First things first, Jose has been baptised and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! It was amazing, and literally nothing worked out like we planned. Not a single thing. Clearly the Lord had plans more specific for J and our other amis and members that we hadn't figured out yet. I won't go into detail on all of it but the amazing thing was that he felt comfortable standing to bear his testimony of his conversion and his sister (who isn't a member yet!) got to translate it into French for everyone. His close family in France all came, and to his confirmation the next day, and his closest friends in the ward were there who all spoke Spanish, and the baptism and confirmation were in Spanish. So, I have no idea what was said, but he was very touched. Everyone loves him, and they're keeping in touch with him while he is in Peru.
We got to see another baptism that day, same chapel and just a little later, which our ami Michelle came to. The young man being baptised had a very large extended family visiting so there was a lot of joy, a lot of tears, and afterwards a lot of food and music. At one point I ended up eating a large portion of raw onion with vinegar, and some sort of unknown spicy green paste, and lots of plantains, which Michelle thought was pretty funny to see us try, but it was great and I'd love to learn to cook more west african food! (She says she's making ginger juice next time we visit.) Honestly, though, of all the baptisms she could have possibly seen, that had to have been the best one. She's missed the one she was planning on seeing, Jose's, but because of that we were able to give each of them our full attention and they had the people they needed present. We were able to stay for that baptism, she made new friends, and it was beautiful!
Then the next morning for church one of the buses decided to be off schedule, and naturally it is the bus that both of them take. We have a beautiful ward who loves people so, Jose was able to be confirmed after the sacrament when he did arrive (as Soeur Sedrick and I tried not to have a heart attack) and he brought all his family (and the other surprise new people at church, good job members!) to the Gospel Principles class. New Convert A is absolutely awesome and decided help an ami of a different ward who came to our ward today, even though she was very nervous, because her new motto is "Love thy neighbor" and she is really just absolutely a shining star and went for it. We love her so much. She is going to be the world's best missionary someday.
There's a million small things that happened this week that, to summarize, were not what we had planned, but they all worked out. We did our best, we planned, we worked, and at the end of the day we had done what we really needed to do. We just.. got lessons on humility, too.
I know I talk about "Lead Kindly Light," like, all the time, but I just wanted to mention that in French the title is "brilliant star, star of the morning," and the lyrics are totally different, but I love them too.
I didn't ever plan on going on a mission. If you told 10-year-old me what I'd be doing now I would not have believed you. I had plans, and different goals, and things kept changing, but somehow I ended up here. To be honest I'm still not certain what I'm doing afterwards since I only have a year of mission left (ack!) but I know right now I'm doing what I need to. I'm grateful for this chance to "invite others to come unto Christ," and for all the things I've been able to learn, too. I'm grateful that I'm not the gardner here, and that God loves me enough to cut me down from time to time so I can grow in the right direction.
Mom! Can you find "Baba Yetu" and the Be One link for the mission blog? Thank you!
Baba Yetu
Be One Celebration
Challenge: Watch Be One, its awesome
Aaaand we just found out that the members we are visiting today live an hour away by car so we're cutting our p-day, I've got to go, I love you all and have a great week!
(Rainy every day!)
Murals here are beautiful
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