Have the miracles ceased?

My Dear Family,

Hey guys what’s up?  Thank you so much for your uplifting and inspiring emails.  I really have grown to love Mondays.  I love you all so much.  It sounds like you really had an excellent week.  I too had a pretty amazing week.  We truly had a miracle here in Dean Funes.

Alright a little bit about my week.  We were truly blessed this week.  First off, we had a baptism.  I’m sure that you are very surprised.  I didn’t know until Friday night!  This is what happened.  Her name is Juana Rodriguez.  She has been an investigador for a long time.  I think about 2 years.  Not constant though.  Anyways, the transfer before I came she was attending church and talking with the missionaries.  But her husband didn’t want her to get baptized.  She went on a vacation to Buenos Aires and lost communication with the missionaries.  Last Wednesday we were walking in the street to an appointment and she saw us.  Later we went by her house.  We asked her if she still wanted to be baptized and she said yes and how about this Saturday?  As you can imagine we were quite shocked.  So we scheduled the interview for Friday.  Our District leader came to do the interview on Friday and her husband had totally talked her out of it.  So the baptism fell through.  She told us to come back that night.  So after lots of prayer we went back to her house that night.  She told us that her husband is completely against it and will be very angry if she goes through with it.  But she said that all of her kids were totally urging her to do it.  So she decided to go through with it.  She said she was sure that her husband would come around.  What great faith huh?  So Friday night we had a baptism again.  Our DL came and did the interview and it all went really well.  I’m sending a picture of our baptismal font:

Yep it’s just a little pool that we put in the chapel haha.  My comp is at the back with the hose, on the ladder is our DL and the Elder diving in is his comp.  His name is Elder Soto.  When they did the interview he and I were on exchanges.  He told me his story of how he got on a mission.  He is from Buenos Aires and is 21.  When he was 15 the missionaries found him by way of his Girl Friend who is a member.  He knew it was true and wanted to get baptized.  His parents told him that they would let him choose but if he did it they would kick him out.  So he did it.  He was 15 and his parents booted him out.  He had no job or anything.  His girl friends dad was the branch president at the time and they let him live with them in a little shack in the back of their yard.  He expressed so much gratitude for this family and all the love that they showed him.  Ok this is my favorite part about it.  He found a job when he was 16 that paid pretty well, if he won.  He started to box.  He got really good and by the time he was 19 he was in a pro league in Buenos Aires.  Then he felt like he had to serve a mission and so he and his girl friend filled out their papers together. She just left this last week for Columbia.  He’s been out only 2 months in the mission.  Can you believe that?  6 years living in a little shack in the back of a house just to be a member of the church.  What faith.  It gets better though.  The Elder that prepared him to leave for his mission was my Zone Leader in the MTC.  Pretty small world.  I really hope that if I was placed with a trial like that I could do as well as he did. (I’d play professional basketball instead of boxing :) ).  But it really showed me that with the help of the Lord we can do all things.  He surely didn’t do it alone. Pretty cool story huh?

This past Sunday la obra misional?  Me, my comp and our mission leader spoke in church on Sunday.  We focused on Christ.  It was really awesome.  I talked about the pre existence.  One thing I learned is that even the name Jesus Christ has significance.  Jesus is of Greek origin.  In Hebrew it is Joshua.  Joshua means "help of Jehovah" or "Savior".  It’s a common name.  I think that is to show that all though he is a God, he is our brother.  Christ is a sacred title.  It means mesias in Spanish, I don’t know how to spell it in English.  It means "anointed one".  Christ is the only one that has the ability to work in the name of the father for the salvation of his children.  I really enjoyed it.  We really can draw nearer to our savior as we learn about him.

Thanks for everything guys.  I love you all so much!  Have a great week.

Love Riley!