We Had a Baptism!

 Buenas!!! This week was pretty epic!

Our friend Virgilio got baptized on Saturday!! It was my first baptism in the DR! Also my first time witnessing a baptism! As in, being one of the two people who watches to make sure the person getting dunked goes all the way under. 

It's been so cool to watch Virgilio's change of heart. He went from, "Hang on, if I get baptized, will I have to go to church EVERY Sunday?" and, "Will I live the law of tithing? Uhh... we'll see" to being excited to live the gospel even though it's the harder path and it takes some sacrifices. I'm so grateful I got to be part of Virgilio's journey to finding Christ! (The way I wrote that sentence makes it sound like his journey is complete, but the cool thing about Jesus Christ's gospel is that we never run out of things to learn and ways to improve! We're here on earth to progress. It was awesome to watch someone hop onto the covenant path with both feet this week!)

We also met a super prepared guy. His wife is a member and has been since before they were married. She has a testimony but hasn't gone to church in a while because her husband isn't a member. She told us she never thought he would ask, but suddenly he was interested. We got the referral on area book and were super excited to meet them.

We walked to where we thought their house was, which took us about 25 minutes. Then we realized we had misread the address and walked 15 more minutes to get to their house. We walked right past the police station on our way, and the police station marks the end of our area.

We had an awesome first lesson with them once we finally found their house. It's awesome to have someone come to you and say, "I want to learn more. What can you teach me?"

Our second lesson with them was a pass-off lesson with some Elders who live a lot closer to them. It was an awesome lesson on the Plan of Salvation, but I've gotta say my favorite part was at the beginning when we asked him if he had been able to read any of the Book of Mormon. The response: "Well, I haven't been able to read much yet... just the first 15 or so chapters."

And did I mention this guy speaks English? He's from Oregon. I got to teach in English again! And it was good practice for my comp. It felt so good. It hasn't been long enough that I was forgetting many words, but I totally spaced "repentance". It's "arrepentimiento" in español, which is a hard word that I had to practice a lot to be able to say it without thinking about it. It also has a double r and I practice rolling my r by saying that word over and over again.

When we invited their family to church, the guy was like, "Yeah, I'd love to go!" And his wife, the MEMBER, was like, "But hon, we always go camping on the weekends." And he was like, "Yeah, but I really think we should go." The whole family, including the kids, loved church and can't wait to go back.

The Elders better invite us to his baptism.

Also another super fun that happened this week was that all the Hermanas in our mission got together! It was SO FUN. We have 55 Hermanas in the mission right now. It was awesome to get together with all of them! I got to see some Hermanas I haven't seen since the MTC and meet some Hermanas I've heard lots about. There's literally only cool Hermanas in our mission. I'd be so down to be comps with any of them. 

That was also an awesome opportunity to talk about cool women in the scriptures and tell our comps how they were like those awesome women. My comp is like Abish. Abish ran to tell the people to come and witness the miracle going on with King Lamoni and his servants. My comp has so much love for the gospel and the people. She's wanted to be a missionary since she was three! She's so excited to share with others what makes her truly happy and she's an awesome example to me.

Remember last week I said I wanted to try a Dominican cherry? I experienced it this week.  My comp warned me that it would be tart, and it was. She did not warn me that they have four pits. I'm not even sure how one cereza can hold four pits... 

We went hiking this morning and it was so fun! Totally sucked up all of my time though. We didn't buy food and I haven't started my laundry... which is a little bit of a problem. It was worth it though.

But also I'm so sorry I didn't have time to send extra emails today so if you wrote me and I didn't respond, I'm sorry! I will try and respond next week when I hopefully have more time!

Love you guys!

Hermana Cazier 

Pics

1-2 from the hike this morning 

3. Virgilio got BAPTIZED!!!

4. The four pitted cereza

5. Another hike pic