Week 9 First Baptism

Knowing Your Purpose

I had the opportunity of having my first baptism in the mission this week. The victim was Abigial Nawul Pavone Salinas. I write her name because I practiced saying it for a solid hour last Saturday. She has 14 years and comes from the craziest family. The last two names are her mom’s last name and then her dads. It’s a good indicator down here because often when kids tell you their name you can notice that the last two names don’t match. Meaning they have a different dad than their brother or sister. This is the case with Abigail. When Elder Vail and I go up to their house there is literally ten kids and two of those kids have kids. Its really different then home and the kids just call everyone cousin. But when we ask the moms they are like oh ya well I had a kid with this dude and then my sister had a kid with the same dude so they are basically brothers. 

As we prepared Abigail for baptism all I could think about was when I baptized my little brother in May. It was truly as far from the same as it could be. Her mom signed the paper like it was a school permission slip to go on a field trip. Despite our efforts to help her understand how important this was. When we were filling out the papers for her baptism it was the first time she had seen her dads first name. At first when she read it I was like oh no she is going to cry but no she just was like weird. Family has such a strange importance here. Her mom didn’t come to the baptism or the conformation on Sunday. The only family that came was 5 other kids. It was so different from Cannon’s baptism I sat in astonishment at how she could possibly want to be baptized. It really has strengthened my faith in the people here. I had the opportunity to baptize her and I was very nervous because I had to memorize it in Spanish. It’s not long but it’s also not something I wanted to mess up. As I went to walk into the water I completely forgot everything. But when the time came I felt the strongest feeling of comfort I have felt. And as I brought her out of the water I knew I would remember this for years to come. While I was changing I had felt like no person had experienced the joy I was feeling. The feeling that is felt when we allow to the Lord to work through us brings a completely new feeling and changes our definition of the word joy. 

My time is up but I want everyone that reads this is get involved with the missionaries in your area. Do not look at it as cargo or a burden because it will be the way you experience a new kind of joy. 

Someone hug my mom for me. Sorry for my spelling every word is just red because of the Mexican keyboard. lol they hate Mexicans here. 

Elder Thorn aka your boi