On Saturday we had two baptisms - one for the mission and one for the ward. Dalila (the wife of our ward mission leader) and her 8 year-old daughter. Our ward mission leader got to baptize his wife and daughter. He confirmed his daughter Saturday after the baptism and his wife Sunday in Sacrament meeting. Here in a year they´ll get to go to the temple to be sealed! On Sunday, I got to confirm Jú (Juciane) a member of the church. She was baptized last sunday evening, so she had to wait an entire week to complete her baptism with the baptism of the spirit. After church on Sunday, a few members told us that they could see a difference in her.
We were planning on baptizing Cida as well. We arranged for a member that lives on her road to drive her to the baptism (We have to go to the stake center to do baptisms because our chapel is a large warehouse that the church is renting while they reconstruct the other chapel and it doesn´t have a baptismal font). The member showed up to the baptism without her. He said that she told him that she decided not to get baptized. The members have told us that this is the fourth time she has marked a baptism with the missionaries and fell through. We´ve decided to stop teaching her for now. Hopefully she´ll gain a firmer testimony to help her overcome her obstacles.
We´re about to go teach 4 young men have been preparing for baptism. Because they have already been going to church, we originally set a close date for baptism with them - last Saturday. To prepare them, we taught them the second lesson on Tuesday, the third lesson and part of the fourth on Wednesday, and the rest of the fourth on Thursday. After the lesson on Thursday, they we´re all interviewed for baptism and passed! After the interview, they told us that it was too soon, that they wanted to wait another month or two before being baptized. I went there Friday night with Elder Homer (an american) because we had to make a division. I prepared that morning to teach them a lesson of power about baptism to help them meet their goal and be baptized that Saturday. It went very well. During the lesson, I was focused on showing them that baptism for someone who is prepared is something that shouldn´t be put off. I was focused on helping them feel the desire to be baptized that following day. During the lesson, they kept explaining to me that they thought it was better to wait. They wanted to wait another couple months to be baptized. After we taught, I was prompted to lead everyone into the living room to pray and ask God who knows everything to help us know the best day for them to be baptized. We all kneelt down, and each took turns individually praying asking the Lord to help us know the day that they should be baptized. As I listened to them pray, I noticed that they each suddenly changed desires and included something similar to the following: "God, please help us know when we should be baptized and bless us that we can be baptized AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE." After everyone prayed, we all stayed on our knees and pondered a little. After a while, we discussed a little more, and we all felt that the best day for them wasn´t in a couple months and it was´t that Saturday, but this next Saturday. It turns out that if it had been last Saturday, Jailson´s father wouldn´t have been able to attend the service, but he will be able to this next Saturday!
On Sunday, Ana (the daughter of a recent convert) finally decided to get baptized. She too will be baptized this Saturday. That was the date I had given her some three days earlier to be praying about.
Well, times up. Until next week...
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Elder Allred
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