Week 47: What the Week!

Well, what the week haha. Wow. I seriously feel as if we've just been battling the adversary all week long, more so than usual.
Mom - I'm glad you're doing okay then!  And Christmas is around the corner, so I'll do my best to find you each something cool. :) But thanks for the happy birthday! My "golden birthday" as it's called haha, turning 20 on the 20th. And I hope you have fun in the next few days! HALLOWEEN!! Haha :) Love you, Mom. :)
Dad - the bridges look good! I hope everything ends up really great for Halloween! You should send pictures next week (or when you can) of all the stuff out. I'm excited to hear about how it all works out! Those Haunted Houses sounds great!! Hopefully they'll still be around when I get back, because I'd love to go and visit them. And darn, I was hoping BYU could pull it out against Notre Dame :( Oh well… they only have to be good when I'm there haha ;)

Marilee - I will be writing back to you shortly. :)

Anyway, WOW what a week. We did get a referral from the Elders in Adjuntas of a family of 9 that they had been teaching that moved to Peñuelas. NINE!! We were ecstatic! And then we found out that they live in this mountainous, hilly area called Rucio (each municipio has barrios in it, and one is Rucio inside of Peñuelas), and it's a little far. But we went there and we looked all over for them, and couldn't find them. :( I was pretty sad. We still haven't found them. And all week, we called members, and a few times actually set up times to go with them, but almost each time, they weren't there when we went to pick them up, or something else happened, or else the investigators weren't even there. Frustrating.

Then the adventure began on Saturday morning. We were supposed to have a baptism Saturday evening; the baptism of Carmelo Borrero. His interview was scheduled for Saturday morning, so we went with the Yauco elders to find him, and he knew we were coming, but he wasn't at his house. So we looked all over the place and finally found him. He said to come back at 3:00 to do the interview, because he was going to the clinic. Okay. So we came back at 3:00, with the baptism scheduled for 5:00. He wasn't there again!! We searched high and low, praying, being led by the Spirit, until finally Elder Durfee and I (our companions went to fill the font) just decided to wait outside his house. A few minutes later he walked by and motioned to us to go to his house. By now it's 4:50. He was interviewed and he passed, and then took a quick shower and we went to the church.

But wait, it gets even better.

Bishop's brother had had a heart attack, so bishop was in Yauco in the hospital and wasn't going to be able to come to the baptism. He was the one who was supposed to baptize Carmelo!! And Carmelo was pretty upset about that. On top of that, his girlfriend, the daughter of bishop, and him had broken up like, Friday night, and they were fighting and there was this whole big situation, and so he told us that it hurt him to look at her and he didn't want to be baptized with that kind of anxiety and sadness and frustration in his heart. So we let him go. The font filled, his girlfriend crying, and he just walked home. But the members that did come sang happy birthday and we ate some sandwiches and stuff. But it just wasn't the same without the baptism.

What's left of a cookies and cream cake.

So Sunday morning we pass by his house before church, and we're baptizing him this Saturday now, so we hope and pray that everything works well for that. Basically the way I look at this week is that the enemy worked really hard to just destroy everything, and basically won. It was tough. But Sunday afternoon made up for it, at least a bit. We went with the first counselor to that sweet family I told you about last week, and had a really great lesson with the Mom, daughter, and one of the sons. It was a great lesson, and she said she would try and come to church! So that was sweet. :) And then last night I went to the Santiago's house and they had bought a cake for me, and we sang and had a good time. :) So no worries, I had a decent birthday. :)

Anyway, a crazy week. I'm hoping that this week is a bit better. It looks better, and I'm really hoping that it turns out so! But I thank you for your prayers and for everything that you do. :) I love you all so much! Thank you for your support!! I love you!

Con mucho amor,

Elder Kimball Ray Gardner

Puerto Rico San Juan Mission