Elder Vanderlinden - Uruguay Montevideo Mission

Elder Ward, Jorge, and me!

       Jorge got baptized!!! This last Saturday we spent practically the whole day preparing the baptismal service. However, the hot water was barely trickling in the font. Even just a few minutes before the baptism, there was hardly any water in the font. My comp and I were praying that somehow the water would fill up in time. We started the service and when we opened the doors to the font, it was filled to the brim. Some people even commented that there was a lot more water than normal, which was a miracle. The baptism went great and on Sunday I was lucky enough to participate in his confirmation. What a solid end to a looong week.

I say this week has been long, because for some reason, this week we have found all of the people that don`t want to hear our message. It seemed like every door that I knocked on, there was someone waiting for me to tell me that I was wasting my time. Everyone took shots at our message. I walked away many times feeling sad. The reason that I was sad was because I was sorry that the people were so confused. However, after they didn`t accept our message, I tried to calmly share my testimony, tell them that God loves them, then move on. I know that there are people prepared to receive our message, I just need to pass these tests to show that I am worthy and ready to find them.

Elder Ward and I had some discouraging days, but we also had many miracles take place. I would like to share another one that happened yesterday. Last night we went to a lesson with a complete family and their neighbor that we are teaching. (They went to church!!). They were not home...so we walked away disappointed. My companion suggested that we should offer a prayer so that they would be home. We said the prayer and were convinced that because of our faith, they would be home when we walked around the block to check again. We walked back to the house and  we knocked on the door....nobody answered. We knocked again, but still nobody answered. We slowly walked down the street....completely deflated. I was trying to think of something to tell my comp, and I broke the silence by saying, "We just have to accept the will and the timing of the Lord.” Before I could go on, a car honked at us from down the street. It was the family! We had a great lesson. We invited them to be baptized, and they accepted. Yippee!

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Vanderlinden

Quote of the week: "I have learned that not shrinking, is more important than surviving." Neal A Maxwell