It's already going by so fast I can't even believe it. Well this past week was mais o menos. My back has been getting worse so I've had to talk to Irma Fluckiger and the mission doctor a bunch but we're taking care of it. The only thing was I had to spend a few days in the house. It was booooring. It made me miss having a laptop. We couldn't do very much missionary work becuase we were stuck inside. I did, however, get to go to Lisbon on Thursday to apply for my residency card! It was fun. I got to spend the day with Irma Barlow and Irma Davis and some elders. We had a really great time catching up.I'm gonna have to keep this weeks' letter a little short though because I don't have a ton of time.
I just wanna tell a story real quick. So, I don't know if any of you will remember but, in my first transfer I told about when we baptized this little girl named Dania. If you look on the blog it's under the post titled, "Not this past week but the one before"
Dania was baptized pretty quickly but she had already been attending church with the entire family for months. She was so so sweet and wanted to be baptized but with the confusion of the pink-wash no one had followed up and we didn't realize what was going on. Well, we prayed during weekly planning about which of our investigators should be invited to be baptized. I felt so strongly that we needed to ask about Dania. When we asked her to be baptized, she accepted and was baptized on a Wednesday so she could get the Holy Ghost that Sunday during church. We pushed for her to be baptized THAT WEEK because the next week she would be leaving to go live with her mom in France.
When we first asked the bishop about baptizing her that week, he and a lot of other people in the ward were not happy. They said that we were just baptizing her right before she left so we could get the numbers and that we didn't actually care about her. Because we were going to baptize her and then send her to live without any support in going to church.
We were so sad about the situation because for months we felt guilty, like maybe we had done something wrong in baptizing her. We didn't know if her mom would let her go to church there in France. But, she wanted to be baptized so badly so we proceded. For MONTHS it got brought up in ward council as an example of how we need to be better and not try to baptize kids without their parents too. Or as examples of how baptisms were only numbers to us.
Well, yesterday at chruch, we noticed that she had come and was sitting in church with the family she used to live with! We were so excited and figured she must have come back to visit, or decided that she wanted to keep attending school here in Portugal. Well, yesterday was fast and testimony meeting. Amid all the adults getting up and talking, while I was writing something in my planner, I didn't see who was standing at the pulpit next. All of the sudden, I heard a little girl start talking. I looked up to see who it was.
Dania stood up and bore her testimony. The first thing she said was, "I know the Church is true". She said she loved the church and was so grateful for her baptism. She said that the past three months with her mom in France were really hard because her mom didn't want to come to church with her, and she missed going. She said that the longer she was with her mom, the worse she felt because she knew she should be at church. She knew that she wanted to be with a family who kept the standards of the church. So, she decided to tell her mom she wanted to move back to Portugal so she could live with that family again. She knew they would help her go to church and she felt happier when they all read scriptures together and prayed together. This girl is ten!
The bishop was crying. I was a mess. It was amazing. This ten year old girl decided she would rather live in a home that had the gospel than live with her own mother. I had some repenting to do for EVER doubting how hard we pushed her baptism. If she hadn't received the Holy Ghost and been able to feel the spirit, and notice when it was missing in her home, she might not have ever made the decision to come back and be active in the church.
I know the Lord used me as an instrument in his hands in that instance. I am so grteful that I was able to stay in this area long enough to see how this turned out. I am so grateful for prayer and revelation and this opportunity to help people, like precious ten year old Dania, be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. This Church is TRUE!
EVERYONE can know that it's true if they pray about it and realy ask God if it's right. I love this gospel and I love my Heavenly Father and I freaking love Dania!
And I love you guys too!
Irma Dean
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