Elder Lund Interviewing for a Baptism
P-Day at the Zoo--Reminded him of Put Put Goes to the Zoo from his younger days.
Well, we had a really great week...until Saturday night...but I´ll get into that later.
I finished 13 months in the mission this Tuesday
by fasting with and for our investigator N to receive permission
from her mother, J, to get baptized. We spent most of that day in
San Francisco putting in some good quality work. We have 4 really good
investigators that we are working with that are preparing for baptism
starting the 14th of February
and into March. J, M, A and R. A and R are
super pilas, but I worry that they may not feel prepared to be baptized
on the 14th. They have 2 church assistance and should be coming this
upcoming Sunday.
We are planning to have two lessons with member this week - one with
Sociedad Socorro (Soc Soc) and one with Qúorum de Élderes.
We had a neat little experience on Thursday.
We were planning on having a lesson with R and her two
daughters (old contacts) but the other Elders planned to watch "Joseph
Smith: Prophet of the Restoration" so we invited them. We stopped by for
the invitation, but the mom didn´t want to leave the house alone so we
walked with the 11 year old daughter with a neighbor (less active
member) to the chapel at 2 in the afternoon. We watched the film with
other investigators in the church and they both enjoyed it. About an
hour after we had dropped them both off, they rode their bikes to find
us and she asked us for a Book of Mormon to read. We were kind of
surprised but gave it to her. She came to church with that
neighbor on Sunday and brought a friend. We´ll see what we can do in these upcoming weeks to help their families get reactivated and baptized.
Interesting
experience with M and C with a member...but not enough time
to explain. Hopefully just mentioning this now will help me remember in
the future.
I did divisions with an Elder W from Oregon in Santa Cruz on Friday
primarily to give the baptismal interview. It was my first interview
and I was a little nervous before, but I settled down when I got to SC.
His name is O and he lived in the states for several years so he
knows Spanish and English. We had the interview in both languages
switching back and forth. Good experience...felt the spirit...he´s
pilas...great day. One of our investigators from Río Lindo, J, had
moved to SC recently to study with his grandma. While on divisions,
Elder W and I contacted the house and found him. "Coincidence, I
think not!" Hopefully he can now more readily accept the gospel and go
to church since he doesn´t work on Sundays.
When
I got back to Río Lindo after divisions, we stopped by N because
she texted us the night before saying that she had big news. We stopped
by after lunch and she told us she had received permission from her mom
to get baptized. We talked with the mom and she told us there were
conditions but that it was true. We told them we would drop by later in
the evening. We all felt super happy because of the answered prayers and
fast we had had earlier that week.
Now for the
bad news. That night, we went back with the Registro Bautismal to get
her signature, but to be short, things had changed. She told us she
would not sign until her daughter passed a test on Monday that she hadn´t been studying for this entire month. Basically, the mom
was giving unrealistic expectations and not very forgiving with her
"conditions for baptism"...we tried to reason with her and explain to
her about Christ and how he gives us new conditions of repentance.
N had promised to study more this school year, but to only give
permission by passing a test with just 1 day preparation was illogical
and unjust. After trying to express these concerns, she told us "thank
you, but I don´t want you coming back to talk to me or my daughter ever
again. Good night"...N left the room frustrated,
angry, and crying. We tried to be humble about it and gave a handshake
to leave. We walked back to the house (we didn´t have dinner) in
silence.
We had been given a miracle but it
had been taken away again. We feel stuck right now. We have literally
done everything we could do - service, fasting, lessons with member in
the church about the Joseph Smith movie, constant prayers day and night,
etc etc. Our faith is a principle of action, but it has not become a
principle of power. N came to church on her own yesterday without
her mother´s permission. The grandpa, O, is a little more tranquilo
and had called us that night saying "don´t listen to my daughter, she
is sick in the head...o sea, loca"...we aren´t sure what we are going to
do or if we´ll have the baptism this week or ever, but segun y sea la
voluntad del Padre.
In other news, we went to
the Zoo today as a zone. I´ll send pics. This zoo also had go-karts,
paintball, swimming pools, and a rifle shooting range. we just watched animals sleep and be lazy
(and those things are against the manual misional of course)
Well, that´s all I´ve got this week. Cuídense...
--Elder Lund
Río Lindo, Zona Yojoa 1/27/14 - 2/2/15
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