Baptism in the Ocean!

Week 37

10th August 2015

This week was an even more successful week than last week, a good way to start off the transfer. Even better was that we were able to start the transfer off with a baptism! I was the one who ended up being privileged to baptise Sister Santoyo, and it was a great experience. I was so nervous, because of course I have never baptised anyone in my life, but I managed through it without stuffing up, and being in the ocean I could bring her out a bit deeper to make going under the water easier. It was definitely an experience I will never forget, felt so blessed to be a part of another family's progress in the gospel.

We have two more families we want to start teaching this week - we have taught both of the fathers once, but we want to have the whole family in on the gospel, so we will be teaching the whole family.

The other days were pretty okay, just worked and worked until the day ended, talking to people, teaching people. Nothing ever stops in the work, and the days go by really fast! I feel like I entered the mission field last week, and I'm close to 9 months now.

Our district here is pretty cool, we have 6 missionaries not including the Zone Leaders in our district, and 4 of us are in the same batch! Me, Elder Mamuad, Elder Nikau, and Elder Pineda are all in the same batch, and all we talk about is the MTC. They remember what us foreigners did on Christmas day, and they remember us being really loud and singing non-stop. We talk about our trainers, our previous areas, and stuff like that. I can say it's really cool being a missionary, especially when it comes to reminiscing about that sort of stuff.

This week is another week of work, need to find a couple more investigators, invite some to church, set some baptismal goal dates, encourage some to read the Book of Mormon, and continue moving the work forward. We had nearly 50 people at church yesterday, which was a highest I've seen for a long time. There were quite a few less-active sisters that came back to church yesterday, from the work of the Relief Society. They had an activity yesterday and I can tell it really helped. Busy as. Gonna be heaps smashed over the next few weeks.

I finally was able to get a branch list of all the members in our area. There is around 210 members in our branch, and we only have 40 come to church.

These next few weeks we will probably go out looking for these less-actives, and talk to them. I want to focus particularly on the priesthood, because it is so little here. We have ZERO young men at church every week, and I didn't even know we had any until I got the list. About to try a massive re-activation project with just us two. If we can pull it off, I will be very satisfied with the work I did in Pola.

So Nah, I won't be cooking - my companion took culinary apparently, so I'll let him cook for me. Told him he can cook for us both with my stuff haha.