Ben's Mission to Nicaragua: Enrique's Baptism

So this week has been pretty awesome with Ernesto and Alison. They are very quick learners, and they have lots of knowledge of the church already. When we talked to them about the plan of salvation, they had many opinions that were in line with church doctrine. In one lesson we only had like 10 minutes and l made the mistake of mentioning temple work. Not that it is a mistake to mention it, just that they are the kind of people that have lots of questions, and of course they would have questions about temple work. That is not a 10 minute lesson.... But we managed to do a decent job in 10 minutes. At least enough for them to be slightly satisfied. But they want to understand more. They came to Enrique's baptism, and helped us out by setting up some chairs in the room even. They are very cool and like to talk with the members, I can see them becoming great additions to the ward family.

Antonio Vigil is a new guy that we met this week, he is actually really awesome, and already knows a ton about the church. He contacted us, but oddly enough he is a good friend of our mission leader, Heyler, and his brother Leonard. When we taught him, it was pretty interesting. He works in and always hangs out at a gym, so we go there to teach him. He had an interesting doubt that I haven't really had to answer yet on the mission. He was curious why in the Bible, the names of all of the cities are the same as today, but that in the Book of Mormon there are no cities name Zarahemla or anything like that. Think on that one. It really has to do with the fact that almost all of the people that knew the names of the cities were killed off, and then many years later Columbus came and renamed everything. But the cities in the Bible have always been largely populated, and no one has had to come up with any new names. He also told us about Lehi's dream. Remember this was the first visit!! He is a very smart guy! We left him with some great answers and he is excited to read 3 Nephi 11 to learn about when Christ came to the Americas. Nice!

This week we had a ton of meetings! We went to Esteli, Leon, and Chinandega this week, and all on different days. The idea of the meeting is that everyone is using the correct form in the district meetings and that they are doing practices as well so that we can become master teachers. More than anything I enjoy it because I get to see all the missionaries and also I get so see the areas! We went to Esteli, Chinandega, and Leon. It was actually the first time that I went to Leon in my whole mission! And I really like the city. To eat lunch, we went to this place in the center of town and there was a little plaza that reminded me of the place there in Sac where the good bread store is. (Lohman's Plaza) It wasn't really the same but that was what came to mind there. Chinandega and Leon are really really hot, I am kind of glad I have never actually been called to serve there, because it is hot enough in Managua, and it is hotter in those 2 cities. Anyway, I took a little tour of the mission this week.

So this week was Enrique's baptism! He is so awesome! On Thursday we went with Elder Lee, the senior couple missionary to visit him. Elder Lee is the one that has to do the baptismal interviews for our possibilities, so he came with his broken Spanish that he learned in Mexico quite a few years ago and did the interview! And it turned out well. Enrique said that he was just a little worried that he wasn't ready yet or something but we talked with him and reminded him all that he had learned. And reminded him as well that baptism is the first step, and it comes before the Holy Ghost, the Aaronic priesthood, the Melchizedek priesthood, the temple, the mission, marriage and the sacrament every week. So it is important that he can do it. At that point all doubt left him and he said he was ready to do it on Friday at 7 PM.

So then came baptism day, and Satan was not sleeping. At 6:20, Elder Ramirez calls and says that there is no water in the chapel and that we would have to find water from the members or to do it in another chapel. So Elder Boice and I raced over and analyzed the situation. We got to the tank to see and there was still a little bit of water, it just wasn't high enough to reach the tube where the chapel connections are. So with the help of Heyler and Leonard, 6 of us begin a process of pulling water out with two 5-gallon buckets and rope, and the other 4 carried garbage bins full of water from the tank outside to the baptismal font. When Enrique arrived, one of the awesome parts was that he saw what was going on and immediately jumped in to help out! He is an active 17 year old boy so his strength was greatly appreciated! That is pretty cool to say that the one that was going to get baptized help overcome the obstacles Satan was trying to put. So like I said, the tank was practically empty when we started, but we managed to fill it up to about knee height. Yes that is really low. But it is enough to submerge a body, I was a witness so I can testify of that one!

Here was the water pulling out process...one bucket at a time!

This is as full as we got the water. But they managed to do it! As Ernesto, an investigator, put it: "It was a little different the way that it was done, but in the end it brings the same result!"

The water level only made it up to here...

At the end of the baptism, right before the closing hymn, Enrique asked if he could have some time to share his testimony, so he got up and shared a cool little testimony. He basically said that the power of the scriptures and Jesus Christ are grand because when he had some bad habits in his life, reading the scriptures helped him lose those bad habits! We were all pretty impressed that he wanted to get up and share. It was awesome.

Such a happy and hard worked for baptism pic!

This week I decided that I needed to do something to help me finish off my last few months of the mission at full force! I made a small list of things that I am not allowed to talk about so that I can keep myself from any of the major or small distractions about home. I call it my "consagration list." They are basically the things that I am putting on the alter of God so that I fulfill in my commitment to serve everything until the end with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength! And I actually really like it! Sometimes there are small things that we don't want to give up in life, but when we do we actually start to feel better! It is a great feeling!

Love,

Elder Moser

Other pics this week...

The oh so famous Huembes. It is like what you know as a flee market I guess. It is just one gigantic market. We come here almost every Pday for almost everything.