Hola Fam!
The last few weeks I didn't find the time to write, but here I am today! A nice big email!
I wrote this last week, but did not finish it, so I never sent it:
" Rafa is an 11 year old kid whose family was less-active. When I arrived he had already been in teaching for a while, because he's a little bit slow to understand new concepts for his age. He also had expressed in the past a fear of going in the water in order to be baptized. The first lesson with him I didnt really know how to teach him in a way he could understand, but over the course of several lessons with him I found my own simple and clear way to teach and eventually he finished the lessons and was ready for baptism!
We had the baptism on saturday, my companion was going to baptize him, and everything was ready. Rafa found the courage to go into the water, but my companion couldn't get him all the way under the water on the first go. After a few tries he was very distressed from being submerged in the water, to the point that we had to postpone the baptism.
What we learned after from his mom was that his problems with comprehension and fear of submersion were caused by his dad, who he lived with alone for two years. In that time, his dad did not send him to school and was very abusive.
So we scheduled a time to visit the family again, and did everything we could to make sure that Rafa could follow his desire to be baptized. Our zone leader elder Galaviz has a lot of experience with baptizing, and Rafa already knows him, so we planned for elder Galaviz to baptize him.
I was searching for ways to help Rafa feel more comfortable with being baptized, and I found an excellent video for kids about baptism in Gospel Library. I also saw the idea of a "Baptism Bag", which is a white bag with different objects that act as symbols for the covenants and blessings of baptism and confirmation. They included a flashlight, a mini BoM, soap, a "blanket", and a few other things that I don't remember right now. So we had a lesson in which we showed him the video and I gave him the bag and talked with him about the meaning of the objects in the bag.
We had the second baptismal service that thursday. He was still a little nervous, but elder Galaviz managed to get him all the way under! He was happy with his baptism, and now we're just working with the ward to help keep the family active."
More recently, we've had a lot of people in teaching, but one notable person is called Carlos who is 22 years old. He really enjoyed church the one time he attended, he's been reading the Book of Mormon, and he even watched some Conference! We thought we were going to baptize him this last week, but he hasn't been able to come to church because of his work, and we sort of lost contact with him. We're gonna try to have a lesson with him and the couple who do self-reliance in the ward to see if we can find him a new job.
One time in the street a skinny raggedy looking guy came up to us with a bag of purple lollipops and very cartoonishly said "WilL yOu PLeeAsE BuY a LolY FroM meee!!"
I simply responed with "Buenas tardes, no gracias." But I couldn't help laughing about it with my companion directly after. The same day, we were in a different place nearby and we passed by the same man, and he said the same thing.
That was a week ago, and I have not seen Loly Man since.
In the center of Apizaco you have the Cathedral, and a park in front with some little tent shops and places to sit down. We've contacted there a few times, and have gotten a lot of contacts from giving out Book of Mormons, but there's too many people in the park that are from outside of our area.
One day we were on our way to contact in the park, in one of the busiest parts of Apizaco, and a man sat down selling products yelled out to us. At first I thought it was just someone randomly yelling "¡Güero!", which basically means "White dude!". But I paused to see who it was, and we went over to talk with him. It turned out he sincerely wanted us to teach him, so we gave him a Book of Mormon, took his information, and invited him to church. When he actually showed up to church, at first I didn't recognize him, but I could tell that he recognized us. He showed up for Easter Sunday, when the ward had just gone to the temple and it was a fast and testimony meeting. The members gave really nice testimonies about the temple, and at the end the bishop talked about easter. It turns out that Ruben, the man visiting for the first time, has seen a temple before, and he really enjoyed the meeting. He expressed a desire to put an effort to grow spiritually.
The next morning, we had a lesson with him and hermano Serrano, in which he explained that he has an addiction to Marjuana. He expressed how his addiction affected his relationship with his family. Hermano Serrano has experience with helping people with addictions, and helped talk with him about how to deal with it. Randomly in the lesson, he mentioned a verse he recently read in Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 15:58. "be ye stedfast, unmoveable..." We talked about what it means to endure to the end. That to be steadfast and unmovable means to have passion in what you do and to never give up. He expressed that he received a rather empty feeling christian baptism while he was in prison, because it was not explained to him that he must endure to the end, nor that he must repent before being baptized. After the lesson, I asked him what he shouted out to us when he saw us, and he said that he didn't remember what he said, but that he saw Christ in us.
We set a baptisimal date with him, and since then we have had a few more lessons, and he didn't smoke marijuana for almost a week. But after not attending church, he has not answered our calls. He most likely fell back into using Marijuana, but we're gonna keep trying to contact him and be very encouraging.
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