Dear Family:
Hmmm, that would have been a good title to use for December. Missed that opportunity.
Well, now that the funny comment about the clever title is over, we can get to business.
Crazy week! I guess every week is crazy, so that´s nothing new. We had our zone meeting this week, then we stayed an extra day in San Luis for intercambios with the hermanas Matheson and Tuiá. I was on intercambios with Hermana Tuiá from Samoa, so that was fun. She´s really great! Super nice and tri-lengual and all, so it´s fine.
Then coming back from San Luis we stopped in Villa Mercedes for a baptism in the Elder´s ward. We had invited Juan, and he showed up twenty minutes early, as usual. :) It was really great, although Juan still doesn´t quite understand perfectly. For example after the baptism while walking to the sacrament room, he comments to me, "yep. That´s just how we do it in my church." So we may need to explain the preisthood again I guess.
But anways, after the baptism, we had a lesson with him, the plan of salvation. When we got to earth life, we kind of just started talking about baptism again, and Juan shared some thoughts he´s been having. He said he kind of feels left out when he comes to these church reunions. Not really left out, but just that something´s missing. "I´m missing something, and I think it´s baptism." WHAT? Yes! So we talked a little more about that, and more about the gift of the holy ghost, and invited him to be baptized. But he still doesn´t recognize his answer. The holy ghost is always present so strong in the lessons, and he recognizes that, and he loves coming to chruch and reading the Book of Mormon, but he says he´s still waiting for his sign. We´ve explained many times that, well, what he´s feeling IS the sign, but he still doesn´t recognize it. So we invited him to pray again, and ask specific questions. We even wrote out all the questions on a sticky note like, "was Joseph Smith a prophet? Should I be baptized?" That kind of thing. So we´ll see how it went. He keeps progressing little by little, which is great. He´s awesome.
Also this week we had a cool experience. We found this young couple a while ago, and have gone back lots of times looking for them, but only ever find her mom, who every time kindly insists that she doesn´t want anything to do with us. Yesterday we passed by and it was the same story. But this time hermana gonzales asked for a drink of water. She let us in and gave her some water, and we started talking, and, like good missionaries, we somehow turned the conversation to the topic of religion. And finally her doubt came out. "But no one´s seen Jesus, right? He never really lived on earth, did he?" It was definitely a first for me. All the argentine´s I´ve talked to are either catholic, or some other Christian religion, so they all believe in Christ. Or they say, "I´m athiest" and close the door. So I had never heard anyone openly share that they didn´t believe Christ came to earth. We explained that christ had indeed been born on earth, and had lived and died for us. It was really neat. I mean, I´ve always born testimony of Jesus Christ, but I had never had the opportunity to share with someone my bear-bone testimony that I know that he existed on the earth. That he was born, he lived, people saw him and heard him, and followed him. She was surprised, and the spirit was definitely present. "Oh. I didn´t know. I had heard the storries, and I know that he´s in heaven, but I didn´t know that he had actually come and lived on earth." It was really neat.
I know that Christ lives. I know he came to earth. He was born in Bethlehem, and grew up, and lived a perfect life. He chose to follow the will of God fully and completely, even to gethsemane and to the cross. He was laid in the tomb, and rose again. He lives, I know he lives. I know he´s real, and his love for each of us is real. You can feel it. He is our savior, our guide, our brother, and our friend. There is no other way to God but through Him, and I know that through Him, it´s possible. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Hermana Cannon
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