WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!! Congratulations to Ricardo WOOP WOOP!!!!!
So here's his story: On my first Sunday
ever in Palma, we were waiting outside of our apartment building
because we had arrived a couple minutes early and we were chillin outside and out comes Ricardo! He opened the door
and told us that he wanted to come to our church and learn about what we
do as missionaries!!! So Hermana Sperry set up a time to go teach him
the next day (Monday).
And that lesson was so great. We sat down with him and he just started talking for an hour about times in his life that he had felt the Spirit guide him and his religious history and literally everything. And he also told us that he wanted to get baptized! So we didn't end up having time to go through the whole first lesson, but we showed him a video of a reenactment of Christ's baptism and he started crying and told us that he had always wanted to be baptized like Christ was. So I invited him to be baptized and he said yes!!!!
And then with everything we taught him he just knew it was all true and with every commandment, he completely accepted it, no problem. He's incredible.
And his baptism was so great and so beautiful! He cried, and shared his testimony, and was just so so ready and so prepared. He told us over and over again that he had waited his whole life for this. He's so special and I know he will be SO blessed for his faith, humility, and desires to follow God.
And now the sad part of this whole thing. We completely lost Alex. He was supposed to get baptized on the 22nd also, but on Tuesday
his phone turned off and since then we hadn't been able to get ahold of
him. We literally tried everything. We went to his apartment multiple
times, left a note at his apartment, went to his tai chi class (haha he
wasn't there), and called him literally probably like 20 times over the
course of 3 days. AND THEN A MIRACLE HAPPENED! On Thursday,
Hermanas Barlow and Nelson were walking to the church building (a
different way than they normally do) and they ran into him! So they made
him call us on their phone and he explained that his phone had broken
and he needed to get a new one. And he set up a time to meet with us on Friday. But then Friday came and he didn't come. So. We'll keep praying that he gets a new phone or one of us runs into him again. Good times!
This
week has been so good though. Today we took a bus and did
some shopping and sightseeing. Such a beautiful place ah I love it here!
Preparation days are the best!
Also
this week we had zone conference which is where are the island
missionaries get together and our mission president comes and talks to
us. It was SO good. He talked about Joseph Smith and the character of
Joseph Smith. It changed my whole outlook. So many people look at church
history and pick out the hard, controversial things, and then feel the
need to "apologize" for him. But if you look at how much he sacrificed
and went through throughout his life, eventually DYING for this gospel,
there's no way you can deny that he knew that what he was doing was from
God. And we can know TOO! That's the best part! I got a confirmation
during President's lesson that Joseph Smith was actually a prophet of
God. That he literally SAW God and Jesus Christ and they told him to
restore the true gospel of Jesus Christ on the Earth with prophets and
apostles who hold the proper authority to act in God's name. That's
real! How great is it that we live in a time where we actually have the
exact church of Jesus Christ on this earth and that we don't have to act
blindly, we can come to know for ourselves. So great I love it.
Our early morning run to the ocean.
Missionary life is the best! I love and miss you all and I think of you and pray for you:)))
Love!
Hermana Johnson
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