Well this week has been a fantastic week. The Lord has blessed us more than we deserve, but we are very thankful for the blessings that we recieved. We had three baptisms this week, and all three were confirmed. Two of them are sisters, named Monica who is 16, and Ana Laura who is 12. They are Korean, and their parents are less active members. The missionaries have been teaching them for quite a while now, and we were blessed to be the ones to baptize them. Monica had been baptized in another church earlier, and has had a testimony of the church for quite a while now, but just had something that was keeping her back from being baptized. We taught them the 3rd lesson, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and talked about how you have to recieve the Holy Ghost after a baptism for it to be valid. We read the scripture in Acts 19 about when Paul asks some people if they have receved the Holy Ghost after they were baptized, and that he re-baptized them and then confirmed them with the gift of the Holy Ghost. After the lesson, we set the date, and then we kept talking to them every day, and did the interview, and then this last Saturday they were baptized. Emilio, our other baptism, is 18, and has a girlfriend that is a member of the church. He has wanted to get baptized for a while now, but we haven't felt that he has a testimonio of the church yet. We talked to our zone leaders and District leaders because we felt like it is wrong to deny somebody a baptism, and so our district leader interviewed him. He said that he thinks he is ready to be baptized, and so we baptized him this saturday.
This week we also taught 40 lessons, 12 of which were with a member present. We are still trying to get the members more involved in the misisonary work here.... Out of our bishopric, we couldn't get one of them to attend the baptism, which is kind of frustrating, but I'm trying to more patience with the members here.
This last week they had some elections of mayors in all the cities. With the elections here the people camaign like crazy. Almost every day there was lines of cars with flags and stickers that would go around in our area just honking, and blasting music.... quite the fun time. For the elections here, the people gound and pick people up to go and vote, and then they color all the peoples' fingers so that they know who has voted and who hasn't. Our asistencia en our iglesia was really bad this week, because apparently the members think it is more important to vote than to go to church.
I have been reading in the New Testament for my personal study a lot, so that I can be better aquainted with the scriptures in the Bible. It is amazing reading the New Testament, how many things there are that are against every other religion except ours. I don't understand how the people can say that they believe in the Bible, but have teachings that are so contrary to the Bible. One of the things that I have been learning here in the Mission, is the importance of reading the scriptures every day. The members that read their scriptures here are the same members that actually want to help us in the misisonary work. They go to church because they want to instead of out of obligation. It is just amazing to see the difference it makes in people when they just read the scriptures every day.
By the way, just a side note, if you want to hear what Guarani sounds like, you can go into the conference talks and go to Guarani, and listen.... quite an interesting language.
Well I love you all, and I will talk to you again next Thursday. Hasta luego, les amo!
-Elder Ryan Griffin
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