A Baptism!

Bueno. Esta semana fue re loca (this week was crazy). First we had divisiones and my STL (Sister Training Leader) is insane. I love her so much!! This week we have had to see our two people with baptismal dates every day, and they live in opposite sectors. We´ve been running between the sectors, because neither of them actually live in our sector, just our ward, and it’s about 50 minutes between the two. I am so tired. I think this may be the most tired I’ve ever been in my life. But it’s SO GOOD. I also have not been sleeping that well because at night I just can’t get my mind to slow down, but hopefully that gets better next week! On Thursday we had our interview for the baptism of Cristobal and it was really long. That’s bad. So he leaves and we find out that there was something he never mentioned, that would prevent him from being baptized. You guys, my heart shattered. We went from so so happy to just heart broken, in la hiel de afflicion (the pit of affliction?) in about 2 minutes. So then the ZLs had to get involved and the assistants and it was just bad. On top of that, Thursday was just a terrible day in general. My district leader called me out for not having very many nuevos this week, told me I’m not searching by the spirit, and just kind of emotionally beat me up in general. Those weren’t his intentions, but that’s what happened. I just decided the only thing I could do was talk to the Lord, repent of my shortcomings as a missionary, and try again the next day. That being said, hna Dinamarca and I stopped talking at about 9 at night on Thursday, and we didn’t speak another word to each other until 9 the next morning when we met up with another hermana who had to be with us for the day. Not because we were mad at each other, just because we were so heartbroken and discouraged, there was nothing to say. But on Friday morning, with hna Zapata, we bravely marched to Cristobal’s house to talk to him. When we got there, we realized that there was more to his story that would affect his ability to get baptized. So we started calling and calling and calling, and eventually the assistants heard from president that we were good to go, and that it never actually should have been a problem in the first place. SO WE HAD A BAPTISM this weekend! People always told me before that as a missionary, I would experience my lowest and my highest moments. I never realized they meant so close together. So Saturday morning, we had the privilege to go to Cristobal’s baptism. Everything went well. It was beautiful! Even Martita was able to go to prepare her for her own baptism that will be this upcoming weekend!!  But things were MAL (bad) with my district leader. Out of the six missionaries in our ward and our ward mission leader (who is 24 and is an rm) nobody was in a good place with him. Finally, yesterday we were able to talk to him and we figured out that his mom is of poor health right now and he’s stressed for that. You just never know when people are suffering, you have to be so patient and that’s not something I’m great at, but I’m gonna work on it! Wanna hear the cutest thing that Martita said this week? " Martita, por que siempre lleva esta chaleca aunque hace calor? (why do you wear a vest even when it is hot?)" "porque tengo alergias al sol (because I’m allergic to the sun)" "que pasa cuando está en el sol? (what happens when you are in the sun?)" " mi piel se pone oscura! (my skin gets dark!)" ... YO AMO MARTITA. YO AMO CRISTOBAL. YO AMO SER MISIONERA! 

Hna Stanley ;) 

PS funny experience of the week! hna Dinamarca was playing ping pong in an activity that we have every week, and the ball flew into a bush. So she starts shaking the tree like a mad woman trying to get it to fall out. as her companion, I have the duty of accompanying her in her shenanigans, so that will explain the picture :)