Mabel's Baptism

Excerpt from March 1st email:
"The baptism of Mabel was the hardest I have experienced in all my mission, but also the most rewarding and sweet. We went to get her on Saturday and it all went really well. There was another man from the ward that shares our building getting baptized, and so about 45 people showed up. The spirit was very strong and we were really happy. . ."

"After a long night of being baptized. . . Mabel was in a lot of pain and almost didn't make it to church to receive the Holy Ghost. I was totally beside myself when we went to pick her up to go to church and we had a good cry together. She asked again for a Priesthood blessing and Hno. Baéz came running to help. We left her with the money she would need to take a taxi to the church and told her if she could make it, receiving the Holy Ghost would be something that would help her be more calm and peaceful everyday. Normally, you need to receive the Holy Ghost before the Sacrament is blessed and passed and she didn't make it on time. The poor thing was in so much pain and I just thought to myself, "something has got to work out, we have made it this far!" When they finished the Sacrament and we entered the room with her, the branch president called her to the front and she was able to be confirmed without problems. She was still in a lot of pain so we paid for her taxi back to her house and promised to pass by and see her after church. She felt a lot better when we saw her later and thanked us for helping her. I wish I could say I feel like the fight is done, but we still have a while to go. Her son Rodrigo is being kind of difficult, but we are hoping that with the help of the Young Men he will also be baptized. I feel so strongly that Heavenly Father has great plans for them, and that is why we have had to fight so hard to beat the opposition. The best part is that i know that my Heavenly Father is also much more powerful than the opposition and so if I am obedient and do all I can, the Lord will be able to do what it is He needs to do."

Our house is a very, very fine house

Excerpt from January 25th email:
"Yesterday church was really great. Mabel came with her two sons. If you haven´t heard about Mabel, she is the woman that stopped the missionaries in the street and asked them what would happen to her husband who had died 4 days earlier. She had neighbors who were members of the church and were very good examples of Christ-like people. She remembered that the boys with name tags and ties were always at their house and decided when she saw the elders that she wanted to know what it is they taught. Her boys are really great, and made friends quickly with the young men in the ward. Rodrigo, is 14 and Junior (Rubén) is 6, and after Sacrament Meeting was over Junior ran up to my companion and hugged her and said, "I loved it! We are coming back next week." The boys seemed to remember almost all that was taught and began to ask us questions about prophets, Nephi, and the Holy Ghost. Mabel told us that she would spare us all the questions for right now, but that in our next appointment we had better come with some answers. Tonight we are going to visit them and try to answer all their questions while eating mangos..delicious. (Our house has a mango tree, but the mangos are mangos/peaches and I have never tasted anything like it.)

Then, tomorrow we are going to help her build a little house for her family. We got permission from the president to go and do this service for her. She is really thankful and we are kind of sad because she is leaving our area...but happy because we know that it doesn't matter in which ward she gets baptized, as long as she can have an eternal family."

Excerpt from January 31st email:
"We had transfers on Tuesday and finished this last one off by building a house for Mabel. It was hard work but really fun and with 8 missionaries and one recent convert we were able to finish the house in four hours. We had to walk almost two hours to get to the house because it was in the middle of NO WHERE Formosa close to a community called “el Pueblo de Dios”…it is a branch of the Catholic church, and have decided to live away from civilization. Lucky for us they need to go into civilization every once in a while because as we all walked back sun burned and tired a man gave us all a ride into town on the back of his truck. It was quite an experience in the end. Mabel was extremely happy to have a house and we were extremely happy to have helped. Mabel is one of the women I most admire here on my mission. Not only did she recently lose her husband, but she has breast and lung cancer and holds herself together so well for her sons, and still smiles, I don't know how she does it. We taught her about eternal families and she told us later that her son had said, “so what are we waiting for, let's get sealed.” After her surgery for her cancer they are moving to their new house and will be part of another ward, but I am confident that she has been prepared to be baptized so it doesn't matter where it happens. We will be able to teach her almost everything and so that makes me happy. I love the plan of Salvation, I love the idea of an eternal family. Who doesn't want to be with their family forever? I know that each family is really different, we all have trials and difficulties, but we are blessed. This life we have is amazing, such a good opportunity to learn and grow. We all must have known that in the end it would be worth it because we decided to come here gain a body and be tried. We are never given a trial we cannot overcome, of that I am sure. I know with all my heart that this plan is perfect and our progression is dependent on our efforts."