Hola Familia!
WOW!! I cannot believe that people think that the heavens are sealed and that God doesn't work with miracles in our day and age. After finishing this week, I can't even image thinking something so untrue and sad. I literally participated in such an amazing miracle that even now as I write this letter I am humbled by the hand of the Lord in our lives. Let me start out by telling you that Elder Mendez and I started out the week without anyone to baptize for the coming weekend. We decided that we couldn't let that affect our excitement we HAD to work harder and smarter in order to find someone to help accept the gospel of Christ. We were thinking about the amazing people that the Lord has blessed us to teach when we felt that we needed to put on date for baptism Pedro and his wife, Margarita, for this next Sunday. However, we thought it would be amazing to baptize the two of them this last Sunday but we recognized that it wouldn't be easy. They aren't married and Margarita was in Leon about 5 hours away from here and nobody knew when she would return. Despite the seemingly impossible feat it would be to help them get baptized we decided to work with the hope and have faith that the Lord would help us make it happen.
Last Tuesday we taught a review of baptism and invited Pedro to be baptized. He responded excitedly but as we explained the need to be married in order to be baptized he got super pensive. We asked him rather apprehensively when Margarita would be home so that we could set goals and he surprisingly told us in the next day or two. When we heard this we knew that we had felt the need to talk about baptism with Pedro for a reason and set the goals for Friday to be married and Sunday to get baptized. We passed by every day, Margarita came home on Wednesday, and Friday they were super excited to go and get married. They got married by a member lawyer who helped us help them get married for super cheap and everything was perfect and working like a well-oiled machine. However, Saturday in the morning as we were doing Personal Study (I was reading a Conference talk called "Come what may, and love it" about not letting the circumstances of life stop us from being happy [not a coincidence]) when we got a call from Pedro that his father had died and that he was going to leave for his father´s house and didn't know when he would get back. Shocked and unsure what we should do we passed by his house before he left to give him words of comfort and to tell him that we could save the baptism for when they got back. They were grateful for the words of comfort and rather surprisingly they told us that would still like to baptized on Sunday.
I cannot tell you how hard it was to not worry and work with a lot of excitement due to the last minute change in plans. However, Elder Mendez and I decided we would pray first and then look for back-up plan for a baptism. We then worked harder than I have thus far in my mission and had tons of unexpected success. We helped someone that we thought was one of those eternal investigators accept a baptismal date for the coming Saturday at 4pm! However, ending the day and starting Sunday we didn't have anyone with baptismal date for the day. We just kept on working and didn't let ourselves get down and man was it hard for me to not be stressed but celestial help made it possible to work with happiness and excitement. At 4:30 we almost lost the calm and confidence but decided that we were fasting and with prayer everything would work out. At 5 o´clock we got a surprise text message from Margarita saying that they had just got home and that they wanted us to stop by!! We sure did stop by and an hour later they were in the all white!!!! :) They were so excited to have had the chance to be baptized this week and the service was especially wonderful.
I know that this was a miracle and evidence that this really is the Lord´s work. Starting the week we had thought it impossible to have accomplished such a feat. I feel so blessed to have been apart of this hard but trying experience that turned out to be so rewarding and special. I have never had felt so happy in my life and it wasn´t happiness due to baptizing, it was what I call celestialized happiness brought from the success of others! I have learned that when we put our eye single to the glory of God we receive the greatest rewards and blessings. I know that this was a blessing due to the diligence and obedience that Elder Mendez and I did; everything we could to have this blessing. I will never forget this week and look forward to seeing more of the miracles that the Lord always has prepared for me here. I cannot explain to you all the happiness and love I have being here and never want it to stop! I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!
Con mucho amor,
Elder Janis
