Week 17 - Erica's Baptism Pics & Luche Libre!

Kelson with Elder Rodriguez: His first and only companion so far!

Hello! I said Hello! (Dad's ps, that is the first line of the Nauvoo Pageant Kelson was involved with for 9 years!)

I quoted like the first ten minutes of the Nauvoo Pageant this morning so I thought I'd start out my weekly like that :D How are you all? First of all, thank you all for the sweet emails and letters you are sending me! I never knew how much those meant to a missionary until I was here!

Erika got baptized this week! She is Queztalyn's, David's, and Dulce's Mom! We were so excited for her! On Wednesday we talked to her about being baptized this week and she said she wanted to get baptized, but she still felt like she was missing something. We told her to pray about being baptized and that we'd come back Friday! I was on divisions in our Area with our Zone Leader, Elder Padilla, and so we went to visit her and Queztalyn and she said she still felt she was missing something! We shared a lot of scriptures about getting answers to prayers and what her answer would be like. She didn't really know what she was expecting, so it was hard for her to recognize when she got it. She said she felt peace, one of the fruits of the Spirit! So we testified to her that this was her answer and invited to her to be baptized Sunday! And she said no. She said for sure NEXT Sunday. I told her that there are always two forces working on us, or two voices in our head: one is for good (The Spirit) and one is for bad (the adversary). I asked her to think which voice tells her to get baptized this week and which voice is saying to wait. She then responded confidently, "I'm getting baptized this Sunday!" And yes she did! :)

Erica's Baptism. Her kids were baptized a few weeks ago!

Queztalyn, David and their mother, Dulce at her baptism

Someone REALLY didn't want her to be baptized because EVERYTHING got in the way! First of all, the door outside was locked to fill the baptismal font so we had to somehow open a valve and turn on one of the two boiler flames from a tiny window above and I'm not gonna tell you how we did that...And then the drain was broken so we had to put a plastic bag and a chunk of cement over it so that water would stay in! THEN the water overflowed and started running into the hallway so we had to turn it off really fast and empty out a lot of the water with buckets. Then, my favorite part, Erika made a covenant with our Father in Heaven and I have never been happier in my life! I got to go with her and her children to the Temple Visitor's Center and talk more about the Plan our Father has for us. To see this family coming together and taking the first step to being an eternal family has brought me more joy than ANYTHING else in my life! I truly love this work. 

On Friday night we had a Ward Family Home Evening (like we do every first Friday of the Month), but this time was more awesome than ever. I don't know if you remember but a member here, Pepe, whose wife is an investigator makes these huge costume/suits of Minions, Iron Man, etc, so he let us use a Batman Minion costume for the FHE games! My comp was inside and he was there leading all the games and everyone had a great time!

Kelson and his new companion (OK, old companion in comic suit for a Ward Activity)

I also met a semi-famous Luchador (that's what they tell me...) named Octagoncito. I guess all the really famous Luchadors have like a midget version and he is the smaller version of Octagon. We walked in to visit Pepe and his wife and we shook Octagoncito's hand as he was leaving and I had no idea! Haha, pretty great :)

Octagoncito: A famous Mexican Luchador. Seen Nacho Libre? Nuff Said :)

This week has been absolutely fantastic. Today I got to eat a Krispy Kreme donut and CARLS JUNIOR! I about died. SOOO good! The weeks really do go so fast out here on the mission. I love you all so much and hope you are all doing well and staying happy and healthy!

Elder Davies