Okay, so first things first. I am getting transferred to Edinburg
to be the DL there. I am super excited and scared at the same time
because gaining the trust of a District can be tough at times
considering they have no idea who you are or what you are about but I
survived it twice now so I can definitely do it again. I am going to
miss this little place here in Raymondville. If you had asked me if I
was going to miss it 2 transfers ago I would have laughed I didn't think
I could miss it. However, the Lord has taught me many a lesson here
some fun and others not so fun but my testimony has grown a ton in my
time in this tiny little place. I think the greatest lesson I have
learned here has been to never, ever give up. Any soul worthy of baptism
is a soul worth saving, or at least I think that is how it goes. I have
battled harder here with these investigators than I ever did in
Mercedes and though they have been struggles they have been worth every
stressful moment, and this Sunday to finish off my stay here God gave us
a miracle.
So we have been working with Matthew the 12 year old who has been
going to church faithfully since July with a member family. He is a
great kid and wants to be a deacon and go to the temple so Badly we
couldn't help but teach him. So for the past few weeks we have been
teaching him and his Baptisimal date was the 17 of November and so about
2 weeks ago we started trying to get permission from his mother to let
him be baptized. The mother in atheist or Catholic we aren't sure she
has told us both and isn't the biggest fan of the missionaries. However,
Matthew told us that she was okay with him learning and stuff and that
Baptism wouldn't be a problem. So we gave him the record to sign and he
took it and well he kept giving us excuses for not having it signed.
Obviously this was a red flag so we kept asking him. Matthew does your
mom know? Yes elders she does. Okay so go get the paper signed. So come
Saturday morning the paper still wasn't signed so we went to talk to
Mom, well mom lied to us through her daughter who told us that she was
at work. Now we know mom doesn't work because she is in a wheelchair and
never leaves the house. However, we can't force anyone into anything so
we sent Sister Quintero by because they are really good friends and
Sister Quintero got the record signed! Best news ever right? Well so we
called the ZL's and they drove the half hour to Raymondville to give
Matthew his interview and well, Matthew never ever showed. His older
Sister threw a fit when she found out he was being baptized and so she
and her mother kept him hostage in the house and wouldn't let him
leave....Truly it was devastating. We had grown to love this boy a lot,
he is a quiet kid and not the most popular but his heart and his desires
are pure. Unfortunately, there just was nothing more we could do,
nothing at all.
So we went on with the rest of our plans and we got straight owned.
Nothing came through no one was home, it was one of those days that
makes you just want to lay on the floor and just nap forever. Not even
the cheesecake we baked for a member in our areas birthday worked out as
well as we hoped. We were working super hard not to let desanimo get
the best of us. What was worse was that we had promised the Lord we were
going to have a baptism that week. Now Please remember, we understand
that we deal with people not baptisms and that it isn't some game of
numbers but when you set a goal and promise the Lord you will hit it you
are accountable to that goal and not hitting it sucks. So after all our
plans fell through we went to see Vanessa, we sat with her and her kids
and just started talking a bit. I then looked over at Elder Newland and
then at Eryn, Vanessa's unbaptized daughter and started just
nonchalantly asking her the baptisimal interview questions and Elder
Newland followed my lead. We made it through all the questions and she
had answered them all right and with a lot of understanding so Elder N
and I looked at eachother again and I looked Eryn right in her face and
just asked her, "Eryn, do you want to get baptized tomorrow?". Now it
caught her off guard for sure but then she thought about it for a few
moments and she responded, "Sure!" It was awesome. She came to church
the next day and fought with us all day about stupid things like that
the Jumpsuit was ugly and stuff. Then she blackmailed me into telling
her my middle name. She told me, "I won't get baptized until you tell us
your middle name." I wanted to punch her but she is 12 and just loves
giving the missionaries grief and I have never met another person who is
as good as Eryn at giving grief. Long story short she got baptized and
we hit our goal and we received a miracle from the Lord and it was just
super rad. God knew someone was going to be baptized we the missionaries
just didn't know who. He led us to her though.
Lesson learned : God knows what's up all the time and we don't
really know much. That is why we have to make sure we give him our
trust.
I love you all and miss you
Elder Bassett
P.S. Elder Newland didn't bring his camera cord so it is definitely
his fault I can't send pictures I will send them though I promise.
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