The power of baptism is an amazing thing.......

Ay Padres y Hermanos,

Como Estan? Espero que todos es bein. Les amo mucho.  Man things are starting to pick up quickly. Tuesdays will now be the normal day for me to email so it should be normal from now on. Sorry again about last week and not being able to write till later.

Let’s see this week....Well we will start with the least important and end with the best highlights. Yesterday was P-day and it was nice to kind of relax in the morning instead of the having to start right away.  But the best thing about yesterday was the Turkey Bowl we had.  Mount Franklin Zone vs. El Paso Zone, (I am in the Mount Franklin Zone) and the score was 70-42 Mount Franklin.  We lit them up. Haha, it was really competitive but what was nice is there was no one who got their tempers up.  We played earlier in the week with some members and they were just awful to play with, because if I didn’t know better, it looked like it was the Super Bowl game because everyone was super annoyed with each other. But when our group of missionaries got together it was really no problem.  And I scored a few touchdowns :).

So we have been teaching this almost nine year old girl named Brenda, who apart from Dallin and Christopher is probably the most adorable kid in the world.  It’s funny though because I’m more nervous to teach her than anyone else in Spanish, because I have to speak with correct grammar and use words that she will be able to understand, which limits my already limited vocabulary.  But we finished teaching her all the lessons and set up her baptism date for the 3rd of December.  Since there is no worthy priesthood holder in her family, Elder Richardson will be the one to baptize her and she asked me to confirm her... I couldn’t refuse.  But I am super nervous, because I have not given anyone a blessing before, and because I have not studied using the informal Tu form at all, which you have to use when giving a blessing.  So that’s what I’m going to focus my Language Study time this week on.

I think Friday of last week we had an amazing day.  It was funny because my companion hasn’t been the most obedient missionary when it comes to waking up on time, and so I convinced him this one day to wake up with me and work out.  When he did, that day we found 2 families that are willing to hear the gospel.  One that are we are going to go see today and one that we committed to baptism that day. In addition to that family, we committed another one of our investigators to baptism that same day.  We taught 8 lessons that day and committed 4 to baptism and found 6 new investigators.  It made him realize that he needs to wake up on time.  It was so awesome.  So now the baptism dates are Maritza 11/19, Rolando 11/26, Brenda 12/3, Chris 12/10, the Narviez Family (3) on 12/17 and hopefully Bro Marquez from last week on 12/24. It’s so amazing.

We had my first baptism on last Saturday and I realized how long it has been since I went to my last baptism.  It’s been so long that I forgot what happens really.  But it was so nerve racking.  Maritza is a really shy girl and so we were worried about her and to see if she was going to show up.  But we got her there.  She was so nervous though that she wouldn’t look directly into the camera before the baptism. But we took another one after the baptism and I can see a noticeable difference in her character.  Like she is still the same shy Maritza, but now she is clean and any shame she had is now gone.  The power of baptism is an amazing thing that I had started to forget about.  You really are completely clean from sin as if you where just born.  I want to bear testimony of this that Baptism by Immersion is really the only way to enter into the gate.  Jesus Christ himself showed us how to be baptized and he didn’t need to be baptized.  So, always cherish and remember your baptism.

Anyway, that’s all for this week.

Love,

Elder Stewart