6 Months, Bomberos, and Baptism
6 Months in the mission🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 Gone by so quick and an amazing week for completing 6 months.
Finally made contact with the mom of the 2 girls and grandma we were teaching 😬😬😬 The Mom was mad because we were trying to coordinate with her to be able to teach her and so we could not just baptize 2 little girls. She told us that she is super Catholic, will never listen to us, and will not let her daughters get baptized. On top of that the past few times we have passed by the kids yell “No one’s home” and then hide from us so yeah :/
Saw 3 trans people this week. It’s kinda like finding a shiny Pokémon but also they’re scary because then they say some wild stuff at us.
As we were trying to figure out where we should go the other day, we stopped on a street corner and this guy named Ismael came up to us. He seemed clearly roughed up around the edges to say the least and told us how he’s been going through a rough time. He has 2 little kids and a pregnant wife and is kinda going through it. We had a little lesson with him and he showed us on our map where he lives. He doesn’t have a phone so it’s hard to contact him but both my companion and I feel oddly good about him even though after that we have only had 1 lesson with him.
We finally found this guy named Alejandro. He was a friend of the last Elders that were here and came to church I think once in November. We talked to him a lot about the Word of Wisdom which he has some problems and is already doing great with improving. We have had great, spiritual lessons with him and he should be getting baptized soon. He didn’t come to church though so that stinks.
Not much else happened this week so I’m just going to skip to the best part: THE BAPTISM
It’s a bit of a long story but it’s worth it I swear.
It’s been a minute since I have helped someone be baptized let alone see a baptism. It was our friend Miguel who was baptised and the fact that he got baptized when he did was nuts. We passed by his house on Friday to do the Pre-interview and he passed but had an issue with the law over 20 years ago, but still we had to contact the mission presidency to do the actual interview with him, but neither the member of the presidency nor Miguel let us know if they did the interview or not till like 3:30pm on Saturday (the baptism was Saturday at 7:00pm) which they weren’t able to do the interview so we had them do it right then in there over call like planned and he passed. We rushed to the church building to get the font filled and it was going good for about 45 minutes until the water cut out😭 by then it was short of 2 hours before the baptism so we tried what we could and the water came back on for a bit, but then shut off again. I called Élder Young, my comp at the beginning of last transfer, to see if this ever happened when he served in my current area literally a year ago and he said to talk to the firefighters. We walked over cause the fire station is about a block away but a cop came about and talked to us and said there is no water for them either. I didn’t say it but basically was like “firefighters without water?🧐🧐🧐”. We were bummed but walked past the big gates to the fire trucks and noticed it was slightly cracked open. I felt to knock, or rather clap, to see if anyone would come out and luckily a firefighter came out and talked to us. He had us call basically the fire chief to ask because firefighters is completely volunteer work in Argentina or at least where I serve, and so there is only ever a few on duty at a time and so we needed to ask for 1 or 2 from a nearby station because we don’t have really an “emergency”. We called the Fire Martial/Chief guy and he was in some sort of meeting and basically said it would be impossible for him to help us with the personnel they had, but to call back in about 15 minutes and there would be a chance that they could help us. My companion and I returned to the church and waited for those 15 minutes biting our teeth and then we called the guy again. I asked my companion what he said and my companion goes “Ya viene” or “they are already coming”. We got the font filled in perfect timing and had a great baptism. I had the opportunity to baptise Miguel and it was amazing. The baptism was almost botched because he didn’t bend his knees like most people don’t even after I told him haha, but it was awesome to see and participate in a baptism. Miguel Prada is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and has made a holy covenant with his Heavenly Father by following the example of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Spiritual Thought
What I didn’t mention in that story because I wanted to talk about it in my thoughts was how my companion and I prayed in those 15 minutes between the calls of the Fire Martial/Chief. I have been studying and trying to improve my prayers a lot recently. 2 sources that helped me a ton this past week was President Ezra Taft Benson’s April 1977 talk “Prayer” and the 2017 Face to Face Youth Event with Elder Eyring and Elder Holland. The Face to Face is not specifically about prayer but there is a big portion where they talk about prayer/giving blessings. One thing I love that Elder Eyring said was that he feels that we use too loosely the term “having a conversation with Heavenly Father” and how he imagines him approaching the throne of God and counseling with Him. Anyways, there was an uncertainty when we got done talking on the phone the first time if we were even going to be able to have the baptism on Saturday with the issue of the water. In those 15 minutes my companion and I found a backroom of the church building and knelt in prayer. I offered the prayer, and although shaky because I am losing my voice a bit, asking for help in that moment. In the second I said “Amen”, I can’t describe it, but I knew that the Firefighters would, and in fact, were already coming to fill the font. When my companion said “Ya vienen”, I was not surprised. A prayer was heard, a prayer was answered, and a child of God was baptized.
I love and miss you all! There is a funnier part to the story with Miguel but you have to email me to hear that part😁 mwcurtis@missionary.org
I also have a Google Photo Album where you can see all my pictures! https://photos.app.goo.gl/g9K5EHgzbJLtD3wC8
— Élder Curtis
