This week was definitely interesting and it had its ups and its downs. So on Tuesday, I went on splits with Elder Vi, and it was amazing! He is a really funny guy but a really good missionary as well. For the first time I really had to take control of the lesson and I was really nervous about it. But it went so well! We started off the day at Shakilla's house. We taught her a really good lesson on baptism and the importance of reading her scriptures, but at the end of the lesson she asked a question that killed me. She said, even if I decide I don't want to get baptised right away can I still come to church? Of course we told her that she still could come but it is really important to be baptised. Her biggest fear is that she will get baptised and then backslide, because she has already done that once in her life in another church. We have really been working with her though and pushing the importance of getting baptised as soon as possible. So make sure you keep her in your prayers! After we taught her we went and taught a recent convert family named the Moralies. They are awesome and make the missionaries feel like part of there family. They had a friend there who's name was Kellon. He has taked all the lessons and is ready to be baptised but his mom will not let him. It is a tough situation. We are trying to find a way to talk to her so that we can but she is really stubborn apparently. For the rest of that day we just taught a couple people in sando. One of them were a family of 5 girls. One of them has a baptism date. I had no Idea what I was going to teach them when I sat down, but the spirit took over and I just started talking. It was a really good lesson and I had never had an experience like that before. It has really helped my testimony grow. It is amazing how everything just clicked! All of the sudden I had no problem doing street contacting, or teaching a lesson. On tuesday night, Elder Vi and I just sat and talked. Haha we talked about everything from girls, to deep doctorine, to scary stories. It was so much fun. Before we knew it, it was really late and we didnt end up getting very much sleep that night. The rest of the week went pretty well, until friday. On Friday we were going on trade offs with the AP's here in sando. It was horrible! I had planned out a day that we could go and see a couple of people that we had been teaching. Well all of those appointments fell through, and because Elder Kaelin was also working here in sando, we didnt have anyone to go and see. We literally tracted all day long, calling into houses! We didnt teach very many lessons and we walked a ton! It was probably the longest day here on my mission. But it was still good. On saturday, it wasnt much better. All of our appointments were falling through and we were having a really hard time getting into houses. One of the houses that let us in was a group of 3 ladies. We were teaching them on there front porch and it was actually going really well. We were teaching them the restoration and I had just got done telling them about the first vision. Then there husbands came and started bashing with us really hard. I dont know if you know this or not, but a couple of the church's in the states had predicted that christ was going to come on saturday. Well that didnt happen! So they started asking about that.. It was so frustrating because they would start saying something and go on for 5 minutes and then when we had a chance to answer them, they wouldnt listen to us at all. The one guy was really annoying, and he had convinced himself that all he had to do to get into heaven, was right before he dies, say from his heart, father forgive me of my sins. It was ridiculous. It made both me and Elder Kaelin really mad and the spirit wasnt there at all. Eventually we just left and it was a miracle that one of us didnt punch the guy. It made it pretty hard for the rest of the day to be able to feel the spirit again. Eventually we cooled down and It was all okay. I was having a really hard time because I had just had 2 really hard days in a row, so we prayed that sunday would be better. And it WAS! At church on sunday we had 8 investigators! It was incredible! The most that elder Kaelin has had since he has been here was 3, so 8 was really good. Right now we are really focused on working towards baptizing weekly, and it is definitely getting within reach. I love it.
The language is getting so much better, and I can understand most people. I can even start talking it a little bit. This morning for our zone activity, we went to an area in our zone called point fortin. We went to the beach there and played cricket. It was really nice but I have never been more tempted to get in the water. It felt so good to be out there and I will attach some pictures of it. I love it here and Elder Kaelin keeps on telling me I am doing really good. I am really comfortable in lessons now and everything is really starting to come together. I wouldnt want to be anywhere else right now. My goal is to be able to be comfortable to train a new missionary after the first 12 weeks. Even if I dont have that opportunity, I want to be ready to be able to. I know that it isnt really up to me, but as long as I am doing what I am supposed to, the lord will take care of the rest. Our investigators with baptismal dates are shakilla, Mark, Shallene, and Nikita. As of right now, they are all probably going to be on the 4th of june. We will push shakilla and mark for the 29th though. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have 4 or 5 more. Keep them in your prayers because the adversary really works hard on people who are investigating the church. I pray for you guys everyday and I know that I am supposed to be here righy now. I love doing the lords work, and it is such a blessing in my life. I love you all and keep on doing what you know is right. I have learned so much here, I wish that you could see how much I have grown. Well I gotta get going.
Much love,
Elder Gines
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