What in the world is Dìa de Reyes?? Haha, it is a holiday celebrating when the wise men went and saw Jesus Christ. I had no idea there even was a holiday for that until I got here. How they celebrate it- put out water and grass for the camels the night before. AND put out your shoes so that the kings can put presents inside. :) Haha, Hermana Van Wagenen and I DEFINITELY celebrated that and put out our shoes and everything for the camels. Unfortunately I think they might have skipped our little place this year...haha, but it was still way fun to be an Argentine and do that. :)
We had some interesting experiences on New Year's Day. One of them was with a friend of a member we visited. The lesson was good but for part of it Hermana Van Wagenen and I were trying VERY hard not to burst out laughing. First of all, they had some juice and this bottle of what I thought was water. I thought the point of this water was just to put in our juice if it needed to be watered down or something. Well, I was just craving some water so I filled up my whole glass with it. Weellllll, I took a nice big gulp only to realize that it was some kind of flavorless soda! I'm not sure what it was for but it definitely was NOT for drinking by itself. Hermana Van Wagenen had seen it coming and tried to warn me but I hadn't heard her. I swished down what I could and then when both the friend and the member we were with were preoccupied with something else I dumped out the drink on the grass and filled it up with some nice juice. Hahaha, it was so crazy. And then we asked the friend to say the closing prayer. And she said yes and she did it....but it was all in her head. So we sat there in silence for about 2 minutes wondering what we should do. We just waited for her to finish and open her eyes. Next time we will talk more about prayers and how we can say them out loud too. :)
We also had one of the most intense experiences this week. We finally were able to have another lesson with Andrea and her dad. Andrea is so ready for baptism and the only thing that is pushing that back is her dad. We went in a little nervous but with determination to talk more about it with him. We started out talking about Faith in Jesus Christ. It was really good and I felt the spirit but I think her dad was kinda distracted. However, towards the end of the lesson we asked him how he felt or what he thought and he gave us a nice long response that opened up the way for us all to talk more openly with him specifically. The topic of baptism came up. He shared with us a lot of his feelings that you should have a relationship with God and you shouldn't rush into it. He also talked about how it is a big responsibility and he thinks that maybe Andrea would leave the church after her baptism because she has a boyfriend who isn't a member. He actually expressed a lot of really good stuff. I really like that he truly loves his daughter and knows that baptism is something really important.
Andrea was so awesome throughout all of this! She powerfully bore her testimony to her dad that she HAS prayed about this church and KNOWS that it is true and that she is NEVER going to leave it. She says that she reads from the scriptures every day. She said that baptism is important and would help her. It was amazing. This 13 year old girl wants to be baptized so bad and is overcoming her fear and shyness about expressing her feelings with her dad. There were some seriously intense moments were the air felt so thick and I just prayed hard in my head and thought ``what in the world is going to happen next?``
Well, a lot of testimonies were shared and more feelings expressed and Hermana Van Wagenen asked him if we had his permission for his daughter to be baptized. My heart was beating so fast waiting for his response. Buuuuuut, he paused and said that he wanted to talk more about it with his daughter and would let us know. OKay...he didn't say yes but A LOT of ground was covered. I think we all understand his feelings and prospective better and he understands those of his daughter better as well. And oh man, just let the difference sink in- from the first time we met her dad when he came home during a lesson and she RAN and hid her Book of Mormon to this wonderful night when she boldly and honestly shared her testimony and desires with him. WOW. And guess what?? He invited us to eat with them sometime! We are taking that as a very good sign. Basicallyyyyyy, miracles do happen. God has a plan with everything! I know He helping out Andrea and her family very much and she is progressing towards the important step of baptism! :)
I love you all mucho! I know Jesus Christ lives and loves us. I know He is with us through our deepest joys and our hardest sorrows. He can and WILL help each and every one of us. I am so grateful for His gospel and that we can have peace and joy every day in this life! :)
Feliz dìa de reyes!
Con amor,
Hermana Lindsey Woodfield
With Hermana Van Wagenen. I love being a missionary!!!
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