Baptisms

Hey everyone!


I've had a rather eventful week


Tuesday we had district conference and planned a wedding and a baptism for a couple weeks down the road


Wednesday we had my mission president's last zone conference and it took us 12 hours including travels


Thursday we found two more people who after the first lesson said that they want to prepare for baptism


Friday we did baptismal interviews and filled up the recently-fixed font in own church building (before we had to travel to a different building using non-existent buses)


Saturday we had the two baptisms of our friends Marta and Ingrid (after the first lesson with Ingrid, she prayed about the BoM and then told us she already knew it was true!) Afterwards we went to the town fair because literally everyone was there and we couldn't find any of our friends.  It was actually really cool


Sunday we found an old friend that I had taught before and put a baptismal date with him, and then went and planned a second wedding and baptism (this one a little less certain) and then found someone that lives a block away from the church that was so excited to read the BoM that she said she'd read all night and was definitely going to pray about it in the morning.


And today we're going to the lake (one of the only ones in Paraguay but very beautiful)


And that about wraps it up.  I'm scared that I'll be leaving this area in 3-4 weeks when transfers come.  I love it too much here.  


Also praying in english is really really hard.  I don't know how you guys do it.  I have to translate almost every single word and then it comes out sounding really wrong.


**Quick side note to other missionaries or ex-missionaries:  I have been blessed to be seeing a lot of success related to numbers, but true success isn't really related to numbers.  Don't look at this email and think I have a "better" mission or anything like that.  Your mission is as good as you choose it to be when you let it change you personally.**


Quick spiritual thought:  there's a lot of power in prayer.  When the angel appeared to alma the younger, he says he only came to fulfill the faithful prayers of his father, Alma the elder.  Your prayers can change people's lives.  They, of course, still have their agency, but your prayers help them tremendously to have the experiences they need to spark that change.  But pray with intent to act.  If there's anything you could do personally, be ready to do it, if not just keep on praying.


With that being said, please pray for Antonio and Lourdes so that they can receive the answer to their prayer and make the decision to get married and baptized.  They need it


Thanks for your prayers,
Love y'all have a great week


Élder Blacker






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