Mayka got baptized! Quick recap of her story: her best friend Emely got baptized about a month and a half ago. Mayka was sometimes around during lessons but showed little interest and was very skeptical about the Book of Mormon. Then she started to read it and was intrigued, but scared of commitment. She was on date, off date. Liked church but didn't want to commit to come every Sunday, was already obeying the Word of Wisdom but didn't want to never be able to drink coffee again. Finally President gave me some advice about teaching intentionally and I tried it out with Mayka (the Spirit helped a lot). Without us asking, she told us she wanted to get baptized. Picked her date and steadfastly prepared until she entered the font dressed in white. I am so happy.
I was forced to sing a solo in front of a lot of Dominicans. That actually was not a dream of mine, but it went well. Somehow we also got roped into performing another song with the stake choir without having practiced it, and no one told me that only the altos were gonna sing the first verse...
I learned how to make empanadas ticas. At the end of my mission when I make a list of important things I learned on my mission, this will probably be on it.
We put five people on date! Xaviel, Laura, Tata, Ashly, and Génesis. It's gonna be a challenge to prepare them, but they've got the desire and we can work with that. When the Spirit told me to invite them, I did it without thinking about the fact that one of them is unconfirmedly but probably heavily addicted to cigarettes and multiple of them are likely breaking the law of chastity. I just asked and they said yes. That was really refreshing because we've been extending a lot of bautismal invitations recently to people who seem more prepared than this family, but we keep getting rejected. But even those who seem far away from the covenant path have the opportunity to start trekking towards it.
We got transfer news and I'M GONNA BE AN HERMANA LÍDER!!! This has been my dream since day one of the mission. I'm so excited! It's gonna be really fun to go on exchanges with my hermanas, and I'm also hoping that I'll be able to be a lifeline for some who might be struggling. I relied on my hermana leader a lot this last transfer so I hope to be able to pass that support along to someone else.
AND my comp is gonna be Hermana Lee. We came into the country at the same time and she's legendary. I'm so excited to get to work with her and just have the most diligent, epic transfer ever. I'm so excited that I get to spend Christmas with Hermana Lee.
And probably two other hermanas. Technically haven't received any confirmation on that from the APs who as usual are silently carrying out Presidente's will. But they brought a bunch of furniture to our house on Friday for two more missionaries. I'm a little scared because our house only has one bathroom, but Christmas is gonna be a PARTY.
Also, I totally had a dream that Hermana Lee was gonna be my companion. So now I'm fully expecting everything else in that dream to come true. Including a monkey moracho band singing Praise to the Man at the huge Catholic church outside my window and us baptizing their whole congregation. Stay tuned.
I also got to speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday. I love speaking and I got to talk about the work of salvation. I found a lot of good stuff in my studies and when I practiced my talk I went for 20 minutes straight, so I had to do a lot of cutting to (almost) stay in the 10 I was given. I won't give you guys the whole talk here, but I found written out the four parts of the work of salvation and I thought it was interesting:
• Living the gospel of Jesus Christ
• Caring for those in need
• Inviting all to receive the gospel
• Uniting families for eternity
The reason we do this work (we being members of Jesus Christ's church, not missionaries) is because the worth of souls is great in the sight of God and He wants all of His children to return to live with Him. There is nothing more important. President Nelson has said that every time we do anything that helps anyone on either side of the veil to make and keep covenants, we are gathering Israel. I invite each of you guys to take time this Christmas season to do something in each of those four categories of the work of salvation, and I promise that your efforts will yield fruits and you will be filled with the pure love of Christ.
"This is my glory, that perhaps I may be an instrument in the hands of God to bring some soul to repentance; and this is my joy." (Alma 29:9)
If you take me up on my four faceted challenge I would love to hear about how it goes!
I love all of you so much! Have a fantastic week and enjoy the snow for me if you live in a place with snow.
Hermana Cazier
Pics!
1-2. making empanadas Costa Rican style
3. best part of that Chrsitmas concert we participated in was definitely when they broke out the drums and everyone started singing this song about burritos that I will learn the words to later
4-5. Mayka's baptism!!! I think she looks like a warrior in these pictures
6. How are we making the same face? (also note this comical Christmas combo)
7. Last Sunday selfie
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