''Go to him, bring them home.''
We thought for a
while on what it could mean, but then realized there wasn't any time to just
think because we had 30 minutes left before the baptism! So we ran over to his
carrito thinking, perhaps we are supposed to bring him and his wife to the
church? But we didn't know so we just kind of went like Nefi, knowing not
beforehand what we should do.
We showed up, talked to him, and
really could feel that that day really wasn't supposed to be his baptism. Then
we drew a blank after getting that settled... So we came. What else are we
supposed to do! Then a family showed up and interrupted us asking for some
salchipapas. They sat down and my comp and I were still a little shaken up, and
then a random member from another ward showed up asking for a pamphlet on the
Plan of Salvation for his friend. We gave it to him and then began talking to
the family because Claudio was inside his carrito working. In a few short
minutes we shared about the plan that Heavenly Father has for their family. We
put an appointment for Tuesday and they told us more or less where they live.
Then realizing we had less than 15 minutes before the baptism we tried to get
up. I wanted to leave them a folleto for the plan of salvation to give them
some sort of commitment, but that man had oddly robbed us of our ONLY lesson 2
pamphlet! hahaha How’s that? So then I got the impression to invite them to the
baptism, but felt strange about it, it being so short notice, until my awesome
comp beat me to it and they VERY excitingly said yes!
Okay, this family surely ate their
salchipapas like pigs because 15 minutes later, they were there! And they loved
it. The next day we left a card on their doorstep (guessing the house from the
description they gave because it didn't have a number) explaining our purpose
as missionaries and leaving the folleto for them to read before Tuesday. We
didn't want to be too pushy, but we left the note with hope because there was
something special about that family! Sunday, we passed by running because we
had taken the wrong way to a cita (appointment) and were 10 minutes late. Then
we heard, ''HEY!'' And out from the house came running, Carola (the mom). We
ran back and they invited us in. We were having a bit of small talk and then
somehow began talking about the Atonement and how it helps us all in our
personal challenges. Her husband, Adimir, gave her a big hug and said, my wife
was full of pain today. We got your note and realized we needed you sooner than
Tuesday. We just said a prayer and looked out the window as you two ran
past.
Wow.
We were late to the planned cita,
but somehow Heavenly Father even diverted our course to put them in our path.
They are coming to a family home evening tonight in the house of one of their
daughter's friends, consider that!
What a blessing it is to be used in
the Lord's hands so precisely. I would usually say I can't believe it, but I
can. I can believe it because I know that Heavenly Father knows his children
and is a loving Heavenly Father with servants here on the earth that he gives
us the privilege of experiencing such joy, such love, and just such a simple
solution to living a better life, one that gets better even into the
eternities.
So I guess that's
what the Spirit was trying to say when it told us to go to Claudio and bring
that family home.
Oh! And yesterday we passed by the
carrito and saw that Claudio's carrito was open... He approached us with a
broken heart and said God had given him a second chance with his job!
...however he had broken the Sabbath and absolutely no one had bought a single
completo. He said, I will never work on Sunday again. When can I be baptized?
The timing of the
Lord is perfect, we should always look to what He has in plans because they
are, in fact, for our benefit.
Last Monday we went to Subway with
our investigator Patricia and had a spontaneous trip to a park. We were afraid
about talking too much about other things not related to the gospel, but
instead we realized that she really recognizes the purpose of the missionaries
and told us about how she has been repenting every day and says that although
she has seen so many types of psychologists to help bring peace to her, there
was no peace more surreal than that she found by applying the things we teach
her and going to church with her husband and daughter. Later in the week she
said the first day we showed up was divinely organized by God because that day
she and her husband had been considering separating. She said we saved their
marriage. And we kindly told her, the Lord saved their relationship because
he needed them to be married.
Okay so there have been very many
prepared people sprouting up out of the blue and it's absolutely worth
marveling because I have never felt so full of joy. Here in Francke, the
dandelions all just bloomed at the same moment it appears because they are everywhere!
I guess they have some kind of power or something because the same is happening
with so many people!
I think the tender moment of the
week would be yesterday in Sacrament Meeting sitting next to our investigator
Nancy. She's almost deaf, but has read more than half of the Book of Mormon.
She loves coming to church, but also gets a little disanimated because she
can't converse very effectively with all the ''super loving people'' and so
going to church is a little overwhelming. Also she isn't baptized yet because
she is terrified of water. Anyway after the sacrament, I just wrote on a mini
sticky note, ''Hermana Nancy, we love you very much!'' and passed it to her.
When she read it the sweetest smile came upon her face and she looked at me and
then showed it to her nephew sitting next to her. After looking at it a little
more, she got very solemn and unzipped her jacket and stuck it on her shirt
right over her heart. A few moments later, she pointed to her eyes to show me
she was crying. I love Tìa Nancy. She is so loved by the ward as well! To have
made her feel so special from something so tiny, made me realize the promise
that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass!
OH! And well I'm out of time, but I
just have to tell you! On Thursday President called us and said he and his wife
wanted to accompany us to whatever cita we had! It was Patricia! ...but she had
to go to work. All of our investigators were unavailable and then we decided to
take him to an inactive family that held lots of grudges from the ward. ....and
the bishop very accidentally had forgotten to give the wife a health blessing
the day before. Anyway we showed up, knowing they hated us coming with members,
but they received us and they, not knowing who the Obesos were said, first
thing, ''You are sent from God. I need a blessing, I cannot walk.'' Before
giving the blessing they were very direct and simply taught that they need to
go to the temple, her husband should be holding the priesthood to be able to
give the blessing and their daughter should serve a mission and her boyfriend
(recent convert) should too and that his mom (that was present) should receive
the missionaries. And then he gave a blessing to them all. And well, they all
came to church, the mom was literally healed and they have a conviction in
themselves. You can just note by seeing them. It was amazing. The spirit the
president and his wife brought to teach literally changed those two families'
eternities. Yesterday we taught them how to make banana bread. haha So that's
fun!
The Lord really is blessing us with
our work and like the scriptures say, it is precisely in the occasion that the
Lord blesses his people, they harden their hearts and forget their Lord. Well,
it's a very easy cycle to fall into, but seeing so plainly the Lord's doing in
literally all that we do, it would be pretty foolish to forget him.
AH! I love being a missionary! I
gotta go. I love you all! Hermana Olson
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