It was great to hear from you, especially you two, David and Rachel. Thanks for taking the time to write. It sounds like life is really exciting for you right now. It's weird seeing pictures of you two together because I still haven't even seen you two since you were married. I've never seen David that close to a girl that wasn't his Mom or sister in my whole life. It's kinda trippy;-D
Well this week was great. We had 2 Baptisms and 4 Confirmations! Two of the confirmations were from bapti
sms the last two weeks. The other two people that got baptized and confirmed were Jissel Jimenez and Jose Zafra. Jissel is the niece of Maryori who got baptized last week. Jose Zafra is an older Peruvian man that has been investigating the Church for 11 years!! His children are all members and he is here living with his daughter right now. We don't know when he is going to return to Peru. He has known that he needs to get baptized for awhile but he just wasn't doing it. Then finally miracle after miracle he decided to have his interview and get baptized. It was a great baptism. The three of us were full of feelings of triumph and immense gratitude. It really is a miracle that he got baptized. We're not quite sure what happened to make him finally make the decision, but something happened inside of him and he decided to get baptized. It was also really intense because he had his first interview on Saturday but he needed to have a second interview with a member of the Mission Presidency to approve that he could get baptized. Well the interview was at 11:40 on Sunday morning and the baptism was supposed to start right after Church at 12:30. We were stressing because up until they left the interview, we didn't know for sure if he was even going to be baptized. Because of that we didn't announce it or tell anyone; but once we knew that it was going to happen, we scrabbled to catch as many people as we could before they all went home.
Jissel was baptized Saturday night. Due to some extenuating circumstance we had to change the day time and place of the baptism the day before it was supposed to happen. There was a wedding in our chapel from the English Ward and so we had to move it to another Chapel. That was cause for a lot of stress. The baptism was supposed to start at 7. Jissel's mom didn't even get off of work until 7 so they showed up a little after 8 and we started at about 8 30. But everything turned out really well. There were only us missionaries, the first counselor of the Bishopric and his wife, and members of Jissel's family. even though it was a small baptism and it stared late, it was really good and very powerful. Most of Jissel's family are inactives from Honduras. I hope it helps them see their sister (Maryori) and now their niece (Jissel) get baptized. Maryori's mom also will be getting baptized soon. We just need to get her married first. That will be a really big help to the family.
The other big news for the week is that President and Sister Anderson fly in today!! They should arrive at 3:40 our time. Once they land, President and Sister Hale are released. I will get to meet President and Sister Anderson on Thursday at a "Meet the President" Zone Conference. I am excited for this change.
Well time's up so I got to go. I love you all. The work is so true. Remember that. It is a great privilege for me to serve here in this wonderful Mission. I am so grateful for this opportunity. I am thinking about and making plans to make sure that I take advantage of my last 7 months in the Mission Field. I love you all so much. I am so proud of you and I am and will be eternally grateful that I have each of you sealed to me as an eternal family. I love the Gospel!!!
Love,
Elder Reece
PS- The pictures are 1) Me and Elder Alger. I lived with him my last three Transfers in Hollywood Hills then I got transferred and he went home. (Amy- He is the one that wrote the sticky note) 2 & 3) Elder Lamb and Elder Owens, my two companions. I love being with them. They are super funny together. It will be weird when Elder Owen's Greenie gets here and we are just a normal companionship. 4) Jissel's baptism. Sorry the resolution isn't very good. I am going to try to get a better one from one of my companions. And I am going to get a picture of Jose's baptism from one of them too. My camera battery died:( Love ya'll!!
No comments:
Post a Comment