The Baptism

Hey y'all, We had a pretty hectic yet awesome week. Normally, we just cover the Bernal Ward, but this week, we were covering the neighboring area/ward (Morgan Hill) as well, so we kept bouncing back and forth. After Distict Council/Taco Tuesday, my companion and I went with the Morgan Hill Elders (Elder Tefft and Elder Shearman) to the mission office to drop off Elder Tefft so he could leave to Kenya (his original assignment) the next morning. From that day on, my companionship became a trio with Elder Shearman as we covered two areas for the last week of the transfer. Later that evening, we played some basketball with the kids while Justin and Jaycci had their baptism interview (and apparently, I've been spelling her name wrong this whole time lol). Afterwards, we had some dinner with them, talked about how the Book of Mormon and the Bible complement each other, and she told us how she did a mini Family Home Evening on the Ten Commandments with the kids the night before (without us even telling them about FHE in the first place haha). On Wednesday, we were in Bernal again, and even though most of our appointments fell through, we were still able to meet plenty of new people and have some good conversations with people we just stopped by on a whim. We then stopped by Justin and Jaycci's one more time just to make sure they were ready for their baptism, and, like we expected, Satan made one more push to get them to question their decision, but we were able to help them out and clarify a question they had. What's awesome is that these little "faith crises" have only happened to one of them at the time, and the other is always there to strengthen and encourage them, and they always make sure to doubt their doubts before they doubt their faith by coming to us to receive answers to their questions. They're just an awesome family haha Thursday was the big day. We spent most of the day in Morgan Hill doing service and meeting with people, and in the evening was the baptism of Justin and Jaycci. It went really well, and the Spirit was super strong there, they were all able to recognize it. My companion baptized and confirmed Justin and I did the same for Jaycci, and I'm super grateful I had the opportunity to do that in my first transfer. Honestly, I was a bit stressed throughout it haha. I kept praying that the talks would go well and stay on topic, and I was hoping I would say the right words for the baptism and confirmation/blessing. But it was all awesome, they had a lot of good things to say about it afterwards. They even had a couple family members join the Zoom link, which is super cool. And you would think that would be the end of our evening, but that was just the beginning of the spiritual outpouring the Lord had in store for us haha. Right after the baptism, we got a couple miracle texts asking us to give a few blessings and teach someone's houseguest who randomly found a Book of Mormon and had questions about it (never happens, I'm told it's a missionary's fairytale haha). By this point, everyone in our trio had given at least one blessing, we had some strong spiritual experiences with both the baptism and the surprise lesson, and it was about 10:15pm, so we were all pretty physically and spiritually exhausted haha. On Friday, we were back in Bernal, and once again, our planned lessons fell through, but we still met a lot of cool people on the street who were willing to talk to us. On our way to our first contact, we stopped by this small festival with all these small businesses setting up shop, so we decided to check it out and talk to people. After our plans fell through, we visited it again later that night, and it was pretty cool. Even though our day didn't go exactly like we planned, the Lord still blessed us with plenty of people to meet and talk to, both in and outside the festival. On Saturday, nearly all our plans fell through again at Morgan Hill (I'm sensing a theme haha), and we focused on getting people to church. We also had a lesson with someone who is preparing for baptism, and we read through Alma 30. As we read that chapter, we also discussed the nature of repentance and God's commandments. Although the commandments and repentance may initially seem restrictive or intended to make us feel guilty, following the commandments and aligning our will with God's will truly keeps us free and allows us to experience greater joy in this life and the next. I've felt that joy and so has she, and I loved that she was able so share that with us as we read those scriptures. We then had some dinner with our bishop, and we later got our transfer rosters (the sheets that tell us if we have new companions or if we're going to a different area). Fortunately, Elder Schumann-Curtis and I are staying right where we are, which is great because we've both recognized that we have a lot of work we need to here in Bernal, so we're excited. On Sunday, we bounced between both wards' sacrament meetings and met with Justin/Jaycci after church. She told us that one of her family members tried (unsuccessfully) to refute what we told her about the Spirit World, but instead of asking us "is this true?" she asked us how she can actually share the gospel with her family without it turning into an argument, and they also told us that they were talking to their neighbors about us and what they've learned as well. They're already becoming awesome missionaries on their own haha. After making a couple stopbys, we went to Morgan Hill for the rest of the day, and I was introduced to "Mama Smith", this old woman who makes blankets and aprons for all the missionaries who stop by. It was quite the experience haha, she's a funny and sweet lady. Anyways, we made the most of the last week of the transfer, and we got a lot done, so we were pretty exhausted a lot of the time haha. I hope everything is going well and that you can continue to find the everyday miracles in your life. Bye y'all, Elder Enger