What's good,
This week didn't have a lot of highs for me, but Rafael was baptized so that makes up for everything else :). We honestly didn't have a whole lot of things that we did this week outside of the baptism, so I'll just tell about some of the good lessons we had this week. No that that is much different from my normal emails lol.
On Friday was our only kind of funny thing that happened this week. We were downtown and we were walking to the bus stop, and then a guy that walked past us said hi to us and told us to have a good day (in English), in a way that was pretty clear that he knew who we were. So we stopped and asked what his name was and such. And then I probably had the weirdest conversation of my whole mission 😂. It is hard to describe, but he was basically just rambling about really weird stuff for literally 30 minutes. At one point he was saying that the "ahhhh-mmmm" sound in Hinduism is the same as amen in Christianity. And at one point he was literally making karate poses and imitating someone who is on drugs. Can't really describe how weird he was but definitely an interesting experience haha.
Later that night we had a good lesson with our friend Idar who I've talked about a lot, probably one of the better lessons we've had with him. Before our lesson my companion was trying to ask me why Idar won't be baptized, which I was honestly pretty annoyed by because I have literally explained Idar's situation like 100 times to my companion. So I basically just told him, and said we could ask him about it later because we had already planned what we were going to teach. When we were in the beginning of the lesson I had a thought/prompting that I should ask him about baptism, but we were talking about something completely different and it would've been weird to just randomly bring up. A few minutes later, we somehow got talking about Rafael's baptism on Sunday, and it was easy to ask. Pretty cool how that worked out. I ended up asking him his thoughts about baptism, and we got a lot of things cleared up. We read through the baptismal covenant in Mosiah 18:9, and he told us that he thinks that he tries to do all those things. He said the only issue is that he isn't to the point where he has a knowledge of why prophets exist after Jesus Christ. But he also did say that if he gets that knowledge, then he knows that the Book of Mormon is true and that this is the true church. So we plan to keep working with him on prophets and hopefully he can receive some answers on his own as well.
On Saturday my companion woke up pretty sick, so we were stuck in the house for a majority of the day. As a missionary I should say that I hated sitting around all day and felt guilty that we weren't working, but it was honestly really nice to have a break from the regular stuff that I do. And I was able to hit our apartment with a deep clean. After he was feeling okay, we joined the Sister missionaries for a lesson with a new family that they found. They are from Congo and later moved to Uganda, before moving to Norway. They are really really cool. Their 16 year old son has already expressed interest in wanting to get baptized and we haven't even taught anything so that is super cool. He ended up coming to church the next day as well, stayed for the second hour, and seemed like he really enjoyed it. The mom and Dad also seemed really interested as well, but there is a bit of a language barrier with them, as they don't speak any English and little Norwegian. And they also can't come to church if the 16 year old comes to church because they need someone at home to watch their young kid, so that's a little tough. But overall I'm super hopeful about them. Meeting them made me really want to stay here for another transfer after this one.
Sunday was Rafael's baptism!! It was definitely one of the better days of my mission. It has been a little bit difficult for me to find joy through day to day missionary work so to have a day like that was just super refreshing and really cool. The other baptism I had was cool, but to have a baptism of someone that was met while I was here, and who I got to see make all that progress was really awesome. Rafael was really prepared from the day that we met him, but to finally have the baptism was a very good feeling. The baptism itself was performed by a guy in our ward which was good, and then I had the opportunity to give him the gift of the Holy Ghost. That was my first time doing that, so I was pretty nervous and it was definitely cool and a very spiritual experience. The day overall just had a very strong spirit about it. I'm not one to exaggerate or sugarcoat, but he just looked happier than I have ever seen him. He is always a really happy and smiley guy, but there was just something about him that I can't describe that was just super powerful. Regardless of anything else, Rafael has been someone that I've grown to really love, so to see him take that step made me really happy.
Besides those few things, our week did not consist of a lot else besides just contacting people and doing studies.
I think it is really interesting how God uses things that we are familiar with to communicate with us through the Spirit. Multiple times this week, I had a lyric from one of my favorite songs pop into my head while I was doing regular missionary work. One of the times was when we were in Bible study. We were having a discussion about prayer. When we asked the question, "why do we need to pray when God already knows everything we need?", someone replied by saying that as we show our faith to God, He draws nearer to us; He is always with us no matter what. The second time came at a dinner that we were at on Sunday. A similar topic was being discussed, but this time it was with an 18 year old who is not a member (his mom is) and who has been starting to come to church. He was explaining to us that he likes coming to church, but he isn't ready to make that full commitment in his life. In my head I was thinking that it is good that he likes to come to church, but we know that we have to put in effort and show faith in order to receive blessings in this life. The lyric that came to my mind in both of these experiences was a lyric from Nas that says, "Take one step toward him, he takes two toward you, Even when all else fail, God support you", which I actually shared during the Bible study. In terms of showing faith and being blessed in return, I really like how this lyric reminds us that as we draw closer to God, He draws closer to us. That point was discussed multiple times in my week. But my favorite part of that lyric is the second part, that God will always be there to support you, no matter what. I think it's interesting to note that part comes after the first, which I take as meaning that if we show faith in God, He will always be there for us. In relation to this lyric, D&C 84:88, which is actually talking about missionary work and sharing the gospel, came to mind. It says, "And whoso receiveth you, there will I be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand, and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." Going on a mission and being a missionary is an act of faith in and of itself. Just like this lyric tells us, if we take that step of faith (or any other), God will be with us and support us. That is something that has given me great comfort this week.
Glad i dere!!
-Eldste Winegar
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