August 12, 2024 THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER LXXXXV

august 12, 2023.. the baptism of 2 of our friends in vicente noble.. and from there i thought we would be having many baptisms in that area.. we had lots of people progressing, and we had people with dates to be baptized.. my comp at the time was elder almonte, and i had just arrived to the area 1 week before.. 2 of them decided they weren't ready, and they didn't know enough to get baptized.. the rest didn't come to church consistently enough.. later elder gilbert showed up, and we had some struggles with his health, and the branch.. but we still were working with people who were going towards baptism.. people who were very close, just needed that extra little push.. buttt at the end of my time there still no one else had been baptized.. i left that area with high hopes, thinking my next would be better.. that it would be more open to accept the gospel.. and at first i was with elder then.. he had a couple.. issues.. and had to leave the area early.. elder beutler showed up, and we started to work harrrd.. harder than i ever had in my mission.. finding mountains of people, inviting them to church, working on trying to grow the branch and help it.. but the branch didn't want our help.. or at least they weren't ready for it.. so even tho we had various people on date, we even had the guy who separated from his non-wife wife lady so that he could get baptized.. but he ended up working on sundays too much to be able to get baptized at that time.. and even tho we tried to put some more people on date, we didn't see any baptisms.. and then i came to manoguayabo, and my comp was elder cranmer.. and we kept working harrrd.. we were helping people recieve baptismal dates, people were coming to church finally, but the people we were working with kept falling off.. alcohol, fear, and satan.. and i was just confused.. without hope.. this might be bad, but i always say that the mission had helped me grow my faith in Jesus Christ so much.. but it has taught me to not put my faith in people.. because people aren't perfect, and they'll let you down.. sooo we'll see if i can figure out trusting people a little more.. but anyways, august 10, 2024.. 12 months after those 2 baptisms we had in vicente noble.. 2 areas later.. 5 comps later.. 363 days later.. we had the privilege of attending the baptism of our friend rosalina.. and thattt was a struggle.. when i got to this area she had contacted the missionaries when she saw a facebook post thingy, 3 weeks before.. so when i got there we started teaching her, and she was learning a lot, but she hadn't ever come to church.. sooo we worked a lot with her, and she finally came to church.. the thing about people coming to church, is that most people won't come.. but you can get a lot of people to come once.. the really difficult part is getting them to keep coming, and consistently.. sooo we worked on that, bringing lots of members to her house, we brought her to a baptism a month or 2 ago, and it was going well.. until basically we had nothing else left to teach her.. she knew everything, she was coming to church, and we started asking her what was stopping her from being baptized.. and she had lots of little things that were stopping her, and it looked pretty difficult.. but we kept working on the little things.. annnd she finally got to the point where she said that there was nothing more stopping her from being baptized.. except that she still didn't wanna put a date on.. sooo we just keppppt on trying and trying and trying.. and finally about 3 weeks ago she accepted a date on the 10 of august.. sooo we planned the baptism, and tried to invite people to come and stuff.. annd not that many people came, cuz she wanted to do it at 9am.. not that that's a reason to not come.. mostly it's just the ward is.. lazy.. we're working on it.. but all her friends from the ward came, all the people who helped us to help her feel comfortable at church, and stuff like that.. and it was a great baptism.. our chapel tho isn't a chapel.. it's just an old government building.. there's no baptismal font.. so we have to go to either the ZLs chapel or to the chapel of the sisters that are in our district.. so we planned to go to the ZLs chapel cuz it is closer and she knows them too, but the morning of there seemed to be an issue.. the drain in the font wasn't.. draining.. and there was some nasty water in there.. sooo the Zls tried to figure that out for like an hour, before we just decided it would probably be better to go to the sisters chapel.. so i called them like 2 hours before the baptism was supposed to start to ask if we could use their chapel.. which actually worked out, cuz they had a baptism later that day, so they were going to go to the church to fill up the font anyways.. and their font fills up super fast (normally it takes like 4 hours or more) but there's was full in like 45 min!!.. sooo due to the early hour and the last second chapel change, we had a low attendance.. but quality people, so it worked out.. i kinda didn't expect rosalina to get up at the end to bear her testimony (we always invite them to, but a lot of people don't want to).. but she did.. and she talked about her experience learning with the missionaries, and church.. and she said she was grateful we had lots of patients with her, but she knows we were also at times confused and a little frustrated as to why she wasn't getting baptized.. because she spent 4 and a half months to decide to be baptized.. but she was ready a lot earlier than that.. she said she knew it was the right path, and she knew that she needed to get baptized, but there was still some part of her that didn't want to change.. didn't want to let go of the things of the world.. she didn't want to make a covenant and then feel like she was trapped by the commandments and laws of God.. but how often do we do that? how often to we fall short of our potential because of fear, or temptation, or pride.. uhhh a lot.. or at least for me it happens a lot.. and even tho i might have felt a little confused and frustrated when she knew what she needed to do, but she just wasn't doing it, God knows that feeling a whole lot more than i do.. but the difference, is that God is a lot more pacient than i am.. and instead of banging his head on the wall and wanting to scream at us (i never banged my head on the wall or wanted to scream at her, it's just an example.. probably) he paciently waits for us to make the right choice.. all he wants to do is congratulate us for doing a good job, for choosing the right, and he's sooo happy when we do.. but he doesn't stop loving us when we fail.. when we purposely do what we aren't supposed to.. sooo i wanna work on that more.. doing the right thing because it's right, and not letting myself get caught up in worldly things that will distract me from my purpose.. that's all i got for this week, have a great week, love you guys! omni 1:26 And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.