5 March 2014

Dear Family,

If I were to title my emails, this one would be: CLARA DURAN. She is a 22 year old that we have been teaching for about a month now. She is the girl friend to a return missionary in the branch (Lindsey, she is dating Elder Santoya!!). He had already been sharing the gospel with her before we started. She always reads books backwards so she was already in Helaman when we met her. We have hardly had to teach her....she teaches us. We would leave the pamphlets with her, she would read/study them, and she would teach the lesson to us when we got there. GOLDEN!!! She went to church every week and recognizes the spirit there. She actually puts the Lord first in her life, which is something that I have never really seen before in investigators. She truly is amazing. Last Wednesday we were teaching her again and trying to help her realized that she is ready for baptism. We have taught her everything but she kept saying that she just wasn't ready yet. Finally we helped her realize that she was ready and asked her to pick a date to be baptized. She looked at the calendar and chose the 3rd of March, in five days. She passed her interview with flying colors and was all ready to take the big step. As always, opposition arouse the last 24 hours before her baptism but she wouldn't let it sway her decision to be baptized. So the baptism was to be Monday night at 7pm. That day had been crazy because of different things and because we had been waiting to find out transfers. But we started working like normal. We were in a lesson that was in a super far corner of our area when Sister Pocock remembered that no one had filled the baptismal font. It was 6:15pm. We abruptly ended the lesson and flew to the church as fast as we could. We turned on the font but it is a 2.5 hour process to fill. Sister Pocock and I started filling up buckets from every spout in the church and dumping the buckets in the font. We called the other sister missionaries to rush to our aid. Sister Patterson was even filling up drinking cups two at a time and dumping them in. ha! Finally, after about 20 minutes we realized that there was no way that we were going to be able to fill it up in time. We all got together and brainstormed. Sister Patterson came up with the brilliant idea to call the fire department. They are actually teaching one of the fire fighters right now so they called him up, he was miraculously working at the time, and he said they would come over. We waited for about 15 minutes but the fire truck finally came and they filled the font with the fire hose. It was awesome!! Clara herself held the hose to fill it up.

We were all worried that she would be upset with us but it all turned out fine. The baptism only started 30 minutes late, which is actually very normal here in Belize.

Clara, her boyfriend Moses, and her baby Edliani

 The service started and the Spirit was just so strong. I don't know if I have ever met someone who was so very ready to be baptized. The Spirit was so strong that she and some of the other people there were actually trembling. The service was short and sweet and then we ate some delicious dip and chips and home made chocolate ice cream. It was an amazing baptism of an awesome person, with a story that I will never forget!

On an interesting note, I have not been transferred. I was sure that either me or Sister Pocock would be changed but we were surprised to find out that none of the four sisters here in Orange Walk had changes. Crazy! Who knows, maybe I will end my mission here. haha! We were sad to find out that our district leader, Elder Olson, was transferred all the way back to El Salvador. Crazy! We sure will miss him. But that is just how that mission is, I guess.

I love you all. Thanks for always emailing me. Have a great week!

Sista Heap