This last week was great and an awesome opportunity to grow.
Monday our recent convert, Hermano Guzman came to us and taught us
this cool martial arts/workout thing. It was one of the best workouts
I've done on my mission and my legs were pretty worn after that. We're
going to do it again today in about an hour!
This week we continued teaching the
Barajas family and things went great. We were hoping to have a member
take the family to do a tour of the temple in Oakland but that never
went through. Later in the week we took Jovita Rodriguez to their lesson
and it turned out awesome. We were focusing on them to make sure they
were still ready for baptism on the 10th. We talked about Joseph Smith
and the Restoration again since everything is focused on that and the
Spirit was really strong in that lesson. Jovita talked about her
experience in the temple and leading up to her baptism and it was great
for the Barajas family. They said it was hard to know for sure that
everything really happened to Joseph Smith that he said but we talked a
lot about faith and they realized they have felt the Spirit testifying about
it. When we were talking about baptism, Hermana Barajas blurted
out to me "you're too convincing and you just make me want to do
everything that you say". I told her that it wasn't me but the Spirit
but it was still funny to hear that. At the end of the lesson we all
knelt down and Hermana Barajas prayed and asked specifically if they
should be baptized on August 10th. After the prayer ended we all stayed with our eyes closed
kneeling down for about 6 minutes before we stood up again. We talked
about how peaceful we all felt and Hermana Barajas told us how she felt a
warmth in her chest and we used that opportunity to point out the
Spirit.
They told us they weren't sure if they were going to make it to
church yesterday because a long time ago they had promised to help
their neighbor cook all the food for their daughter's quincinera that
was on Sunday. They decided to make their best effort to go even if it
was just for Sacrament Meeting. We set up a temple tour with them on Saturday morning as well. Friday night we called to confirm everything and give them the address and everything was good to go. On Saturday
we got to the temple, and were there for about 3 hours but the Barajas
family never showed up. We kept calling their house but could never get
a hold of them. We kept calling them all afternoon and even stopped by
but we couldn't get a hold of them. We were really worried. We spent a
lot of time prayer and putting our faith in the Lord and just being
diligent in working and knowing that the Lord would provide. Sunday
morning we went over to their house and the husband was home so we
talked to him for about an hour. The mom was at the old folks home
taking care of her patient and the beans were cooking on the stove and
the dad said they weren't going to church that day so we were really
worried. Elder Idso was really worried and I was doing my best to have
faith and assure my companion that everything would be OK. And then a
miracle occurred and they came! We were so happy and so grateful but
after the trial of our faith we were made stronger. The Barajas family
could only stay the first hour like they said but they did come to
church and they are on track to get baptized this Saturday! It was a great week and I am looking forward to this next one!
We had some other cool things happen but I really only have time for that story.
I hope everyone is doing well!
Les Quiero Mucho!
Elder Gaskill
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