Well this has been a very busy week for us as Zone Leaders and
missionaries. We decided to do alot more things for our zone and we
started those things this week and we had some baptisms so it was a good week.
First of all, R______ and S_____ got baptized and it was one of
the most special baptisms of my whole mission. This last week was an
extremely tough one for them. So R_____'s other kid is actually an
inactive kinda anti Mormon member baptized like 15 years ago, and this
week Satan really attacked R_____ so that she wouldn't get baptized. Her own mother talked about disowning her as her kid because she said it was a stupid thing to
do. R_____'s kid talked about how this church is of the devil and that Satan himself was working on R________. R_____ said one day that that morning when she would go to pray she would start but that something would
kinda take over her and she wouldn't been able to think or say anything
at all, and that she felt that something was blocking her from talking to God, and she wasn't sure if that was God saying no to her question about
baptism or if it was Satan. Well, we shared the Joseph Smith story again
and it really helped her a ton and she realized that it was Satan.
She also never drinks coffee, never has, but this week she's had a huge temptation to drink coffee... coincidence? I think not, she has real potential in the church and Satan didn't want her to be part of the Church. It was a scary week for us because she would call us randomly
and say elders you have to come over we need to talk and then she would say I'm not getting baptized because i can't take all this stuff that's
happening to me, but we would share something and we gave her several blessings
and then when we would leave she was wanting to get baptized again, but that
happened pretty much every day this week. It's hard to describe but I've
never seen someone so influenced by Satan in that you could tell that he
was attacking her. Normally she's super happy always smiling and there
were times when he had her just super-depressed. Of all my
baptisms I've never seen Satan work so hard against someone like this
time. But the great part is that we defeated him, visiting her twice a
day and sending members over there daily and having them call her daily,
we were able to help her overcome all those temptations and trials, and i
know that our Heavenly Father was working through her younger son S_____ because no
matter what happened, he was always there saying, Mom don't say that we
can't get baptized, please get baptized with me, don't let Satan win
this Mom, we can do it together. I'm almost crying typing this thinking
about this baptism and everything that happened. It was amazing, absolutely amazing, one of my biggest testimony builders of the mission.
Like I had said in earlier letters, she was our true golden investigator, but what i
hadn't realized back then is that with someone so chosen and prepared
by God, Satan also has had his eyes on her to keep her back. But anyway i
think you get the picture, it was an amazingly stressful experience, but a rewarding
one. In the baptism we got alot of ward support and when she got
baptized she started crying, and when S_____ got baptized he said that he
felt something amazing in his chest that he couldn't describe but that
it felt right. AMAZING BAPTISM!
That was the great news, this week we have also been using the
area book alot, which is the book where all missionaries write down a
description about their investigators with their needs and where they
live and how they are progressing so that missionaries that come in can
look at it and go find them and know exactly what has been taught and
what some of their trials are. Anyway so we did a week of ´´Carpet
people´´ finding, carpet people because in Spanish it's the 'carpeta de
area' and in spanglish it's the carpet book and people ha ha, we invented
that actually but it works. I'm amazing at spanglish ha ha. So this week
we found alot of really positive carpet people and we already think that
there are a few that could be baptized soon so we'll work with them.
Sadly with M_____ we haven't been able to make contact or even
see him. They are sealed off and I'm worried he may be lost for now...
W_____ and H_____ haven't been able to see us lately because they
are in a national competition for viola and are practicing like crazy. I
don't know if i told you but they are super geniuses. W____ is going
to graduate from high school at 15 years old with tons of scholarships and
stuff, crazy smart! But the tournament is the 4th so after that hopefully
they can see us.
Z____ just got back from Concepcion where she was working all
week, so we'll meet with her this week, but we're pretty sure she'll get
baptized the 14th and maybe with W_____ and H_____....´´si dios
quiere´´ the great Panamanian frase.
So this week as ZL's we decided we needed to do some extra
things to help people more. In our zone there are 7 companionships of
sisters and 5 of elders and the thing is that there are so many new
sisters coming in that they don't have enough trainers for everyone so
new sisters are getting trained by other new sisters that don't know too much so they are really struggling, but the thing is as male
leaders we can't go out and work with them or anything so we don't know
how they teach or work and so we don't know how to help them. But this
week we started a companion study with them, we take two sisters and we teach
them like they were investigators and they teach us the same way, and this
way we can help them out on a more personal level, but wow its been tough organizing all that and with so many its very time consuming, but its
working great, we did it for a few of them and it turned out great. Also
we are meeting with all the bishops of the stake to make sure everything
is running well and that they are doing everything that they
should be doing. This has worked well too because we now have the
confidence of the bishops and they have told us the problems they have
in their wards with the missionaries and the good things that are going
on so now we can really help them out. We also implemented alot of
programs that we had planned out with the stake president and the stake mission
leader. In a few words, the coordination between the wards and the
missionaries is about to skyrocket with these things that we are doing with the
stake leaders, and I'm excited to see the results. But with all that it has been a
very long and busy week, but it was totally worth it and we have going to
continue doing it this week.
Thanks for the pictures, actually last night i realized i had
around 50 days left too...crazy! Time is flying by! I was able to open
all the pictures by the way so thanks! Try to fix Skydrive if you could,
i can't from here because we have the mission cell that doesn't receive
international texts. I wanna share the baptismal pictures
with you and i have pictures on there that had been deleted from a
memory card by a virus so i hope to save them.
I always feel that i have more to say but for now i can't
remember so I'll close saying that I'm now almost completely healed and
that this week was sweet, i hope the next is even better. Also this week
as made me realize the reality of Satan and his power, but also the
power of the priesthood and the power that we have inside us when we are
doing the right things. Satan is real and wants us to fail and be miserable and every temptation that comes from him will make us miserable in the end even though the world wants you to think the
opposite. I know that we have to do the small and simple things
everyday, read, pray and keeps our minds turned unto God and when we do that,
hell has no power over us and we will be able to help others come unto Christ. I know this church is true and that Christ lives and he loves
us. I love you guys a ton, take care and be safe!
Love,
Elder Pfister
P.S. Feliz Cumpleaños Papa!
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