Baptisms

My Wonderful Family,

Hey guys how’s it going?  Thank you so much for your emails.  I always look forward to reading them. I really appreciate the time you put into them for me.  It sounds like the week went really well and everyone is doing well.  That makes me happy.  I can’t believe you are skiing.  It still blows my mind.

This week was really awesome.  I feel like Elder Medina and I have more of the trust of the members than before and we are really working well with our branch president.  He really is amazing.  He is 75 years old and works all day long.  The oldy does not stop.  He has such a passion for the work.  Its truly inspiring.  He knows what matters in life. He and his wife don’t even have a car, but they walk all day long doing the work.  They take such good care of us.  I really love them.  

This week we had 2 of our 3 baptisms go through.  Tiziana is going to be baptized either this week or the next.  We aren’t sure yet.  But it was really special because Hugo and Evelyn asked me to baptize them. I’m sending a couple pictures of the baptism.  I really love the pictures.  I forget how big I am sometimes.  Thank goodness I don’t have to be baptized here because I would not fit.

Funny story. It takes about 5-6 hours to fill the pool.  So we started at about 1 in the afternoon.  To our surprise the water heater didn’t work.  We tried fixing it but couldn’t get it to work.  I felt bad because I told Evelyn that the water would be hot.  Not going to lie it was pretty cold even though we had boiled water all day and had been throwing it in the font.  The baptisms were really special.  There was just such a great feeling. It’s so cool to think that they are starting their journey back to their Father in Heaven. Baptizing Evelyn really made me think of Olivia.  She is such a cute girl.  Sunday they were both confirmed and are officially members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 

Also on sundae my comp and I talked in church on missionary work.  It was cool.  I have kind of grown to like speaking in church.  I love being able to work on a talk for a while and then give it in church.  I always pray that I can help someone that is listening.  I talked about how every member is a missionary and how missionary work is not just knocking doors during the siesta haha.  It was really weird because I was thinking all week long of a personal story that I could share and I couldn’t think of any.  I think it’s because I don’t like telling stories about myself.  Halfway through my talk a story came to me.  I was inspired to tell the ward about mom’s experience of teaching in the jail and how she always loves the inmates even though they have made some bad choices and may not be the most lovable men on earth.  It’s the same as missionary work.  We need to have faith in people and in what they can become.  Our Faith is shown through love.  That story really brought a really special spirit to the meeting. 

I really love being in Dean Funes.  It is so awesome.  Sometimes it seems so overwhelming because of all the work there is to do and it’s frustrating not to see immediate success.  But I love it here.  The members are so awesome.  In the middle of the city there is a huge chunk of land that is gorgeous.  It has big palm trees and lots of plants.  The church bought this land a few years ago to build a chapel.  But then the church took a dive here and they weren’t able to do it.  We are working really hard with the chapel in mind.  The people really deserve to have one.  We need more people to pay tithing and more active Elders.  I really want to be able to say that I helped to get the chapel.

Tomorrow we are going to Cordoba for Zone Conference. I’m excited because my old zone (Bellville) is going with my current zone (Noreste) so I will see Sister Anderson and Sister Blanchardt.  They are so awesome. President Salas and his wife will speak to us. I love Sister Salas. She was a missionary when she was younger and knows lots about the gospel.  She takes real good care of the missionaries.  My favorite thing about her is that when you are sick you have to call her.  No matter what illness you have (cough, flu, chicken pox or cancer) she will tell you to buy a 7-Up and Ibuprofen. hahah its so funny. It’s a joke in the mission. We are really blessed to have her.

Thanks for everything guys. I love you all so much. I’m so grateful for our family. We are so blessed.  I really hope that we can continue to make good choices so that we can always be happy, close, blessed.  I’m so grateful for Jesus Christ and for what he did for us.  I know that he is the Savior of the World.  I know that he is our Redeemer.  We are so blessed to have the knowledge that we have so that he can redeem us of our sins.  I love you all.  Have an excellent week.

Love Riley