29 August 2016

Might i say, i am now part of the old person club.... I have now completed the ripe old age of TWENTY-ONE!!!! If i wanted to drink in the U.S. i could... but heaven knows that'll never happen... haha! funny thing though is in Canada, the legal drinking age is 18... what the?? haha but either way, my birfday was yesterday, and it was a pretty good one :) allow me to explain why :P So this week (and pretty much the whole transfer) has revolved almost completely around Gloria. Every planning session, every companionship study, every lesson idea has pretty much been geared toward her and what she will need to in order to be baptized. So this past week we had two lessons in prep for her baptism on Saturday. First one was Tuesday and we were PLANNING on having a quick 30-45 minute lesson, but being the second to last lesson and with the topics we covered (baptismal questions, tithing, fasting, fast offerings and how to donate offerings) it ended up being dragged out to a two HOUR lesson!!! whoa, we defs don't take that long every time, but we talked a bunch about church on Sunday where like all the talks and lessons in classes were based on families and eternal marriages and whatnot. So she was like "do you guys do that every sunday? just have everything based on the same thing?" we were like well in sacrament meeting sometimes, but how gospel principles was based on it too was just a perfectly timed move made by God.. haha! ok we didn't word it exactly like that but you get the idea ;) and then Wednesday was her INTERVIEW!!!!! Elder Cervantes (who is dead.. mission terms) did the interview. He is from Costa Rica and was the AP, and had been zone leader and also district leader and never done a baptismal interview, so he was SUPER excited and honored to be able to do it for her, AND he finished his mission LAST WEEK!!! like literally the interview was Wednesday and he went home Friday. He was really appreciative of that :) Then Thursday was weekly planning day... basically all of that was prep for her baptism on Saturday haha. Friday we had our LAST LESSON!!!! It was a dang good one too. We talked about temples, baptisms for the dead, eternal marriage, family history work, and all of that good stuff :) but she was pretty intrigued and interested in the baptisms for the dead, and when we explained it to her, she immediately accepted :) Saturday was just a busy day in general. we helped with a move at 10 in the morning and didn't finish until close to 1:00!!! then a family was having a birthday party for their daughter at 3, so we went to that for like an hour. but then we drove straight up to the stake center to make sure the baptism before us didn't drain the font......... the did not.. whew!! so we ran all the way back down to the south side of Calgary to pick up the dinner for the baptism (a Uruguayan soup thing.. flippin bomb.com), then went back up to the stake center to set up more chairs and tables for refreshments (more like dinner in the spanish culture haha). luckily the family of one of the ladies who was gonna give a talk showed up early to help prepare everything, so we got that done just in time. then as time starts passing, people are beginning to shop up. another things to note about spanish culture is if you say something is at a certain time, you better believe that it ain't starting at that time.. haha! the "time" for the baptismal service to start was set for 7:00, but hardly anyone was there by 7:15.. haha! but by the time we got started, the whole room was full. we originally set up 60 chairs, but they had set up another row just to be safe, and they told me that there was maybe only 5 chairs empty. it was amazing how many people came to see it :) anyways, Gloria got there around 7:20, she got dressed, i got dressed, and the service began. I just want to say, being able to participate in someone's baptism like that has changed my perspective on the mission a lot. The fact that she chose me to perform the baptism and how much effort we put in to prepare everything and get everything taken care of was incredible. She was so nervous going into the font, but when i said the prayer and baptized her, after i got the thumbs up and they closed the doors, she just started crying. She turned to me and looked up and all she said was "thank you" and gave me a hug and continued crying. i don't know how long it was , but i hadn't felt so happy in my whole mission. Several people told us later that it was the best baptismal service they had ever attended, and even when she came up out of the water, she came out "gracefully". the time, effort, preparation, prayers, fasting, and everything that went into her being baptized was all 100% worth it. This church is flippin true. thank you everyone for your love and support. This mission has changed me and continues to do so. I can't wait to get home and see how much my perspective has changed once i get to the "real world" again. i hope everyone is doing well, ad i shall re-address you all next week :) have a great week! love, Elder Levi windham