Elder Spencer's Mexico Mexico City North Mission: A Baptism!!!!

So our week was alright......we just had a baptism on Friday is all.... It was way awesome! (but more on that later). On Tuesday we went to the stake center and watched the address from our new prophet Russell M. Nelson, then we got to watch the press conference as well. It was being translated into Spanish and I could understand most of it. It was super awesome to hear from the new Prophet of the church. I know that President Nelson has been called of God and will be a great leader for the church. He was already a great leader before he was called to be the Prophet. We are super lucky and privileged to be able to have a living, modern day Prophet here on the earth with us! Afterwards, Elder Anastacio’s back was super sore from sitting so long and then walking back to the casa. He still wanted to go out to our appointments even though his back was killing, and luckily we found one of our investigators working so we stopped and talked to her and taught her about the Law of Chastity, which is sometimes awkward but it turned into a great lesson.

On Wednesday we had to go to the office so Elder Anastacio and the other missionaries who have been here for a year could go to the capital to renew their visas. The companions who stayed at the office became a companionship, basically intercambios. It was really fun to be with other missionaries and go contacting with them to see how they talk to people and do things in general. I also got my package with my new debit card, finally. Later that day, we missed an appointment with an investigator so we ended up going to an Internet Café to look up talks we just got assigned to speak about on Sunday. Freaking heck, another talk already? :)

Thursday was my turn to plan for the day, solo, which I hate doing. We haven’t been able to get a hold of Brenda the last couple of days to confirm her interview for baptism, and I asked Elder Anastacio if we should try calling her again and he said he didn’t know. I almost said fine we won’t call her, we will just wait to hear from her, and if she doesn’t call oh well. Luckily, I thought about that and decided that we needed to call her, so we did and set up everything for her interview in the afternoon. The Spirit helped me to calm down and realize the importance of calling her for her interview, so I followed that thought and she passed her interview! I learned a very important lesson: Always listen to the spirit and think about the consequences of your actions before you do them. Later, we had a lesson with the Juarez family and it was amazing! Elder Anastacio and I taught and talked calmly, slowly and carefully. Because we had the spirit with us I know and could feel the power of our words and the spirit reinforcing our words. I invited them to be baptized and they accepted!

Friday was baptism day!! We spent most of the day at the church cleaning the font, turning on the boiler so Brenda wouldn’t have to get baptized in cold water and waiting while the font filled up. She had her husband baptize her and it was a wonderful experience for me. We weren’t the first to start teaching her, but we were able to finish the lessons and invite her to be baptized. Seeing Brenda be baptized and how happy she was after was incredible! The spirit that was there was great as well. She had a lot of support from the ward, which is super important because she needs to feel welcome. It’s a super special experience to see someone get baptized.

Saturday we had a long talk with Alisson’s mom, aunt and grandma. We decided we need to postpone her baptism for a while, because she has a huge problem with respecting and listening to her mom, tios y Abuela (uncles and grandma). She also won’t do any of the commitments we invited her to do. We are still going to try to keep teaching her; but I have no idea how to teach a 9-year-old girl how to have respect, how important it is for her to be obedient to what her family says and to do what we invite her to do as well. It’s going to take a lot of studying and prayers, but I know we will be able to figure out how to help her. We were also out later (on permission from Presidente) teaching Eduardo from the Juarez family about the Plan of Salvation. He wasn’t there the first time we taught the family about it so he had some questions and was curious. We still didn’t get through all our lesson but we had to get home and finish preparing our talks.

Sunday we were so sure that the Juarez family was going to be at church but for some unknown reason they didn’t show up. We went by their house later in the evening and tried calling them but we got nothing. They always say they are going to come to church but the end result is them not showing up. They are such an awesome family and want to keep learning about the church so it’s really frustrating when they end up not coming. I’m not sure what we need to do but keep praying for them and teach them about dia de repose (day of rest) and living it every week! On the bright side, my talk – I think and feel – went really well! Because Elder Anastacio and I talked the previous night, he helped me and I was actually not nervous or scared. Okay maybe a little nervous pronouncing words but one thing I kept thinking about before was my two favorite scriptures – D&C 50: 23-24. Being afraid that I won’t give a good talk, that I won’t pronounce anything correctly and that what I share/talk about won’t affect the members, that is NOT from God. That is from the Devil. What comes from God is uplifting, peaceful, clear and will help you learn and grow.

We have cambios next week. I’m not sure what will happen. Whatever happens I will be happy that I got to be Elder Anastacio’s companion, but I kinda think we might stay together. PS - That’s so awesome about the snow! haha oh I’m sure Koda was just in heaven. That’s also super cool about the new Family Search facility in Lehi! How awesome! Wow another missionary from the ward! How wonderful!

Thank you mama! I really appreciate all the love and support from you guys! Love you so much!