The One about Angie

June 17, 2013

 It is gotten to the point where there is too much that happens each week to tell you all about my week -- WHICH IS AWESOME. Remember how I told you we would light Gulfbank of fire? Consider it lit!

This week I thought I would tell you about Angie :)

We have been teaching Angie since I got here. Hna Serrano and Hna Parry taught her before I got here as well. She is 8 years old and is a spit fire. She is just full of life. I actually wrote Emmeline a few weeks ago about her, telling her that I bet they would be friends and that we were trying to baptize her. EmJ responded that she hoped we did. Well EmJ listen up!

Angie is the granddaughter of a member of our ward.  Her parents ((Erika y Juan) are awesome, but not interested in the Church. We eat at the Herrera house every Monday, and Erika always joins us. We love Erika; she is awesome, super funny. Well, Angie loves the Church. She comes every Sunday with her Grandma and has just been waiting to get baptized. Erika has been on board for a while now, but Juan was a little more hesitant. For anyone who has served a Spanish speaking mission, you know what I am talking about when I say "He is Catholic." Even people who aren’t Catholic, are Catholic. It is just a tradition and breaking that tradition is a big deal. He is not religious, but he felt uneasy about letting his daughter "break the tradition." Well, we continued to teach her and just prayed that Juan's heart would be softened.

This week during weekly planning we were going over each of our investigators, what they needed, where they were headed, etc. We got to Angie and both felt really strongly that we needed to extend the date of June 22nd for baptism. That is this Saturday. We were like "Umm, we haven’t even talked to the parents about baptism...how the hector are we going to do this?" But the impression was clear. June 22nd. So we called Erika and asked if we could meet with her and her husband that night. She said yes! Woohoo. Well the meeting went all kinds of wrong. We brought the elders, hoping that the Dad would open up a little more to the men than he would to us. Erika was late and then they wanted to make us food so we could never get the parents to sit down and talk to us (the food was way good though) and we left the lesson thinking "Wow. Well . . . . that was 1000% unsuccessful". Then we talked to Elder Mondragon. Oh man, so we talked to him that next morning at church and he told us that in his conversation with Juan, he had brought up baptism and Juan was like, "You know what, I am actually really okay with it, I’m just Catholic and it is hard to break tradition."  Then Elder Mondragon, who is Mexican and also a convert (Perfect for our situation!), was like "Dude, I know. I was Catholic before I joined the Church too, but I can promise there is not a better choice your daughter could make than getting baptized into this Church"   Juan said he would talk to his wife. WOO . . . we were on cloud nine. THEN Hna Herrera walked in with Angie and said, "Her parents said yes!"  THEN WE WERE ON CLOUD 10!  We had her baptismal interview that day! She is getting baptized on Saturday! AND -- Elder Mondragon and Day picked up Erika and Juan as new investigators! The Church is true!

So, everyone, my first official baptism will be this Saturday, of the cutest little 8 year old girl. I could not be happier.

I was reading the scriptures this morning and came across a scripture that I do believe I have deemed my new favorite scripture. It is Alma 28:14.  It says:  “And thus we see the great call of diligence of men to labor in the vineyards of the Lord; and thus we see the great reason of sorrow, and also of rejoicing—sorrow because of death and destruction among men, and joy because of the Light of Christ unto life.”

I love this work being referred to as "The Great Call of Diligence".  Doesn’t that just resonate in your soul?  “And the joy because of the Light of Christ unto life."

Que la Via Bien,

Hna Burnham