Last week, the day before Catalina´s baptism, we had a Family Home Evening with Catalina and a young couple in the ward in their home. It was beautiful and lovely and Catalina was really excited because her baptism was the next day. After we had finished the message, we were all talking, and the father of the family asked Catalina if she was going to go on a mission, and she said "yes! I would really love to!" My companion and I looked at each other and gave each other a mental high five. We were so excited. So now she´s been asking us a lot of questions in how she can prepare to go on a mission. She´s going to be incredible.
Well we finished our Family Home Evening and started walking her home, a little bit more rapidly than normal because we had to be in the house soon. As we were walking we noticed, on the side of the road, a woman crying and another woman trying to help her. Catalina stopped to see if she could help and we discovered that this woman was exceedingly drunk and had just fallen from the second floor of her house. Her leg was hurt and her face was very bruised. She kept saying she needed to go to the house of her friend across the street. The woman who was trying to help her got a bit fed up and all the people around started to disappear and so we were left alone to help her. First we helped her across the street to the home where she said her friend was but there was nobody there. She also kept trying to jump the gate, so we had to hold her back. She started getting a bit hysterical, so we started talking to her to calm her down while Catalina decided to call the cops. Unfortunately the cops don´t do much about drunk people here, so we decided to try and find her house. She started telling us about the terrible depression she has and why she´s been drinking. We went to her house and she somehow opened the door and we found out they had cut the light in her house. It was completely dark, so we helped her onto the couch where she passed out. She said her son was going to arrive soon, and as we had to get to the house soon, we had to leave her there and pray that her son got there quickly.
As we were walking to the house, the look in her eyes kept coming back to me. There was no hope and no light and it reminded me of Marina when we had started teaching her. As she began to understand and apply the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that look in her eyes left and was replaced by peace and happiness. And I couldn´t stop wishing that everyone could just recognize the peace they could find in the Gospel. I have seen peace, love and confidence replace desperation and depression as the people begin to understand the love that their Savior has for them.
Anyway, the next day was Catalina´s baptism. As part of the program, Hermana Lethco, our zone leader, our district leader, Catalina and I sang A Donde Me Mandes Iré (I´ll Go Where You Want Me to Go) - Catalina´s favorite hymn. Catalina had asked the bishop of the ward to baptize her. He baptized Marina as well, but when he baptized Marina, he had accidently used his left hand instead of his right hand to baptize her. Now there is a very specific and important way to baptize someone. Just as important that it be by immersion by the right authority, as it was in the Bible, the person baptizing must use his right hand. Luckily, during Marina´s baptism, one of the witnesses caught that mistake after the first time and so he redid it right then and there. So during Catalina´s baptism my companion and I were watching for that, just in case. However, right before, the bishop said something to one of the elders about his hand and then started with his left hand, so we thought, perhaps there was something we didn´t understand. Well he baptized her and she left, got changed, and we finished the baptismal service. Then, as everyone was eating refreshments, our zone leader came up and asked to talk to us. He told us that Catalina was going to be baptized again later that night after everyone had left because they had already drained the baptismal font. Muy bien. Well we pulled Catalina aside and one of the elders started out with ´There was an accident in your baptism´.... Oh boy. After some confusion, we explained to her what had happened and, to her everlasting credit, she was incredibly nice about it. So she left with some of her friends and told us she would come back in a few hours while my companion and I and the other elders in our district (we´re the only sister missionaries in our district) cleaned up.
Well about an hour later, Catalina, one of her friends, and the bishop showed up again. She changed into her wet white dress one more time and got back into the half way filled font. It was then we realized that the elders had accidently refilled it with cold water.... Muy bien. Well the bishop baptized her again and she left the font and we were in the bathroom as she finally finished changing into her clothes for a second time when we heard...´Hermanas?´ We opened the door to two very repentant looking elders who proceeded to tell us that she had to be baptized one more time because she hadn´t been immersed completely in the water... Muy bien. With her incredible patience, Catalina changed one more time into her wet dress and went one more time back into the cold water. By now the water had gotten really low, but as I was sitting there, with only the other elders, my companion, her friend, and the members who were cleaning the church, I felt a powerful feeling of peace and contenment. As she changed one more time in the bathroom she told us she felt completely relaxed and so wonderful, as if a huge weight had been taken off her shoulders. She told us, ´Heavenly Father is just helping me prepare to do baptisms in the temple´. Why is she so great?! Anyway, now I know exactly how a baptism should be done.
I love you all!!! More awesome stories for next week!! I haven´t written the half!!!
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