Yay! Aimeé finally got baptized!
(Here it’s winter, so it’s gray and rainy almost constantly. Personally I really like this weather because I like storms, but it’s not great weather for baptisms in water that can’t be heated!)
Aimeé is a 13-year-old who has been going to church for more than four months now and has been waiting to get baptized for about three! She was going to be baptized when Elder Davila and I were companions but due to some health problems in her family her parents couldn’t go to her baptism, so we just kept rescheduling… until recently her mom had some time and we had her baptism! It was exciting, so that was the highlight of our week here!
As for the most crazy moment of my week, that was when I went to the pool on Sunday.
…I’ll give it a second to let that statement sink in…
Now, for anyone that knows Mormons and/or mission rules, they’re all thinking, “WHAAAT?!” Sunday is the Sabbath; this is the day when we should take a break from everything and use it to thank our Heavenly Father and our Savior for what They’ve done for us. For that, we don’t make people work by shopping or going to places like public pools (so that everyone can have this break)… And also, as a missionary, I’m forbidden from swimming for health reasons (we just want to make sure we don’t end up with any water-related accidents). So I would have been doing something really bad, except that I did it because I was trying to guide our investigator’s son back to the capilla.
…Now another question: What was one of our investigator’s sons doing in the pool on Sunday, and why did we go after him…?
…That answer will be revealed next week! ¡Chao!
…Nah, just kidding! No, we went after him because he’s autistic and basically lives in his own world, so while his mom, our investigator, was in her class we, with a few other members of the ward, were keeping an eye on him as he played with bottles and things like that (he’s 14, but he acts like a little kid). Here we are:
The problem was that he got bored and went for a walk around the capilla — and then outside it! It has a giant fence to keep people from vandalizing it, but he just left through one of the gates and headed off to the pool next to the capilla! When we realized this we all had to run off after him! I imagine we made a very strange scene: three people in suits running off after a kid as he wandered off to the pool! Then, when we caught up to him, we found him climbing down into the pool! (Luckily it didn’t have any water in it!) He didn’t really listen to us when we told him to climb out (still in his own little world), so I climbed in after him and then, when he saw that I followed, he got out. We guided him back to the church and stayed with him until it ended, and thus ended our adventure in the pool! (It was great because we were all laughing about how riduculous this whole thing was! It’ll be interesting to see how next week goes!)
I’ll finish up with the quote of the week:
“Usted no tiene el poder de retroceder el tiempo — ¡sólo yo!”
— Élder Schroeder, capacitador
[Translation: “You do not have the power to turn back time – just me!”]
The story behind this quote: When Elder Pereira and I are practicing teaching lessons, we use hand symbols to put the practice in “Pause” or to “Play” the practice (to resume it) or to “Stop” it (and thus finish). We can both use these freely, but the other day my companion wanted to start the lesson over; this quote was my response! As the capacitador, (and as his “father”), only I can decide if we start the lesson over or not! (I guess I’m the Chronos of practices! Awesome!)
But yeah, it’s been great! Thanks for reading!
— Elder Schroeder