"Just Keep Swimming, Just Keep Swimming"

What a week! So much crazy stuff has happened but, first off the amazing news... RAFAEL GOT BAPTIZED!!! It was so amazing! He was so happy to be baptized and it was so special to see how excited he and his mom were! Now I am going to share with you the craziness of all that happened in order for him to get baptized! 

It was one peaceful Tuesday night, we were sitting at our weekly meeting with our ward mission leader talking about all of the wonderful miracles and things that had happened that last week. Hermano Najara (our ward mission leader) then told us, "Oh by the way, I called to reserve the baptismal font for Rafael for 3:00 p.m. on Saturday but they told me we had to do it at 5:00 pm, so I told them that was fine".

That conversation was all in Spanish so I quickly turned to my companion to make sure I understood and we looked at each other in a panic. We couldn't change the time at all! Rafael's mom had already been trying to get work off for that time and we had a ward Relief Society party at 5:30 that would conflict with many wanting to attend the baptism! It was not going to work. The stake lady who was over the scheduling would not budge. She told us that we had to do it at that time to save water because there was another baptism happening that night, which was understandable... but THIS IS SOMEONE’S SALVATION!!! We can save water another day!

Mom Note: Our family got a HUGE kick out of this letter from McKay. Because of my current calling as the Stake Primary President and trying to schedule 200 children in our stake to get baptized this year with a font that takes 3 hours to fill, I realized while reading I am THAT Stake Lady! We are a little more forgiving in these situations. :)

Back to Hermana Hadley:

Ok anyways, bless her heart but she wouldn't budge, so we came up with a plan. We did everything in our power until we took this problem up with the big man, President Henrie. Before we called him, we decided to have a backup to present to him. So, we called a member in the ward and asked for a favor. At first, they thought we were joking but after we explained they agreed. We had a secret backup plan that was all ready to go. We called President and the conversation went a little like this... 

President: "Hello Hermanas, how can I help you?"

Us: "Well President we have a little problem, the stake won't let us baptize our investigator at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday (we then explained the whole situation)"

President: "Alright Hermanas, well what can I do to help."

Us: "Well we have 2 plans, one of them is having you make some calls to the stake to let us baptize Rafael at that time and the other is....... (cue the drum roll) we have it all arranged for him to get baptized in a member’s swimming pool." 

President: "Well Hermanas I am impressed. Good job at using your resources. I will make some calls and then we will see, but good job!"

Very long story short, we were pretty dang close to baptizing Rafael in a swimming pool. But after pulling some strings we are happy to announce that Rafael was baptized in a font, at 3:00 on Saturday! :) He has been such a great kid and he has such a great future ahead of him. We know because Satan was throwing a little tizzy fit all week, but we kept swimming, almost literally, and saw all the blessings of it!

I am so glad that I have been blessed enough to teach Rafael. My favorite quote from him this week was, "Wait, you don't watch TV as a missionary? Even the Elders??? Well, I guess I have all this time before I am 18 to watch TV so I can probably last 2 years without it"! Look at him already planning for a mission!!!

Thanks for all your prayers I have truly felt them so much this week! Love you guys and keep swimming and going strong! The gospel is true!!

Love,

Hermana H

THE BIG DAY!!!

My New District!

This awesome dog we played with during Knockout!

Hermana Nelson looking diligently at our map 

because you can't use a GPS when you are on bike....new life skill.

PICTURE OF A CAKE COMING SOON  :)

The Cake at our Relief Society activity! It looked and tasted amazing!!!

Rafael got Baptized! :)

Rafael and his certificate that he had finsished reading the whole Book of Mormon!!! He bore his testimony about it this Sunday in Relief Society after he was confirmed!