Friday, March 9, 2012
Cooler full of sandwiches
On all other fronts, nothing "llamativo."
That's right, readers, family, friends - a cooler. Full of sandwiches. So, we went and bought some more. Can you imagine, though? Can a cooler be that valuable? And in a Church?!
On Saturday last we had a baptism. Do you remember that I mentioned a girl of about twenty-four who came up to ask to be baptized a few months ago? Belén? Well, even though I didn't finish teaching her, and she went on vacations for a month, she came along perfectly. She kept every challenge, came to church, found friends, and understood everything. She was baptized with four kids from a ward that shares our building (Ciudad Satelite (Satelite City); we are Esquina Blanca (White Corner)). The baptism was a big American-style service, complete with well-prepared speakers, musical numbers, and all the authorities and friends we could find. We started with a talk by Belén's boyfriend Returned MIssionary, then a musical number from another RM and his girlfriend. We passed into the font (well, 50% went in and 50% kind of hung out in the halls and occasionally poked heads in to see) and the people were baptized. Belén's boyfriend's dad baptized her.
As a surprising move, I thought, our Bishop asked that each baptizee stand and give testimony of the Church. The missionaries found the four kids looking for the parents, who were very inactive. They progressed quickly and were baptized. Their testimonies were strong and simple, like kid's testimonies are. Then Belén stood up. She said a lot of things I don't remember. But she knew it was true, and she said the words through tears that every missionary prays to hear in Latin America - "...y ya sé que no voy a salirme de aquí nunca." "... and I know that I will never leave here."
It is the custom to always take pictures of these things, as you may imagine. I actually arrived late to that part and almost missed it. I was able to appear in a few, though. The next picture was her with all her friends in the ward - about eighteen people, between the family of her boyfriend, Daniel (who appears in the picture with his name). As I looked at them - all eighteen or so of them - I thought "LIfetime activity ... achieved."
That's a moment you wait your whole mission to see. Our bishop, in his testimony, mentioned that with one person, the addition to the Kingdom of God is infinite. Have you thought about the gravity of missionary work? Infinite progression, or not.
Sorry, I have to shop.
Elder A Conrad Crist
Note A
I've been thinking this week in my off time about school and medicine. I thought maybe in the mission I might experience a career change, or that those things would fade into the Babylonian background. False. I reflected a little about it and found that I cannot do any other thing. If I was a doctor, I would never "work" a day in my life. Just in case you were wondering about that with all this talk of school. I had the "Attribute Scores" (that's a Dungeons and Dragons reference for my good friends) to do it before, but now I know how to use them. I think my only problem is going to be stopping studying because I'm too interested in too many things. Everyone's bored of this topic already; just thought I'd say so.
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