¡Hermana Aubriana!: Our family was baptized (:

September 7, 2015

¡Hola!

This week was soo great!

First big news is that the family that we have been teaching got baptized!! I seriously love these people so much. We call them "our family" because we are teaching them but also because they are so kind to us they are like family.

They have such strong testimonies and so much faith. They are a great example to me. Here`s a humorous example of how much faith they have:

The other night we were eating dinner with this family and the dad asked me something about Thanksgiving and how it was celebrated at my house. I started telling him about how we have all the family over and we have turkey and sweet potatoes and SO MANY pies and all that good stuff and he was like "so you do celebrate thanksgiving, then?" and I was like "yes..." So we got it all straightened out that mormons do indeed celebrate holidays. Then he and his wife were giving us a ride back to our apt. because it was getting close to the time we needed to be home and they asked us if, after they are baptized, they can listen to music and dance. He's all like "I really like jazz, is that okay? I'll still get baptized, but I really like jazz." Of course, we reassured him that that was fine! There are sometimes rumors about what mormons can and can't do haha. And, as missionaries, we aren't the best examples of what normal life as a member of the church is like. But it was amazing to see that they had testimonies strong enough that even if they had been asked to give up those things, they would have.

An Hermana I live with had similar faith this past week. She really didn't feel like shaving her legs, but she decided she would because in the MTC they told the sisters that they needed to shave and she decided she would do anything that was asked of her, no matter how small or petty it seemed. We`re all tested by different things (; Haha, this is just to remind you all that we are still having fun around here.

But anyway, their baptisimal service was wonderful! I got to give a short thought about baptism and it was so cool to testify to your investigators that in literally 5 minutes their sins would be washed clean. It was a really neat experience. The other AMAZING thing was that our Mission President was the one who baptized the mom and dad! He had come with us to one of our first lessons with this family and they really had a connection with him and asked us if he would be the one to baptize them. My comp and I weren't sure if he could or would, but when we asked him he said "of course!" That was amazing to see. I've been blessed with the BEST and most loving mission president in the world. He takes great care of us.

Our time working at the temple came to a close this week. I have loved working in the temple, but I'm excited for the temple to be open once again! We are hoping to do some family history with the family we just baptized and take them to the temple to do baptisms for the dead! The blessings of the temple are so amazing and I'm so excited that the members around here will have them once again.

Part of being a missionary here is working with less actives, as well as people who are investigating the church. The church here in Mexico is the same as the church as the one I attended back home, and I had that testified to me so strongly when I watched our investigators be baptized and confirmed by the same priesthood authority. But the church is younger and we struggle with having a good portion of the ward be less active. The temple has been so great for this though! When our less actives walk through the temple you can tell that they want to go through for real, and to do that you have to be active. With the temple having been closed, I think people didn't feel a huge drive to have a temple recommend, but now that the temple is about to open, we are hoping that a lot of people will renew their goal to make it to the temple.

People ask me about the food a lot, so I will tell you about one weird thing they eat here. It's called chicharron and it's fried pìg fat. Like, straight pig fat thrown in boiling oil. As if it wasn't unhealthy enough, right? People LOVE it here and it's sold on every street, at least. It tastes alright, but I can't get over what it is and how bad it must be for me, so I don't really eat it. And sometimes people soak it in salsa sauce stuff and make it all soggy and gross and that is not my favorite thing. I've only been given that once and the trick is just to eat it really fast. I've been really lucky, though. Some other american missionaries from my generation had cow stomach a couple weeks ago and they described it as rubbery shag carpet that tasted like what you would imagine a stomach would taste like. I'm counting my blessings (; Overall, the food is really good and not nearly as spicy as I would have thought!

Love you all! Talk to you next week!

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts