Villegas- Week #83

Miracles

Hey devoted fans and occasional readers,

That’s fine Dad about the housing…at first it kind of ruffled my feathers…you know how us Gilmores can get. You are taking away my pool, gym, and co-ed atmosphere! Plus, what does “not as fancy, but clean” actually mean? But then I calmed down and remembered that the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been since the fall of Adam…so I’m chill with the new plan. And I am also fine with living upstairs when I get home. Use your best judgment about who you add as my facebook friends.

Ok, this week was MIRACLE FILLED!!!!! So as you might have gathered last week I was a little worried about this transfer but was trying to keep the faith about it. We have a lot of people, who listen to us, but we were struggling getting people to church, and you can’t get baptized if you don’t come to church. So this past week we were working like mad-men trying to prepare people to attend Sacrament Meeting. Also as I tell this story it is important to note that we have experienced every type of weather this week. On Tuesday night we were just walking around and all of a sudden a huge gust of wind whipped by us. Our whole area is dirt roads…very loose dirt. If any of you remember the sandstorm part of the movie Hidalgo…that is about as accurate as I can get to what happened to us. It was time to head home anyway, so we started running back to the apartment (15 minute run). I was just praying that Elder Thomas kept running because I couldn’t even see 2 feet in front of me, I am serious. So we are running in the dust tornado hurricane typhoon vortex when all of a sudden it stops. Like in one second the wind was gone, and then…VOOSH!!!!!!! Monsoon season in Villegas. It just started pouring down rain and we were still like 10 minutes away from the apartment…after about 30 seconds I just started walking because I was drenched…it was pretty fun. Then for the rest of the week it was blistering hot. So we were working hard anyway, having a pretty good week and the zone leaders called us and told us we were going to have a zone fast, because the whole zone is exploding with success and we wanted to fast for all the investigators to keep progressing. Here are some numbers: The Aldo Bonzi Zone record for baptisms in a transfer is 29. The mission wide record for baptisms in a transfer by one zone is 44, put up by Catàn last year. After two weeks in the transfer we had 10 baptisms, and 49 baptismal dates. So if everyone got baptized, we would break the record with 59…and we are all really pumped up to do it, but we really need the Lord’s help. So we fasted on Saturday to Sunday.

I put everything I had into this fast because we wanted so badly to help with this record, but we didn’t have any dates for baptism. So we fasted and put our faith in the Lord. We had a ton of plans for people to come and for members to pick up some investigators, and we went out to get people in the morning as well. I was sooooo thirsty I thought I was going to pass out. Anyway, we got two people to come with us, and two were already at the church when we got there so we had four. That is great, but I was a little disappointed because a family of five, the Fernandez family, we are teaching didn’t show up. Our ward mission leader was supposed to bring them but only the dad came because they got into a fight the night before and the mom and kids refused to come. When we heard that I told Elder Thomas, Lets go. He looked at me like I was a lunatic haha. Sacrament Meeting is last in our schedule so we left our ward mission leader with the investigators and we started to long trek back to our area. Our chapel isn’t in our ward limits. So we almost died of heat stroke, but we made it to the Fernandez’ house and were invited in by the family. We told them there was still time to come to church and that we were all waiting for them. Virginia, the mom, said she didn’t want to because she was tired and can’t walk for long periods of time in the heat (she is pregnant). That is when I whipped out the cold liter of water that I brought with me specifically for her…she couldn’t refuse. So we took them all to church, and found out that someone else showed up while we were out looking, so we had 9 people in church. It was a miracle. I really tried to do what President said and show my faith. Heavenly Father honored our fast and blessed us with so much success. So the Fernandez family has a date for the 13th of February to enter the waters of baptism. Also we were number one in the zone this week and number two in the whole mission. I couldn’t believe it. It was just another testimony of the power of fasting, and I think it really helped Elder Thomas. While we were walking in the heat he asked me a lot about fasting and its purpose, so we had a great talk about showing the Lord our priorities and focusing on the spiritual. Great week. Now we have the large task of keeping the coals hot under the Fernandez family so that they make it to their baptisms. We will be working a lot with the other four people too that made it. We will see what happens this week! Love you all, keep up the good work!!!

Elder Gilmore