This is what it's all about...

Saturday was one of the best days of my mission. I love baptisms. Our convert was baptized! And his family came and he looked so happy afterward! It was amazing. He had a rough week this past week, but he made it and it was just so good. Then yesterday he was confirmed and that was very special. Another really cool side note--in the blessing his ancestors were mentioned, that he was to go and do their work for them. We found out later that he already knows a lot of the information about his ancestors, several generations back. So he can already get started there! I knew that there was support for him on both sides of the veil for his baptism, but that was super cool to hear about. The Lord is truly preparing people, and sometimes has been for years. It is a privilege to be able to see that. Also, last night we took him on joint teach! That was also a really neat experience. We took him to visit another investigator, who just so happens to be really similar to Lennart in that she's never been religious and currently struggles with some of the same things that he had trouble with in the past. He was an incredible joint teach. He was testifying and excited and just so happy the whole time. It is incredible to see how much the gospel has changed his life.

Patience, to me, is all about enduring well--enduring cheerfully, hopefully, faithfully, and willingly. We can endure our trials (or rejections) with patience because we know that the Lord's promised blessings will be fulfilled. He tries our patience and our faith so that we can become stronger. One of the reasons I am able to press forward in patience is by remembering past miracles and being grateful for the present ones--especially the baptism. Another experience from this week related to patience: a few days ago one of our investigators, cancelled an appointment on us. Again. He cancels more appointments than he keeps with us, but we keep trying because he'll come to church on his own (he was doing that for awhile when the city was closed), and I'm certain that he has some amount of testimony and that he will one day be baptized. Anyway, this time when he cancelled I was pretty disappointed. I've been working with him for 7 months and was getting pretty frustrated. But he kept trying to tell me something on the phone that for whatever reason I just could not understand. He can be hard to understand on the phone, but usually I can handle it pretty well. But I just couldn't get it this time, so he just said "Laat maar" [forget it] and we left it at that. Then, the next day we are talking to our new branch mission leader and he said that he'd just gotten a call that he (the investigator) wants to be baptized. Say what?! We called him, of course, and he said that that was what he'd been trying to tell me. Anyway, I'm still not sure what'll happen with him exactly--he didn't come to church on Sunday because he was out of town--but it was a pretty amazing miracle and more proof that patience is a heavenly virtue and that it pays off.

Life is so good here and I love you all! The Lord is in control of His work and I’m super grateful for that.