A week of miracles

This has been a week of miracles. On Tuesday, I was in divisions working with another missionary in another part of Puerto when I get a phone call from my companion. "Walleska's getting baptized right now! Come to the church!" There's a wonderful woman who comes to church every week, brings her Book of Mormon with her, and knows that this is the church where she feels the spirit the most, but she hasn't been baptized for fear of what her family will say. She almost asked to be baptized two Sundays ago after she saw a baptism she attended without us even inviting her, but she didn't after all, because she was afraid. But on Tuesday, my companion arrived and told her "there's a family that is going to be baptized this evening. Do you want to join them and be baptized as well?" And she said yes! She was so excited, and so happy. She's 8 months pregnant with twins, and knows that following the Lord will make her life for her children much happier. She also lost a little boy a week after he was born, and she loves what she's learning about how he'll always be a part of her family.

Then on Thursday we were visiting with her neighbor, a young woman who is a former investigator of my companion, one who never went to church while she was teaching her, but who has gone to church 2 times on her own. We were teaching her this week, but she hasn't wanted to accept a baptismal date because she's worried about what will happen when she goes back to the communities, where the church hasn't yet reached. But we had a lesson with her with a member friend, and in the middle of the lesson, the investigator told us, in Miskitu "I feel the Spirit telling me to be baptized. I accept." She was baptized on Saturday, and confirmed on Sunday with her friend and neighbor, Walleska. I didn't plan on either one of these baptisms. I was focusing on other families. But Christ's grace helps us when we've done all that we can do. I just love love love that.

Something that's been dawning more and more clearly this week is the eternal perspective of what we're doing here. Our life continues much, much further forward than what we normally see as human beings. I've been wondering a bit this week if I'm enlightened or just depressed, but I think it's a bit like Moses, "now that I know that man is nothing, which thing I had never before considered." But the transcendent part of that is that God still loves us, and we have a greater destiny ahead of us than we'll ever understand while in this mortal sphere. But that's okay, because GRACE. We're just asked to do the best we can while we're here, and then we'll have plenty of time afterward to do more, and Jesus Christ will make up the difference, if we've been able to partake of his Atonement more completely. The church exists because it's the university that prepares us for the rest of our eternal lives. If we just keep doing the things we're supposed to, and do it for love of our fellow men and Jesus Christ, we will slowly but surely become the eternal beings that God hopes we will be.

Gospel stuff is the only stuff that matters. Everything else that's important to us, school, friends, family, all of that has a place in the gospel as well. If not, it's not helping us progress, and not so worth our time. But it's good to put the explicit, pure gospel at the center of our focus.

And as for me? I'm happier than I've ever been in my mission. I'm in my dream zone, where I've wanted to be since before I entered the MTC (I heard the stories about Puerto Cabezas and said that's for me), learning a third language, super unified with my zone, and seeing a bunch of miracles. And being instructed by the spirit more than I've ever been before. And I have THE BEST companion ever. I think we'll be good friends for eternity, she and I. 

I will have a great week. And I hope you do, too!

Mai latwansa!

- Hermana Ferrin