MARIA GOT BAPTIZED - MARCH 21, 2016

The baptism of Maria

So yesterday we had our transfer calls.... and I am staying here in Calkiní with Elder Escobar! Honestly the greatest feeling in the world. I am so happy to be able to stay here because I love this area and I love my companion! We work so well together and have seen an amazing change in this area. It is awesome to be able to be together and not have any changes and just continue on with what we are accomplishing more and more every day. I mean this week we baptized and had 65 lessons... we are accomplishing and overachieving our goals together.

MARIA GOT BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!! I am gonna make most of this email about her honestly... because of how amazing she is. We visited her every day this week to try to prepare her and teach her everything we could in every different form we could think of so that she could understand to the best of her ability. We even had people come with us to translate into Mayan. We were honestly a little nervous for her baptism interview, because yes she was so ready to get baptized, but really couldn't answer the questions with more than one phrase or sentence. But in her interview it was like an hour long and our district leader passed her :) We were so so happy. So on Saturday was her baptism and she chose me to baptize her! Her baptism was also the day of her 64th birthday, so my companion and I bought her a pastry.  But anyways, the day of the baptism it was SO hot, and we were working from 8am to get around to all of our investigators to invite them to church, but we have the best problem right now... we have too much work and not enough time!!! Anyways we sent Maria in a mototaxi and had to run as fast as we could to the church building before she got there to be able to help her out and pay. We were sweating more than I ever have in my life. So I baptized her, and my companion helped her in the water too, to be able to be dunked down easier and with more help. When she got in the water, the water was cold and she got sooooo stiff and we just had to help her a ton to calm down. When I baptized her the spirit was so strong and made me so happy. A lot of people showed up for her baptism too. It was awesome.

Maria always calls me her boyfriend and calls my companion her Godfather... it is super funny. She is completely kidding obviously, but she said she was gonna steal the white baptism clothes to marry me! She honestly has opened up so much with us. 

So now I have a story to tell. A story that is honestly one of the scariest, but most powerful stories so far in my mission. On Sunday morning, we went early in the morning to pick her up from her house to take her to church for her confirmation. From her house to the street is a 250 meter path that is super rocky and hard to walk, it takes her like 20 minutes to walk it. We usually walk at her side to help her, but this morning we were walking a little ahead of her, when suddenly she tripped and fell straight down like a domino on the ground, head first. We watched the whole thing, and she yelled HERMANO!!! I had never been so scared for someone. We immediately started to help her, but she was so hurt and couldn't move or support her body, when the spirit prompted me to give her a blessing. I immediately took out my oil and I gave her a blessing with my companion, while she was laying on the ground head first. I promised her in the blessing, well the Lord promised her, to be better and said that she could have the strength to stand up, walk to church, and be confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and to not feel pain from her fall. She immediately stood up and walked as if nothing had happened and said, that fall was just Satan trying to hurt me! Nothing will stop me!... and she said she didn't feel pain at all anymore. We then got to church safely and confirmed her as a member of the church and gave her the gift of the holy ghost. It was amazing. She cried and so did we.

Honestly I have learned so much from Maria. I feel so much love for her and have seen such a change in her life and learned what true happiness is. You don't have to have physical things in life, just a good attitude and the Gospel.

Okay so Mariana and Alfredo.... on Wednesday night we went to their house to find Alfredo completely drunk. It made us super sad. Mariana is completely ready to be baptized and knows it but wants to do it with her husband who isn't ready yet. She opened up to us about a lot of problems that she has had with her family etc and that she wants to restart with her husband with the baptism but really her husband isn't ready. So we are gonna see what we can do to help them both. It was a hard week with them, but Mariana went to church yesterday and truly is ready for her baptism. Just needs help with her husband. 

Mariana gave us a reference though, someone named Matiana. We went to her house and invited her to church and she came!!! She is completely 100 percent ready for her baptism. Without a doubt. She opened up to us a ton about her past and has had a rough life. She is 25 and has a 6 year old daughter. She is a single mom. She has a baptism date in April and says she is willing to do whatever she can to be clean and move on from her past. It is crazy to me how the Lord prepares His children and puts them in our path. She is a great person.

We also have been having a lot of success with other investigators. Mario and Luis came to church! Something I learned in my personal study this week is that the mission can be compared to the wilderness where Lehi and Nephi lived before the arrived in the promised land. They were preparing for a better life ahead, but also lived in a manner of happiness. I am so happy to be a missionary. I have never found such pure joy before in my life. I know this church is true. I know that priesthood power is real and it works. I know we are the only church in the world with the power to perform sacred saving ordinances. I wouldn't change this experience for the world.

Elder Plowman