Life Savers: Let Us All Press On

Okay, this is gonna sound a little weird because I'm gonna lead with saying that this week was great.

Now I'm gonna explain what happened and all of you are going to be like, "THAT qualifies as a great week?"

But here's the truth: this is God's work. Even when the people don't progress, God loves them. Even during weeks like these when the devil and the forces of hell are combining against us, God is with us. So we have no need to fear, and no difficulty can overcome us. This verse of Let Us All Press On kinda sums it up:

"If we do what’s right we have no need to fear,
For the Lord, our helper, will ever be near;
In the days of trial his Saints he will cheer,
And prosper the cause of truth."

We did everything we could this week. We were led by the Spirit so much and we were filled with faith. I literally felt amazing this whole week. And then bad thing after bad thing happened. They were rough in the moment, but I came through it feeling like God was with me more and that He loves me and each of the people we are teaching very much.

I'm so grateful I'm a missionary! It's the greatest thing ever. I love my life so much!

Here's what happened this week:

We had two little girls on date for baptism and we went over to have a lesson at their house. They told us they don't want to get baptized anymore. In school they are learning Catholic stuff and it's confusing for them to be learning different things from different sources. We asked them to pray about which church was true again. They already received a witness by praying so it was painful to watch them turn away from that.

We were teaching a teenage boy and his little sister. We've never had a lesson with both of them at the same time, but we're teaching them both. Both of them are golden. We saw the girl as we were walking down the street the other day and she told us she had read more than 20 pages of the Book of Mormon and she loves it. She said she has practically memorized Joseph Smith's story because she's read the folleto (pamphlet) we gave her so many times. Then she told us her mom won't let us come over and teach her anymore.

There's an eight year boy who loves the church. He wants to get baptized more than anything else. His mom won't let him though. But he comes to church every week and asks us to come teach him lessons as often as possible. He got in trouble this week and his punishment was that he couldn't come to church cuz his mom knows that's what he likes to do the most. When we found out about that we tried to talk her into taking away his phone instead but she wouldn't be swayed.

Then the worst one. We were supposed to have a baptism on Saturday. We went to her house in the morning and she had her interview to determine if she was ready with our district leader over the phone. She passed easy and was singing and dancing and just so so excited about her baptism that afternoon. She showed us her new white shoes she bought with her own money she had to work for, that she was going to wear to her baptism.

We need one of the parents to sign whenever we baptize a minor, so we went in to get the signature and her mom was about to sign. Then the aunt burst in and started yelling about how R* was an disobedient kid and she would never change and she wasn't ready for baptism. The mom also started yelling in agreement and the verdict was that she wouldn't get baptized that day. R was in the room the whole time listening to this until she finally left to burst into tears.

It was so sad. I have never seen anyone with such a strong desire to be baptized. And I have only known R for a few weeks, but I can see how hard she is trying to be a good kid and please her family, but they overlook the improvement and focus on the imperfections.

We promised R that if she came to church the next day, we would find a way to get her baptized the next week. Sunday morning, she called us at 7:30am and said she was ready and excited, but her dad was "too sick" to take her. We asked a member to pick her up but his motorcycle ended up being broken and he didn't. R waited steadfastly for him for three hours. When we realized he wasn't coming we called R's mom and asked if there was any way we could get R to church. She said, "I will NEVER take her to church." I would have gone to her house myself to pick her up, but at that point church would have been over by the time we got to her house.

I cried about R. I have never been so sad on my mission as I was about R. She is so ready, but her family is not only not supporting her, but actively working against her.

BUT like I said at the beginning, God is in charge and all things happen for a reason. And despite lots of hard things, we also saw miracles.

We have a guy on date to be baptized this Saturday (and fortunately he's in his 20s so we will at least not have a problem with an anti mother in this case). He wants to be baptized, but I could tell he wasn't 100% committed yet. But then he went to church and the ward welcomed him like a long lost brother. It was awesome. In English we call it fellowshipping, but Spanish has a better verb: hermanar. Hermano means brother, so basically it means to be a brother to someone. Now he is more excited and I am so excited for him to be baptized on Saturday!

Also we found 25 people this week! And we didn't go contacting a single time! All of those people were found by us going to someone's house and teaching us a lesson, and someone else who was there listened. I think some of the people we found this week have a lot of potential for getting baptized soon.

We also taught a few lessons in Haitian Creole. My comp knows enough to sort of not very well explain things. I know none. But by comparing the Creole folleto with the Español folleto I was able to help my comp explain part of the Plan of Salvation to a Haitian couple. The gift of tongues! I had no idea if what I was saying was making any sense, but they told me they understood!

Also we had zone conference this week!! Holy cow it was such a spiritual experience. We talked about being 100% responsible (please go look up the BYU devotional by Lynn G. Robbins "Be 100% Responsible", it will change your life). And goal setting with faith and works. And backup plans! This summary of our zone conference is not doing it justice because it was so awesome and motivating and perspective adjusting. I am so grateful for President Bretón and his revelation in leading our mission.

AND I got to see my MTC comp the amazing Hermana Harrison at zone conference! It was so fun to see her! She's so awesome and I'm so glad she got to be my first comp of the mission!

Also I tried cereza juice. Not to be confused with cerveza... don't drink that. Cereza means cherry but apparently they have a different cherry here than what I think of when I hear "cherry". It was yummy but tasted nothing like a cherry, so now I want to try the actual thing. We also had a dragonfruit that was pink! I've had a white one before and I thought it tasted like nothing and was kind of lame for how exciting it looks like it should be. The pink was one really good though. I'm also becoming my father's daughter—I had a mango almost every day this week. They are so good. I used to put bananas on my cereal. Now it's mangoes.

I love you guys! If you're thinking about serving a mission do it cuz seriously it's the best thing in the world!

Hermana Cazier

I don't really know where to put this little asterix thing so it's going here:

*I don't know if I already said this but privacy laws are different here and I can't write people's names. But I think I'll start using first letters so the stories don't get confusing.

pics!

1. MTC comp reunion!