Seeing The Hands Of God - February 25, 2017

Hello Everyone! Well it has been an amazing week here in Casa Blanca, actually it was one where it was just worrying about Maria and her family. This morning we had the chance to see Maria, Max, and Nataly get baptized and it was such a special experience. We spent this week getting them ready and really doing all that we could to be able to make sure that they were ready to be baptized. And as with every person that is on the brink of being baptized, there is always a nervousness about possible things that could go wrong, sometimes unnecessary stress. But I dont know why we were so stressed out about it. It was almost as if Elder Caballero and I forgot that this is the Lords work and that he had prepared this family to get baptized. We were continually shown that Maria was ready along with her family. She would recieve calls during the lessons and she would invite them to her baptism. Last night was crazy, we had set up the interviews at Maria's house at 8:00. Elder Sosa and Elder Zavala got to our area at 8:15 and we walked over there. When we got to their house we knocked on the door and the people that live up front told us that they weren't home. We started frantically calling Nataly to see if she would answer but her phone was off. Then we called Maria and she said that she was just getting done with work and that she would be there in half an hour. When she got there it was 9:00 and we started filling out the paperwork for them as fast as we could. But while we were doing all of the administrative stuff it was fun to note the way that Maria was acting. She is 54 years old and she was bouncing up and down saying the whole time that she couldnt wait for tomorrow to come. I had never seen such a big change in someone before. We started out by teaching her in the street where she was selling chips, and eventually we got her confidence to start teaching her family, and now they have received full testimonies of the gospel. At 10:00 last night we left their house and headed back home, and we were still worried about possible things that could go wrong. This morning we woke up and went down to the church to make sure everything was ready. At 11:00 they showed up and they all came in smiling and so excited for the day. It was the first time in my whole entire mission that the investigators getting baptized showed up on time. The whole service Maria was smiling the whole time, you could tell that she was so happy to be able to receive the blessings of the gospel. This week we also saw a HUGE miracle. Jose and Lulu, the ones that have waiting 3 years to be able to get married, are finally getting married on Tuesday. Lulu called us on Thursday and told us to start getting our lessons ready to teach Jose so that he can pass his interview. He will hopefully be getting baptized this coming Saturday and we are so excited because he has so much potential as a Priesthood holder in the church. Really the Lord is strengthening us in everything that we do. We were talking to our ward mission leader today at the baptism. A few weeks ago his wife was telling me that I would never see the fruits here in Casa Blanca but that I had planted a ton of seeds. It didnt really matter to me, but today when we were talking to him, he taught me something very important to me. He told me that the members and missionaries who arent worried about when the blessings and miracles will come are always the ones who receive them. He told me that I had been an example of that to him. 7 months here in Casa Blanca has not been the easiest, and it has been hard to find people to teach, but I have learned a valuable lesson that I have said before, that stress is a lack of faith, and that doubt is inaction. I have learned here in my 7 months that I have had to increase my faith more than ever, and that I have had to loose my doubt in order to act according to my faith. And I am thankful and humble for that because the Lord has truly blessed us with miracles. I know that he knows each one of us, he is aware of what is happening in our lives, and he is waiting to bless us with miracles each and every one of us. Elder Peterson

Our Nacho Libre discoveries continue, here is the cliff where he finds the eagle eggs

The baptism this morning