This week was one
I'll never forget. The big news is we were
able to baptize
Pedro this weekend! His brother, Francisco, wasn't quite ready but we'll be
back in the water with him in a few weeks.
To begin the week, we
headed to San Luis for a Super P-Day with our entire zone. There are only four
Elders in Villa Mercedes so we are kind of like the "lost boys" so it
was nice to spend time with more missionaries for the day. On Tuesday, we had
our zone meeting and we focused on teaching courageously and being bold with
our investigators and people we teach so they're more likely to keep their
commitments with us. We also talked about finding more investigators. Every
minute we are out in the streets we should be looking for people to teach, not
just when we are knocking doors. We received great council from our leaders and
we were able to put it into practice this week.
This week in Villa Mercedes was a
little crazy because we spent a lot of our time preparing for the baptism. We
made and delivered invitations. I made my famous brownies.
And, the most
stressful part of the preparations was filling up the baptismal font.
To be honest, the
whole baptism was stressful because it was my first one.
Even with all of the baptism
preparations we were able to get in some good work with some of our
investigators. We caught up with our friends, Silvina
and Gustavo, and we had an awesome lesson with them. Silvina is the daughter of
a member family and she's been investigating the Church for a couple of months
but she lives with her boyfriend, Gustavo.
Of course this
isn't an ideal situation and they can't really progress but it is awesome that
we can teach a them together. They plan to get married in the next
year so we focus our lessons on the temple and eternal marriage. Gustavo is a
good dude and since he isn't too familiar with the Church, he always has
awesome questions for us, which is such a a good thing.
We've talked with
them about their plans for the future and Silvina eventually told us that a
temple marriage is goal for them and she also told us that she has testimony of
the Book of Mormon. This was awesome to hear!
I had a funny incident with my shoe
this week. One night I accidentally stepped in dog crap (which isn't hard to do
because there are so many dogs here and therefore, tons of dog crap) so when I
returned to the pench, I washed it off and set in the garage area to dry out.
I thought nothing
of it. Well, our garage just has bars, like a jail cell, to
close it off and we always have dogs roaming around in there, especially when
it's really hot or really cold. Long story short, we were on our way to the
chapel on Sunday morning and about two blocks from our pench I saw a familiar
shoe in the middle of the street.
One of the dogs had
robbed me of my own shoe! When they hang out in our garage, I give them water
and food and this is the gratitude I get. Argentina and it's dogs!
Obviously, the big day of the week was
Saturday. In the morning, we did some service at
the local school. We painted some playground equipment
and did some yard work. There was a crowd of people with us so we were able to
get some good work done. What's a Saturday morning without a little yard work?
Of course the highlight of the day was Pedro's baptism and I was fortunate
enough to perform the ordinance.
Many of Pedro's
family members came to support him and the ward members also showed a good
amount of support to Pedro and his family.
We walked into the
water together and as I had him in my hands I had the coolest feeling. I'm not
going to lie, I was a little nervous because it was my first time baptizing
someone but everything went smoothly.
As I was saying the
baptismal prayer I had the coolest feeling.
It was the
undeniable presence of the Spirit.
When we left the water, we shared an
emotional moment together. Pedro gave me a huge hug and it was
really something special. We were chatting a bit and I asked him
how he felt and he basically said that he felt like he was starting a new life.
Pedro is such a
stud!
On Sunday, Elder Prestes confirmed
Pedro and gave him the gift of the Holy Ghost.
That was also a
cool moment. As I saw Pedro sitting in church with the rest of his family, I
had the biggest smile on my face.
Of course it's not all about the
baptism and numbers but it felt so good to help Pedro make a covenant with
our Heavenly Father. Also, on Sunday he was able to receive
the Aaronic Priesthood. That means next week he'll be able to pass the
sacrament like he always wanted to.
This week was a very rewarding week;
one I will never forget! Also, during the week I was able to receive my
family's Christmas card so "Merry Christmas!"
Back to the Grind!
Elder Roderick
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