Another week in the Laredo Heat!
Dear Family,
I'm glad to hear that Mom and Dad are having a fun time on the family reunion trip to Kentucky. However, I'm probably more excited at the fact that the BMW managed to avoid the huge pit in the road.
Unfortunately, I don't have that much time to write today since it's a day when we've got to get out and work, unlike P-day, but I think I'll probably just tell one quick story from the week that is pretty amazing. Really it's not my story at all, it's from the Elders that live with us. I figure it's a good enough story that it deserves repeating.
(Editorial note: Roland uses computers at the local university to write to us on Monday, P-day. The campus computer labs were closed for the Memorial Dayweekend, so they got permission to write their letters on Tuesday morning.)
In their area, there's a couple, Miguel and Pilar, who have been investigating the church for about eight months. They have both come really close to getting baptized twice, but both times, as the day got closer and closer, they had second thoughts and pushed it off. They have received spiritual witnesses that the church is true, but had a lot of trouble following through on their answers from God. They would worry about other things. They had been visited by other churches in the past as well, while they were being taught, who gave them anti-LDS material and who sowed a lot of doubt. This pushed them away from baptism.
They came to church on Sunday and had a good experience. This is party due to the fact that because they've been investigating so long that they know most of the members pretty well. Anyway, as Miguel and Pilar were leaving church, the missionaries asked them if they could come over to visit them on Monday. They said that it would be fine. So the missionaries asked, "Well, what do you want to talk about?" Miguel responded, "I want to talk about faith. I feel like I'm lacking faith." So the missionaries said, "All right, sounds great."
On Monday, the missionaries went over to visit Miguel and Pilar and at the start of the lesson just asked them, "So, what have you got for us? What's keeping you away from baptism?" Miguel answered that what was really holding him back was they he didn't want to get baptized and then later have someone come over, open up the Bible and say, "Well, you see, this verse here proves that your church is wrong." He didn't want to make a bad decision without knowing, and he also didn't want to be unable to defend the church. So the Elders tried for a while to answer the doubt using different scriptures from the Book of Mormon and D&C, but really to no avail. Nothing really changed in his attitude.
So, one of the elders, who is gong home in about three weeks, decided to tell a story. He told Miguel that when he went home he was going to start looking for a wife. He was going to go home and search for the person he was supposed to marry. He was gong to find a girl that he liked, that he got along well with, and that he admired. Then, he would go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him if it was the woman that he was supposed to marry. If he got the answer that "yes, this is who you are supposed to marry," then he has a few options. He can start thinking, "Well, there are 7 billion people on the planet, maybe there's someone cuter. Maybe there's someone I can get along with better." Thoughts like these would make him keep from marrying this woman, when in reality, he could go along with what God had told him and have a very different experience. Through the trials that might come up in marriage, he and this woman would grow closer together, their love for each other would strengthen, and he would come to know exactly why God had told him to marry this woman. At some point, he had to act on the answer that God had given him, even though he may not fully understand all of it at the time. He could trust in the Lord and come to find out over time exactly why he had done what he chose to do and also come to love his choice more day by day.
Miguel seemed to understand the relationship between this story and his decision to join the church. So, the missionaries asked, "Miguel, when are you going to be baptized?" He said that he didn't really know, and asked the elders when they thought he should get baptized. They responded, "It's your baptism, not ours. What's the day?" He wasn't sure, so he said that he and Pilar would talk about it that night and then call them tomorrow with their decision. This process of talking about it at night and then getting back to the missionaries had been tried before and yielded no fruit. So the missionaries replied, "Well that hasn't worked before, but if you want to try it go ahead." They had the closing prayers where Miguel and Pilar both said a prayer. During the prayers one of the missionaries had the thought, "I wonder what would happen if we had both of them just wrote down what day they wanted to be baptized on a piece of paper and see what date they chose." He thought it was a weird idea, but after counseling with God a little in his heart, he decided to try it.
After the prayer, he told Miguel and Pilar his idea. Miguel went into the next room with his half a sticky note, while Pilar stayed in the room where they had their lesson. The missionaries also thought about it and flipped open their planners to the day they thought Miguel and Pilar would be comfortable to be baptized. The missionaries chose the 19th of June as a good day for their baptism. When Pilar finished, they had her show them her payer. It said the 19th of June, just like the missionaries had thought. Crazy coincidence by the Spirit, right? So they waited for Miguel to return with his decision. A good ten minutes passed, and finally Miguel came back into the room with his slip of paper. he handed the paper to the missionaries who opened it up and looked at it.
It said, "Hoy," or in English, "Today."
Pilar looked at Miguel and asked him it he was serious. He said that he was. The missionaries asked him as well and he confirmed it. He had decided that it was what he really wanted to do. The missionaries called the mission president (who had taught him in the past when he was out working with the missionaries) and he was as excited as could be that Miguel wanted to be baptized. The Elders put the president on speaker phone and he gave his congratulations to Miguel and Pilar, and gave the missionaries the green light to perform the baptism. They drove to the church (now about 9:30 at night) and started to fill up the font and make phone calls to the branch. The mission president called the district president in Laredo and informed him about the situation. The missionairies called the branch president and the members and asked them to attend the service that would start at 10:00 p.m. We received a call from the missionaries asking us to bring their baptismal clothes and towels from the apartment. Of course, we were more than willing to fill the request. Upon arriving at the church, the district president was there, and a few families from the branch had already arrived. The branch president showed up just a few minutes later with his counselors, as well as some of Miguel and Pilar's family members and some investigators from the north side of Laredo. It made for qujite a packed baptismal service, with auxiliaries and presidencies present to support them in their decision, despite the short notice and the time of night. Miguel and Pilar both bore their testimonies after the service and were amazed at the evidence of love shown by the members who were there. The baptismal service started, and it was a sweet experience for all who attended. They were baptized at about 10:30 p.m. last night.
The day of miracles has not ceased.
That can be proven easily enough by the witness of the Spirit given to this man for the time of his baptism, the support of a loving branch and the Spirit present at a baptismal serve announced and planned about twenty minutes before it occurred.
Overall, it made for an amazing and unexpected Monday night, one I'm not soon to forget.
I hope everyone has a great week and gets a chance to rest a little bit from the summer heat.
Love,
Elder Wood
