Hola,
Well, I`m writing to you guys from Florida street in downtown Buenos Aires. It’s pretty cool, today we went and saw the casa rosada, the obelisk, and bought some cheap souvenirs. Also, this week I went on divisions (exchanges) with the zone leaders who are in the Boca. We saw the Boca stadium and the colorful houses that I think is on my blog (it’s the street called Caminito). If you`ve never heard of these places (which is probably pretty likely) just google them and then imagine me right next to them. Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, there were like tango dancers and stuff and we even taught some investigators who live in one of those colorful houses. Actually, I learned a lot from Elder Denton, who was in my MTC district. And, from their apartment I could see across Rio de la Plata to Uruguay. It was pretty tight.
However, the coolest thing of this week was the Baptism of Yao Shao Lin (Spin)! It was honestly one of the most special baptisms of my whole mission. In the baptism we sang I am a child of God in English, Chinese, and Spanish (with two violins, a cello, a clarinet, and a piano in the background haha!). There were also prayers and testimonies in Chinese. In fact, in sacrament meeting Spin got up and bore his testimony! It came out pretty jumbled, but it was understood. Spin was so excited and all his chinese friends from Buenos Aires came to support him: President Wu, Sister Catala, Brother Wu, and Nicolas. Also, the Galindez family who had first shared the gospel with Spin came as well. Who would have thought that I would get the chance to see Spin get baptized when I started teaching him in another area? Also, something amazing happened during the whole process:
Here’s something else interesting that I noticed. Three months ago, my companion and I didn’t know what to do with Spin, since he knew very little and was progressing so slowly. Nevertheless, we knelt down and asked God when Spin should get baptized. We felt that it should be the weekend of the December 4th. This was a revelation we received in September and we began to make plans in that moment to prepare him to be baptized this weekend. Now here we are, three months later, and in a different area, and it happened! God speaks. I’m sure of it!
So yeah, Spin is the man. President Catala told us after the baptism that he`s sure that through Spin, many many more Chinese are going to be baptized here in Buenos Aires. He told us that he thinks of Spin as a King Lamoni from the book of mormon. Honestly, God is the god of all of us, ni importa (no matter) our race, nationality, language, or beliefs. I remember the first lesson I had with Spin and he told me he was just looking for happiness. And, every lesson, he told us he would keep doing what we asked if it continued making him happy. And, look how far he got! And, look how happy he is! What a miracle! I also remember in the first lesson that my brain was so jumbled with the different languages going on that I started speaking English on accident haha!
Anyway, for my birthday I had two birthday lunches, one with the Yovera family on my birthday and one with the Catala family, wu family, and Spin after the baptism! I also got a bunch of presents from my converts and was super, super spoiled.
Well, I love you guys so much! This week we are going to try to help Analia get to her baptism. Her mom needs a little support, so prayers would be nice.
Have a great week!
Elder J. Hales
No comments:
Post a Comment