Monday, February 26, 2012

This week we had a baptism!!!! It was very special for me; I found her on the street, contacted her, taught her with Elder Baltazar, and I was the one who baptized her :) She cried during the ordinance. I am very happy because I honestly think that she will not only be a baptism but a firm member in the church. There was a huge problem in Rio the past few years. With the old president of the mission, Rio became #1 in baptisms per month in all of Brazil. This was amazing because it was last, #27 before him. The only problem was retention of these members was only about 40%, and Rio was #27 in retention. Now with president Lima our retention is #8 in all of Brazil, so things are getting way better. Anyways, I think she will stay with the church because she has a firm testimony in what we taught. We were supposed to have 2 baptisms but the other man who was supposed to be baptized fell through. Ah well. We should be having another baptism this coming week already, but we will see. I'll let you guys know next week :)

   Oh, our hours switched again so we jumped back an hour. The difference between us should only be 5 hours now.

   I haven't felt it too strong, that this is where I'm supposed to be, but I have had experiences in my life and other things like that that I was able to share with people and help them strengthen their testimonies. Like this one recent convert who was having testimony problems the other day. I was able to relate an experience I had which helped her out. But so far, nothing extremely powerful, other than I am a missionary and Preaching the Gospel is my job, no matter where in the world I happen to be.

   So our numbers in terms of lessons and contacts weren't too good this week. We were busy trying to firm up two baptisms and one fell through. But we had about 15 lessons this week and 7 new investigators which is pretty terrible. Normally with every investigator we teach we mark baptismal dates in the first meeting. Firmly we are teaching about 4 people, but every day we find new ones and get rid of old ones who don't want the lessons anymore or who aren't progressing. Well, I'm on my last minute and I want to send this one off. I love you all, and thank you for the scripture dad I will study 2nd Nephi 9 today.

Elder Baldwin