Well, if I had to give the whole family a grade on how faithful you all were at writing me for these two years, it would have to be an 8. But man, it’s like you all gave up the last 3 months. Shout out to Mom cause she got me each week. The most consistent award goes to Megan, and the dark horse award goes to Becky (I’ve never seen her in person and she wrote me more than Andrew, Marc, Emily, and Annie). Ok, I gave you your grade and awards, lets hear your end of the story.
Oh, boy. We had a great week last week. We baptized Luz, Jesus, and Fani. They got confirmed this Sunday (minus Fani, she will get here next week) This week we baptized Fani’s Mom and sister, Tiofi and Barbara. It was awesome. At the beginning of the week we put a meta to baptize Tiofi and Barbara, but when we put the meta we had not seen Barbara in two weeks. We thought that she didn’t want anything but we felt that we needed to put her down as a meta, and we did it in faith. We went through the semana and prepared Tiofi for her interview on Friday, but we still had not seen Barbara. Her mom (Tiofi) kept telling us that Barbara didn’t want to be baptized because of a couple of things that had happened with her pops. We passed by for Tiofi on Friday and she told us she didn’t feel prepared. Her husband was super "boracho" and they had been fighting. We talked with her and told her that she needs to just go to the interview and the elder will be the judge if she is ready or not. She agreed to go to the interview Saturday night. We left their house pretty disappointed because we felt like everything had fallen apart. As we were walking home that night, I got the strongest impression that we needed to pass by for Barbara Saturday morning to prepare her for her interview with her mom that night. We prayed that Tiofi would be prepared for her interview the next day and to know the exact time that we should go and visit Barbara. Then, Saturday morning we go by at the time we felt we should. Barbara and Fani and Omar were there. We sat down but we had no clue what we needed to say to her to help her understand that she was ready for her baptism. We asked Barbara what she had thought about her baptism. She said, "I made my decision earlier in the week that I wasn’t going to be baptized, but last night I was talking with my mom and Fani. I now understand that I need to be baptized." I was super shocked that we didn’t have to say anything, and she was ready. Tiofi and Barbara had their interview that night and the next day they were baptized. They both are very happy. God answers prayers, he loves us. If we can just have faith and not doubt, we will see miracles in our lives. I learned that first hand this week. I love you all. Thanks for everything you do for me. Last week....gasp....sprint to the end!
Love
Elder Gardner
