"You're my best friend!" - May 30th, 2016

Baptism

of Christian David Alfonso Chaparro

I'm not sure if these already got sent, but I'll try one more time. This time I actually got to use normal baptismal clothes as well. What a blessing.

So this week we had another wonderful Baptism, of Christian Alfonso. His (adoptive) parents are members, but they've been active for years and have two daughters in the mission field. Technically not his actual parents, and local/mission leaders let us know that it fell under our jurisdiction to teach him and baptize him, which was our pleasure, of course. Christian is the best. Really it's like a kindred spirit type deal. He's talks a ton, and looooves movies. He loves quoting movies and acting out parts of movies and making up his own stuff, and he knows a lot of things about a lot of things. He acted out a portion of "Home Alone" for us in the middle of a lesson. I asked him about Joseph Smith and he gave a very detailed version of the first vision, quoting "this is my beloved son, hear him!" at the end. He asked me to baptize him a few weeks ago. The parents say that he relates to me a lot, and that he considers me a good friend. So I baptized him, and after he got out of the font, he gave me a jumping surprise hug and said "Elder Wilson, you're my best friend!". The hardest part about teaching him was getting him to sit still! Love that little guy! After the ordinance I felt a strong spirit confirming to me that what had happened was a saving ordinance for someone worthy to receive his baptismal covenants. In little children we often forget that they're making one of the best decisions of their lives in entering the waters of baptism. He shared his testimony which included this:
 "When I was 4 I always told my family that I wanted to get baptized. They told me I had to wait until I was 8, and now the day has finally come."

According to his family, he's talked about getting baptized since he was really little, and after his baptism he said "now I want to be a missionary!" 

It's a little blurry, but we took it in the rain

Other than that, we had a week of service activities with a bit of walking. Elder Franchini and I went to help an investigator to move houses. That was fun, especially sitting precariously above a few closets and couches on top of a flatbed truck in the rain. I thought the stove was going to fall over and kill me! 

I'll end with a funny story about my recent convert Yesica (of the Chavez family). So she gave out a Book of Mormon this week to one of her friends at school, who accepted it con mucho gusto. While they were talking, another friend came over to make fun of them, and tell them how Mormons don't believe in the Virgin Mary, and how the Book of Mormon is the gold bible of Joseph Smith, and other weird things that the people usually say to make fun of members. Then others joined in and started making fun of her, and she said, "Okay, okay, make fun of me all you want, and it's okay that you want to stay in your religion, but if you could please just explain to me what you know about the atonement of Jesus Christ."

She told us that after that everybody left her alone.

I'm happy for their progress as a family, and always remember to have the courage to help others to find the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I would still suggest doing it after class!

Love,

Elder Wilson

My companion walking

Weekly planning

 on splits