Buenos Dias!
This has been a crazy and awesome week here in El
Milagro. This week we almost had the baptism of Diana Loyaga. She is an awesome
investigator who I have told quite a few stories about. Well this was the week
of her baptismal date, and she was more than ready but she still had to
overcome the challenge of her mentally abusive boyfriend and her family not
wanting her to get baptized. She is 24 and so legally the family is not a major
problem and we believed that if she could get past the problems of leaving her
old church behind and working everything out with her boyfriend that everything
would be alright. Well... it almost worked out perfectly. She has received so
many answers that the church is true that she knows everything is true and she
wants to be baptized, the problem is that she has been dating a mentally
abusive controlling boyfriend for 6 years who through constant insults has
reached the point where she cannot make a decision without his approval, and he
does not approve of her getting baptized in another church. Despite her being
incredibly unhappy and being absolutely controlled by him she has grown to just
accept that this is what she deserves and so they had plans to get married. In
very soft terms he told her that if she gets baptized they are done for and he
would rather marry a bunch of other horrible things before marrying her. So
this is what we had to work with. Thursday Diana had a lesson which finished
with her deciding to accept the baptismal interview which she passed with
flying colors, but then Friday she got a little discouraged for some of the
things her boyfriend was saying to her. All throughout the day Friday we spent
on the phone with her trying to help her find the strength to stand up to her
boyfriend and most of the morning Saturday we were doing the same. Although as
missionaries we are not really responsible to be metling in her relationships
we are here to help her to come unto Christ, and by us helping her gain the
courage to come unto Christ she knew taking care of the other part is a
necessary step. It seemed like it was almost futile until our pensionista
decided to have a girl to girl talk explaining how she deserves better and how
she should put God ahead of an abuse boyfriend. Well despite lots of tears
Diana called her boyfriend and said she was getting baptized no matter what. He
broke up with her over the phone following by immediately insulting her and
deleting her from every social media he has, but she was still determined to
get baptized as soon as possible. We quickly rushed to get everything at the
chapel ready while she got changed and then we were just waiting. Although the
baptism was spontaneous members began to show up and we were just waiting and
waiting. We called her and she said she was waiting for her sisters, so we
decided to wait some more. We continued to wait and she still did not arrive so
we went to go call her and in that exact moment we got a call from an unknown
number. We quickly answered it, and it was her mom and she was not too happy
with us. She told us we are liars and that she regrets ever opening her doors
to us. Believe it or not, just days before she had invited us over and we
enjoyed a lovely lunch with the whole family. Apparently Diana's parents got
home and went ballistic and freaked out. They thought she was going crazy for
getting baptized too fast and for breaking up with her longtime boyfriend who
has a wedding, house, and car waiting for her. It seems they were not too
worried about her actual happiness though. Although she is an adult, they
decided to lock her in the house so she physically could not leave. Although
she had her phone and called to talk to us and has all the intention in the
world to get baptized, she physically cannot leave her house to get baptized.
This is the situation we are now in. She overcame one obstacle and another
presents itself, but as Elder Uceda taught us, we should expect opposition, and
this I hope will only help her grow her testimony. Although she did not get
baptized I am still so incredibly happy to see the change that has started in
her, to see her breaking out of her shell to start making decisions for her own
happiness. Hopefully she will get baptized one of these days this week.
This week in my personal studies I read Alma 32:27
''But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment
upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more
than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a
manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words. ''. Diana has
experimented upon his words and is now trying to exercise her faith and act.
Although she has received tons of opposition from every which way she is now
taking the necessary steps to follow Christ and the things that she knows will
make her happy. Recently in a conference address Elder Uceda, a general
authority and church leader from Peru, taught us that we should always expect
opposition especially when they stakes are at their highest. Right now the
stakes are at their highest for Diana so please pray for her so that he family
will calm down a little bit and that those around her will allow her to be
happy.
This week was Elder Nuñez' last week here in the
mission and by Tuesday afternoon Elder Nuñez will be landing in Buenos Aires,
finishing his two yearlong mission. I have absolutely loved my time here with
Elder Nuñez' and I have not only learned so much from him about how to be a
missionary and disciple of Christ, but I have also gained a lifelong best friend.
Today I met up with my new companion Elder Alcarraz from Apurimac, Peru, who
also is going to be finishing his mission after this transfer. Looks like I
might be here in El Milagro for a little time more. Great things are going to
happy these next few weeks and keep Milagro in your prayers so we can continue
to see some miracles.
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