🔥Baptism by FIRE🔥

Hello! This week was great. 

In this letter I am going to mostly just talk about the miracle of Kaira, Albert, and Scarlin who got baptized this week. Kaira is the mom, and Albert (9 years old) and Scarlin (10) are her kids. 

We found them my first week here in La Vega street contacting. Since then they have been to church almost every week and finally decided to get baptized

We had tried putting them on date a few times but  Kaira wanted more time. Then finally last week we invited them again (with a member in on the lesson) and she said yes, which was hype, and kinda surprised me. 

They are the cutest family. They have been doing super good on keeping commitments and have already seen a lot of the Book of Mormon videos. We went over and caught Scarlin watching them on her phone. It’s always so refreshing to see that!

When we were reviewing the baptismal interview questions with them, one of the first questions was if they believed that the true church was really restored through the prophet Joseph Smith. Her answer was super humbling. She just said, “from what you have taught me about him, yes, I believe he was a prophet of God”. 

Some people I’ve talked to who are learning about the church are overly confident about believing he was a prophet of God. It kind of concerns me sometimes. Like what about polygamy? What about the kinderhook plates? What about him digging for treasure? Are you sure you believe he was a prophet?

And Kaira says it so perfectly. That with the knowledge she has from what we have taught her, she does believe it. And because of that, she decided to get baptized. I just love that Kaira always tells us what she really thinks. She has such a pure soul. When she said that, it reminded me of Alma 19:8-10 when King Lamoni is unconscious and his wife is talking to Ammon about it. It says -   

   "8 And he said unto the queen: He is not dead, but he sleepeth in God, and on the morrow he shall rise again; therefore bury him not.

   9 And Ammon said unto her: Believest thou this? And she said unto him: I have had no witness save thy word, and the word of our servants; nevertheless I believe that it shall be according as thou hast said.

  10 And Ammon said unto her: Blessed art thou because of thy exceeding faith; I say unto thee, woman, there has not been such great faith among all the people of the Nephites."

And God definitely did and will bless Kaira and her kids for their faith.

The baptism was super great too. Seeing them show up early all dressed up was super touching and my comp who hasn’t even known them for that long started getting pretty emotional. Me too. There were also a ton of members there for the baptism which was a party. 

It was also funny right before I baptized Albert there was a little cockroach on my shoulder and I just flicked it off and then baptized him haha. I don’t think he noticed though.

Anyways it has all been great, but the best part was yesterday when they got confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Not gonna lie, when I’ve taught the gospel of Jesus Christ, teaching the gift of the Holy Ghost has always been one I’m less confident about. I just don’t understand it. We talk so much about baptism but just not a lot about confirmation. People don’t ask you after your mission about how many people you gave the Holy Ghost to on your mission, ya know? They just talk about baptisms. 

I also have been a little frustrated sometimes to think that I’ve never really known what life is like without the gift of the Holy Ghost. It just makes it harder for me to teach it to people. 

So on Sunday morning before the three of them got confirmed, I told them to remember how they were feeling right then, and I asked them to tell me afterwards the difference they felt before and after. And I knew they would tell me the truth, because they are like that. 

First, Kaira got confirmed. The second counselor in the branch presidency did the confirmation. It was a really beautiful blessing. He talked about how great she was and blessed her to go to the temple someday. After the confirmation, I thought I saw that Kaira was crying, which was surprising to me because she is super chill and tough. I haven’t ever seen her even get teary eyed. I wasn’t positive that I saw tears in her eyes so I just kind of ignored it and assumed I was imagining it.

Then Elder Killpack (my companion) confirmed Scarlin, and then lastly I confirmed Albert. They’re going to be a great missionaries someday. 

After the meeting ended, everyone was getting up moving around going to their next class, and I looked at Kaira and she was just sitting there looking kind of dazzled. But I didn’t have the chance to talk to her about it until that night. 

We went by again to fill out the baptismal forms. Even just walking in, you could feel the Spirit stronger in their house. I asked them how the confirmations went. 

I don’t even know if we had ever told Kaira that receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost is compared to in the scriptures as “baptism by fire”. But that’s the exact way she used to describe it. She said that she felt fire. O sea, “fuego”. She also told us that she was crying but was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to see so she was holding the tears back. Which really surprised me because of what a tough lady she is. She just told us about how strong the spirit was and how amazing she felt, and kept using the word “fuego”. Then she turned to Scarlin and asked “didn’t you feel that too when they said ‘receive the Holy Ghost’?” Scarlin also said that she felt “calor (heat)”.

Then Albert was like “yea it was pretty hot in there I guess” jaja. Albert is a freaking legend.

Anyways I was on cloud 9 low key walking away from that. I am so so so happy for that family. I could have gotten through every hard part of my mission without complaining if I had always known that this family would be waiting for me at the end. I love them so much. This morning I just laid in bed for like an hour thinking about how much I love them and am going to miss them. And how proud I am of them for what they have done. 

Also Albert wanted to play me in chess and it was one of the funniest moments of my mission. He was trash talking super bad in his high pitched dominican slanged voice so I was actually thinking he might be pretty good. The game started. I moved my pawn forward. He moved his pawn forward. I moved my horse forward. He moves his queen right into a spot for my horse to kill it. 

I was laughing so hard. Kaira looked at him and was like “are you serious?”. He was like “you don’t know what my plan is!” and stuff like that. And yea I won pretty quick. The best part was how surprised he was after he lost. He was like “wow, you really know how to play chess”. Like bruh, It’s not that I know how to play chess, you just don’t know how to play chess. But he thinks I’m a chess wizard now.

But anyways, I am just so happy here right now with the amazing people God has given me to teach. My mission has been the hardest when I know I’m giving it my all but the people just aren’t putting in any effort. That’s probably why I’m so happy right now, because we are all giving it our all. 

Also a couple last thoughts - 

• This week on June 4th was the five year anniversary since I got my patriarchal blessing. That blessing has been the hardest part of my mission. What it said about me as a missionary always seemed like more than I could ever become, and for most of my mission, I’ll be honest that I’ve had very little faith in the promises in that blessing, and have kind of resented them. But reading it again on the 5 year anniversary since I received it, as I end my mission, I don’t feel that way anymore. Everything has worked out just the way the Lord wanted it too. 

• I also had my last zone conference this week and got to bear my testimony. I think I’ve only cried 2 other times my whole mission while bearing my testimony. Once in the MTC, once at a zone conference with Elder Pugsley, and once here. It caught me by surprise. But bearing testimony of the Savior shook me to my core haha. But it was a good experience. 

• And my mom had another kid this week. Pretty exciting! 

Bye! See y’all this month