It finally happened! The first baptism of my mission! Sometimes I thought that it would never happen. After all, she has been an investigator since 2006! But it finally happened, hahaha just when elder packer got transferred after we had been teaching her for 3 months. Her name is Cristina Rivadera and she’s 52.
The baptism was really stressful at times (the planning of it I mean), mostly because it was my first one and I didn’t know what I was doing, and my new comp only had 5 days in the area and didn’t know anyone so I basically had to figure it all out by myself. It didn’t help that the priesthood wasn’t very excited about it. The first councilor bet me that she wouldn’t attend next week, and the president was really annoyed that I picked the time for the baptism as right after church, because “people need to go home and eat” he said. But thankfully, the sisters of the ward were really helpful, especially in welcoming Cristina and being her friend.
As soon as sacrament meeting ended (for us its last), Cristina disappeared. No one knew where she went and I started to freak out haha. I asked a sister named Laila if she could check the bathroom and she thought it would be funny to play a joke on me and say she wasn’t in there! So I went out in the street looking everywhere for her I thought she ran off hahah. But in reality she was just changing in the bathroom and then she was ready way before me, and the president told me to hurry up because people need to go cook. I wanted to tell him to relax and enjoy his wards first baptism in a year but I didn’t haha.
The baptism itself was really good, she liked it a lot and she seemed really happy. If anyone wants to help, please pray for her to continue on the path and attending church. My worst fear is that she will read something bad because she believes everything she reads online haha (she thinks we have live aliens captured in America).
Like I said before, she’s been an investigator since 2006. We had tried everything we could to help her, and I was just about out of ideas. I’m sure the missionaries before us had done everything they could think of as well. I thought forever and all I could think of to share was Helaman 15:3 and to explain the meaning of chastise, and how maybe she has a lot of trials because God is trying to help her change. That seemed to have an impact on her, but then she told us about an experience she had. She said the other night around midnight she was sleeping, but she wasn’t asleep. It was like an out of body experience. She knew she was asleep, but she was awake. And then she heard someone knock on the door. And she said “who is it?” and a voice said “the missionaries. We have something from heaven that we want to give you.” And then she said she fell back asleep, but ever since that moment she said she’s been thinking about us and the church. She also said one time she had no money to buy food for her or her kids, but she found $100 pesos in an old bag that she said she never put there. She felt very blessed, and based off those “señals” she finally decided to get baptized. Elder packer will be really jealous that she got baptized the week after he left!
I also gave my first ever talk in Spanish yesterday. I have no idea if people understood me or not ,but I had bigger things to worry about that day.
Something funny is that there is this little kid named Leo who comes up and sits next to me on the piano bench while I play piano in church. He sometimes puts his hands on the keys while I'm playing but thankfully he isn't bold enough to actually press them haha.
My new comp and I aren't exactly the best of friends yet. He is a native spanish speaker and he sometimes gets impatient if I can't understand something. But im sure that I need to be more patient with stuff as well. We are working hard though at least.
Miracles are real, God is real, and he really does answer prayers. We will get out of life what we put into it. I can see already after one week of working more than i ever have in the mission, the fruits of that work, my first baptism. I hope I can have a couple more this transfer.
I hope everyone is doing well. I love you all and I miss everyone.
-Elder Christensen
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