¡Hermana Aubriana!: families can be together forever...

January 4, 2016

Hi Family!

So, as promised, I need to update you a bit on last week! I got to see a family that I had been working with be baptized! The dad was baptized on Saturday, and he received the priesthood and then baptized his son, niece, and sister on Sunday!

The coolest thing was that we didn't expect the sister to get baptized. She's had a testimony for a while now, but she hasn't wanted to get baptized because her parents have both passed away and were Catholic, and she felt like she would be betraying them.

Well, on Saturday, she brought her daughter in for her baptisimal interview. During the interview, we were sitting with this sister, teaching her a little and talking about the baptism. She, once again, said that she wanted to get baptized and that her daughter really wanted her to get baptized too. She doesn't like to feel super pressured, but I felt prompted to talk about when she wanted to get baptized and how she could be an example to her daughter. At first she said that she wanted to do it eventually, but she still didn't know when. Then we talked about the importance of goals and not waiting to make these covenants. Then she said maybe the next week. I was actually super happy with that because I thought she would want to wait longer, so I settled down and said okay. But about 5 minutes later, she said "actually, tomorrow is better. I want to be baptized with my daughter and be an example to her." So we sent her into an interview about 15 minutes later, and she was baptized the next day!

Everything went pretty perfectly.... except we had to bucket out the water of the font for the baptism on Saturday (it wasn't draining fast enough) to try to fill it with water a little bit warmer... but as usual, the warm water is super tempermental. So it was pretty much freezing. We got it a little warmer on Sunday, but it was still decidedly cold. All in all, it was beautiful! I've been lucky to see success with families. Seeing one person baptized is AMAZING, but seeing a whole family baptized and knowing that they will keep each other strong and be able to be together forever is SUPER AMAZING.

This week I found out I have changes. I'm pretty much positive I'll be going to Nesa! It should be cool! With only 20 sisters, and a little information, we can usually guess pretty well what's going to happen. Every Saturday night before changes, we get a phone call that tells us if we will be transferred, and if we need to bring our suitcases with us or not. If we don't bring out suitcases, it means we are staying in the zone; if we do, we are leaving the zone. The next Sunday morning is always filled with phone calls to find out who has what... and then we make predictions. We even wrote all our predictions out. Haha, it's like march madness, but for the mission.

After 4 transfers and not being changed for nearly 6 months, in this area, it's pretty hard to leave some of the people. Sunday after church was filled with photo ops and tears, saying goodbye is hard! I've come to love the people here and it's going to be hard to leave them. But I'm excited to see a new part of the mission and find the people that the Lord is preparing over there.

I love you all. Have a wonderful week! Remember that the church is true, and that prayers work. My comp and I were reflecting on all the prayers we've said that have been answered, and there have been many. I don't think I mentioned this, but the family that was baptized were former investigators of Hermana Wong's and mine. To see them decide to get baptized after all this time is a miracle and I can't tell you how many times I've prayed for them. Also, we saw a couple of less actives that we have prayed and prayed for that have become active again, including 2 families that have goals to be sealed. SOOO COOL. The gospel is not just about going to church, my friends. It is about making covenants that will last forever and getting to be together forever, There is nothing that makes a missionary happier than to hear that people want to get sealed!!!

Okay, I love you all so much (: Have a great week.

Hermana Aubriana Wolferts