October 14, 2013 Baptism of Rodrigo and Prayers Sought and Answered

I´m back!! Basketball was good but exhausting. But I needed it :) I guess I´ll start explaining the picture. After Rodrigo´s experience during Conference, we felt to mark his baptism for the 13th. We stopped by or called every day of the week and everything was set for his interview on Saturday. Until he called us at 6:00 saying he was going to spend the night at a cousin´s house. Which got us worrying a little bit since 1) we were sure Satan would take full advantage of the opportunity to tempt him there and 2) it was pretty likely he´d sleep in and miss the baptismal service after the Sunday meetings. But Rodrigo promised we could bring our district leader by Sunday morning and he´d be there. And he was. Turns out he decided not to spend the night and he was interviewed without any problems whatsoever. The baptismal service itself was incredible. Seriously. The room was filled to the brim with members that had met him at conference and seminary when he went. Our ward mission leader planned everything--from filling up the font to asking people to say prayers and give messages and testimonies. Rodrigo asked that I say a few words, and when I started talking he started crying just like he did when we showed him the font. Then his dad, who had been pretty cold with us every time we passed by to teach, started crying. We found out he´d been praying for a long time that his son could be baptized, and he saw our appearance as an unquestionable answer to his prayers. When he started to cry, a few other ward members too. José Roberto, a ward member that lives close by, did the baptism and we had a short testimony meeting afterwards in which 2 members commented that it was one of the most spiritual baptismal services they´d ever been a part of. And, now we have Jorge and Patricia (Rodrigo´s dad and sister) to teach.

After the baptism we went to visit Adrianna to see how she was doing with her recovery from the surgery. The pain´s gotten a little bit worse and I felt kind of helpless watching her stuck in her bed groaning from time to time. We decided to read Alma 7 with her and talked with her about the Atonement and how personal it is for each of us. She liked that, and when we got to verse 14 and 15 I felt to reemphasize a promise that I´d made the week before--that if she had faith her physical condition would not in any way impede her from being baptized this Sunday as we had marked the week before. I´m confident that that promise came from the Lord, and that because of her faith, she´ll be baptized. Even if we have to put her in a wheel chair and fill the water up to her shoulders and lean her back ever so slightly. She´s an incredible woman. After the lesson she let us take pictures of her house (I´ll try to send a few in a sec of Elder Chagas and I messing around) and she asked if we could walk her 2 dogs for a little bit. So we did :) Good memories of walking around with Jimmer and Scooter. Haha.

Saturday we had an...interesting....experience. We were on our way to visit a less active when we heard a car screech to a stop next to us. The driver seemed kind of frantic and asked if the 2 of us were Elders. We said yes of course. So he kept going down the street another block and parked the car and slammed the door shut and started walking at us, messing with something in his pockets. I looked at Elder Chagas and he asked me if we should run. We decided to stay. He came up and after a tense silence asked if we could say a prayer for him. Elder Chagas asked why. He said something had happened with his granddaughter and he was feeling like doing something violent. We asked who. He said with the doctor that had diagnosed her with something. We were kind of reluctant to close our eyes so we said the prayer with them half-open. Then we heard another car screeching to a halt next to us. I seriously thought we were being kidnapped! But no, it was the Bishop. He said he was on his way home from work and felt like he should stop by that less active´s house. And he got there just in time for Elder Chagas to say "Amen." The man thanked us for the prayer, gave us a hug, and walked back to his car. Rather strange, but it was really cool to see how the Lord works to protect His servants. I have no doubt that that will always be the case as long as I´m doing His will. And I´m doing my best when it comes to that.

So yep...that was our week! Ricardo and Shayla and Igor and Diego are still golden and we´re going to try to do their interviews this Friday. We gave them a print-out last week about The Book of Mormon since a bunch of their friends were asking. They seemed to really appreciate that. Before going home, he said he had something for me. He came back with a SWEET winter blazer that I´m stoked to use when I get home. They are amazing people. And not at all because I got a blazer. 

Gotta run, but I love you all!

Elder Sears