All in all, a sweet sweet experience

Mayory's baptism

¡¡¡¡¡¡FAMMILIAAAA!!!!

Man! Welp, thanks for making me cry again. I didn’t really cry but, really thank you for your e mails especially about Brother Jones. I was filled with a sweet spirit as I read about his passing and his "call to the heavenly MTC". I know without a doubt that he is in the spirit world right now, most likely serving as a powerful witness of Jesus Christ and his Atonement. It’s a sweet thought to know that he is doing exactly what he would want to be doing now. We should all aspire to be like Kirk Jones, the kind of person that is known as one who lived and died as a true disciple of Christ and that changed the lives of many.

This week has been crazy...but crazy in a good way, of course. Last Saturday we married a family and baptized a woman named Mayory. It was definitely a huge test of faith though. At the end of this last week we scrambled to get all of their papers, find a lawyer, two witnesses for the wedding, figure out a time when those who needed to be there could be (since there was a huge activity in the stake center and the husband had to work at night), plan that baptism, etc...When we showed up to Hmna Elizabeth’s house (the member/lawyer that I always talk about) she told us that she couldn’t do it until later.

So...thus began the madness. We had to talk to everyone again and rearrange everything. We got everything rearranged Saturday morning and were just about to buy a cake for the wedding when Elizabeth called and told us she couldn’t do it that day. Our hearts just sank and I’m pretty sure we both wanted to quit right there. We had worked so hard with this family and Mayory had had so much faith to be able to change her life and even her husband’s. We forgot about the cake and went to go search for another lawyer. From then on little miracles occurred. We found another lawyer that was willing to marry them within 2 hours, we didn’t have keys to the church because nobody in the bishopric could help us that day but a lady from the ward pulled up as we walked up to the church and her husband randomly had keys to the building. My comp had to climb over the glass window to unlock the baptismal font doors. I used my cleaning skills from summers ago to clean the fairly dirty church in like 5 minutes. It was seriously CRAZY...but all in all it was a sweet sweet experience. It was great.  The husband, Francisco, was so excited that right after they got changed he went right in the water, without an opening prayer or message or anything like we had planned. Afterward, we ate cake and soda with the few people that were there and I felt so much joy in that moment.

I think I got this from you dad, but I thought of analogy. A lot of the time we have our eye on the cake, or eternal life, but lots of problems and trials arise. Often times we forget about the cake in those moments that are tough, but if we have faith that everything will work out and do absolutely everything that we can to get the cake...it will happen. In other words, if we suffer patiently through our trials we will one day be reunited in the next life and be happier than we’ve ever been.

The familia Chavarria stopped drinking coffee!!!! Woo hoo! We are praying and have faith that they will be baptized this week as we had planned. The mission has some new goals that are pretty crazy but I have faith that with the help of the Lord that it will happen. Not much else from here but love you guys a bunch and have an awesome week!!!!

Con muchoooo amor,

Elder Ward

PS Connor and Collin, what ever you do don’t fight over volleyball :) Don’t let yourself  get too sucked into all that.

Also, I’m sending pics!!! Just kidding. I tried and it didn’t work. Next week!

Francisco and Mayory's wedding & baptism