Monday, February 23, 2015

Hermaniac Hermanas


Mission wide conference this week up in Tampa with Elder Swick from the seventy. He told a really cool story about how he served his mission in Argentina (Richard G Scott was his mission president) and when he got to the mission, Elder Scott called him in his office and told him that he had a special mission for him. He was to go to these cities in Bolivia that had never been visited before with his trainer and go build a church there. So they traveled for four days on train, bought some horse, the horses swam them across the river, or border into Bolivia because it was illegal to cross with the horses into these cities where he served there for 17 months with almost no contact with his mission president. He built the church all by himself, didnt baptize anyone for a year there because no one could live the word of wisdom because they had to drink alcohol to kill the amoebas that they had in their water, fixed the water problem then baptized like 500 people. Oh yeah and Gordon B Hinkley came to dedicate the church building. Not a bad mission experience... we were all sitting there thinking wow I complained yesterday for having to ride my bike in the wind in a skirt...


Another week has come and gone here in Sarasota! Climax of the week would have to be going to Maria's baptism in Bradenton. It was prime because our relief society president in Sarasota was able to take us and Celfia and her little girl ashley. I couldn't have asked for anything better. All the members were really surprised to see me back so soon hahah I told them I couldn't stay away. Everything went perfectly with the baptism and Maria was so happy, she couldn't stop tearing up the entire time and kept saying what am i feeling? What is this? Why am I crying I promise Im not sad! When I saw her when we got to the baptism it was like seeing a whole different person...the tattoos were covered up, piercings gone, hair all nicely done...the sisters said that she had been changing a little bit more every time they went over to teach her, just because she was spending more time in the scriptures, going to church, being with her member friends-- they said they hadn't even asked her to do any of those things. So that was really neat to hear. This night was probably one of the happiest nights of my mission because I just felt like I was with family there with Celfia, Maria, all my past companions, and all those members of the Cortez Branch and the Spirit was there so strong.

- Of course, a night this good has to be followed by a day not so good. We had parked our car in Celfia's neighborhood for a few hours that night and realized in the morning before church that our bumper had been hit and our gas siphoned. Thank you Satanas. But it was all good, we just went on bike all day. Satan wasn't quite through with us though and when it got dark, Hermana Mathis' tire popped big time and we had to walk to all of our appointments and back home after the last one haha. It was pretty great. So yesterday was pretty fun. We started teaching a 19 year old from Peru named Renzo and its when I teach people my same age that I realize just how weird of a life I'm living right now. He couldn't get over the fact that we don't watch movies, have boyfriends, listen to music, and just go around teaching people all day long. "Do you have any friends?" ...."umm..., looking at Hermana Mathis awkwardly... waiit do we? I don't think soo...I guess you're my friend but you kind of have to be... so I don't really know how to answer this question". That's how the conversation went haha. I'm forgetting that spending 24/7 doing missionary work as a 19 year old girl isn't exactly what you would consider normal. And from an outsider's view, it doesn't seem to make sense why we are so happy doing what we do. According to the world, I shouldn't be happy not listening to the latest music, or going to dances with my friends. I shouldn't be happy when Im teaching people about church instead of going out on dates. I shouldn't be happy spending all day going from person to person trying to invite them to come unto Christ when I could be going to movies, sleeping or hanging out with friends. But I am and I know why I am. And it's a happiness that no matter how many times I try to explain it to people, I can't quite do it because it's something you have to experience to understand. I hope everyone has a great week this week, pray that everything goes well with Celfia's baptism this Saturday!!

Love hermana Baugh


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