January 31, 2011 Three Baptisms and more on the way! Awesome letter!!!

Dear Mom and family,

It amazes me every week how much everything is changing back at home. I have been thinking a lot as well about how much potential these three boys have and it's not going to stop there. They finally went through with the baptism. After that unplanned little conversation with Luis, he was firm in his decision. Mynor said that he still wanted to wait but for some reason we didn't feel the urge to say anything to him. We just planned for the baptism of Alex and Luis. The next day, (Martes) we called Mynor and he had changed his mind. It was awesome. My comp was teasing him saying he couldn't hear him and made him say that he was ready for Saturday three times. Everything went well. We got the signatures from their moms. Saturday morning we went and bought white shirts and ties for all three of them so that they could look all nice after the baptism and for the confirmation. The baptism went extremely well. I made a banana cake with cream cheese frosting on top and everyone still wants me to teach them how to make it. Elder Fuentes baptized Luis and Mynor and I baptized Alex. They seem so happy and I'm excited to see what they end up doing, what missions will they go on, and everything. The next thing is the rest of their family. The little brother of Luis wants to be baptized now and so we're planning on having Luis get the priesthood next week and have him baptize the rest of his family (those who want to be baptized) in two weeks.

Apart from that good news, we visited Irma yesterday with Jared, a newly returned missionary, her nephew. We decided that now was the time to talk to her about baptism. It was a very simple lesson. We began straight up telling her why we were visiting that time and asked her if it was something that she would like. At first she said that she would just keep going to church and then maybe eventually she'd be baptized. We explained why we baptize, what blessing we receive, and Jared gave a strong testimony of how he knew that she already knew that it was the true church. It was funny because until that moment he thought that she already was a member. After all of our testimonies, we decided to end with a prayer and asked her to give it. She was reluctant at first but with a little encouraging she decided to give it, and it was beautiful. She opened her heart and asked for a blessing on her son who was on a mission and to all missionaries, then prayed for the courage to be able to decide to be baptized. The whole prayer she was crying. It was a very tender moment. After that, we left knowing that the Holy Ghost had testified in that lesson.

It has been an awesome week and I haven't even had the chance to tell you about the camp we had. But I'll tell you some other time.

Love,

Elder Landon James Crapo