The Things I Have Learned

Alright well it has been another week here in blessed Central America. It was good to see everyone's faces this past week and weird to remember that you guys are all still alive. But congrats Micah and Elise for the pregnancy weird that you will be parents.

But anyways we had Christmas here and it was fine. We had p-day on Christmas and that was good. We left the house early and walked around and the city was destroyed. Everything was just dead and there was nobody was on the streets. On the 24th we had permission to stay out late and we were at the Bishop's house. We just had a nice traditional meal of tamales and ponche which is kind of like wassail. Other than that we just took it easy on Christmas.

This weekend we had 3 baptisms. On Saturday we married Fabiola and Javier. They are 17 and 18 and she is going to have a baby in March I think. Also the mother of Javier was baptized. She is 55 and her name is Telma. Also I baptized a little girl in our ward who turned 8. Her parents are inactive and her dad served a mission. It was a good experience. But I have done that twice now and it really just makes me really sad. I made a commitment that I will always be worthy to baptize my own children.

This Saturday we are going to baptize a family of 3. The father had been struggling to stop playing soccer on Sunday. He wouldn't commit to anything. Then yesterday we went to teach them and he told us that they were ready to get baptized. We were so happy, we had been praying and fasting to help him.

So when you guys asked me the things I have learned so far I kind of froze up. What I have learned the most on my mission so far is how infinite and personal the atonement is. Because really sometimes I get so frustrated with how crazy everyone is down here. But really I have learned that I am not the one to judge them and in the last day we will all be judged on our  individual limits. God knows us personally. Also the importance of every member in the ward. Sometimes we can't get members to talk to investigators and really that makes it super hard. Every single individual is important in the church Boyd K  Packer said, "The true success of the gospel will be measured by the spiritual strength of its individual members." Each of us can reach out to somebody that is struggling. I wish I would have done better with that, before my mission with the other youth in my ward. Well I love you all and have a great new year.

Elder Wilkes