May 30, 2011

Great week! Changes were this week, yep I'm back with Elder Stevens, I've officially spent basically my entire mission with him, it's right that he would come here with me. haha

This week was a GREAT baptismal service! Super powerful! The Alvez twins and the Martinez twins were baptized together haha 2 sets of twins...that's a first :) Mom had her interview and will be called soon hopefully to young womans to be with her daughters. She's working really hard with her older 2 kids (19, and 16) to help them come back as well. A man recently reactivated named Jorge baptized the twin boys David and Brandon. It was his first time baptizing and he was so nervous! We said a little prayer together first and afterwards he couldn't wipe the grin off of his face. About 60 people attended the baptism, many investigators and inactives!!! After the baptism we had a branch game night and had so much fun! Most of the parents just looked on laughing though while the kids were going nuts. That's alright though, at least people when and participated. Progress!

This week will be the baptism of Nahuel and Agustin. They are two young men brothers that have been coming for several months, but we wanted to work more with the mom so that they could progress together. She still won't budge, but will be going to the baptism, so hopefully she'll feel the spirit strong and desire to follow her sons.
Next week a man named Orlando that for 10 years has been coming to church will be baptized. He always had a question about the Fall that missionaries couldn't answer (it was a pretty ridiculous doubt) so he never would progress, but in that time he's studied the Book of Mormon a ton and knows it well enough to quote a lot of scriptures. Anyways, lately we've been working hard with his nephew Hugo (under direction of the Branch Pres.) who is a returned missionary who was excommunicated a year ago to help him through the repentence process (he has his first interview this week...within a month or so he might have his rights back!!!!! WOOT!!!) and he shared his experience with his uncle who got touched. He came to us again with this duda about the Fall and we basically read about agency and then told him that what he wanted to know really didn't matter, but thanks to agency he can have his own life...sorry this is a story hard to explain. He accepted a baptismal date and came to church excited, inviting people and all. It's funny how a missionary always finds himself at the beginning, middle, or end of a miracle, and it has nothing to do with their own timing or ability as to where they find themself in the miracle. Shows me just how little we are in this big work.

Church attendance was over 70 for the 4th time, things are looking great and people are very very excited.

Elder Foster of the 70 comes in 2 weeks, so preparation time starts now. It will be a really cool conference I think, I'm pretty excited to see what things we learn from him. A lot of the big focus now is how missionaries worked before, ironically enough. Preach My Gospel was made to force missionaries to teach by the spirit, and not by a set of contructed lessons. However, missionaries have gotten a lot dumber, saying that they don't need the scriptures, or to plan, etc...using excuse that the Lord will guide their words, and show them where to go throughout the day, stuff like that. Mission apostasy is so frustrating. The Lord isn't going to use an inkless pen to write his Book of Life. If we want miracles to happen we must earn them.

I love you all so much!!! I'm proud of you for your achievements and am excited to see you all soon, but not in a trunky way haha Keep working hard and don't you dare keep a calendar of how much time I have left heh

Besitos,
Elder Magnusson
P.S. Give Grandma a BIG hug when you see her. Sorry I haven't written in a long time. Last change we had P-Day and district meeting on the same day. I'll send one off asap :)