I will start with a little background info. In latin america it is not very common to find married couples . Most families just have 2 parents that never actually got married and have just been together for a very long time and have kids and anything. thye just dont get married because it is expensive, not because they dont love each other or anything. But they have to get married to get baptized because of the law of chastity. Our mission has goals to baptize famlies because the gospel blesses famlies. So with this problem, we have to help people get married to get baptized.
About 2 months ago we met Jose Luis and Diana. They had been a couple for 7 years and have 2 kids. Jose and his little 1 year old baby are always smiling and happy. It is priceless.I love their family so when they decided that they wanted to get married I was happy to help them. They were going to need help because Diana had to go 6 hours in a bus to get her papers for the marrige because thats where she was born. That was a 2 day trip because she stayed at her moms house. We were starting to get crunched on time when she left because that was 2 weeks ago and the legal people for the wedding need to know in advance. So we hoped her trip would go well for times sake. We had to get them married and baptized becauswe Elder Guillen is done this week. So the 26th was the day we had to baptize them. She ended up having some problems though
She went all the way out to where she was born to take out all of the papers. while she was in the office the papers were in the table and all ready to go and here little baby knocked some glass ornament off the desk. It broke and the people in the office said that she couldnt have her papers until she paid for it. She didnt have the money to pay for it so she went home empty handed. When she told me that story it seemed taht we had no chance to get it all done before the 26th. I was just praying all day, hoping that we could find a way to get those papers. We called the missionaries in that area and asked them to try to talk to the office and get the papers. It was a long shot because with those papers it people have to go get them for them selves, but we tried. They paid for the ornament thing and got the papers. Sent them to us and we had them the next day. Prayer answered!
So now that we had the papers tehy had to go sign up to get married. That is about and hour and a half bus ride from where they live and we live in the middle of that so they were supposed to meet us one mornign to go sign up. That morning they didnt show. That was the last possible day they could sign up and they didnt show. We went to the legal office and begged for one more day. They said if they showed up tommorrow they could do it. So they next day we went out to their house to bring them with us to go sign up. Just to talk to them and learn why they didnt come. That whole night and day I was praying, saying ´´ Heavenly Father, please help these people get married. I am doing all I can out here. Help me with the rest. I know thats how the Atonement works. Please help us.´´
When we got there the next day we found out that they didnt show because they got in a fight. They had resolved the ploblem by the time we showed up though, so they came with us. Another Prayer answered!
The wedding was on they 24th of may. Same day as graduation at CV haha. But we were having a wedding. (for 2 families actually, the other family had less problems though so they don t have as cool of a story). The wedding was beautiful. She didnt have a white dress and he didnt have a tux but it was beatiful. The whole branch of Guapinol showed up in a bus and was there for it. It was so cool.The next thing was gitting them baptized.
The next day on Friday we did the interviews and they were both ready to go. Passed and it was all going to go perfect... not with the way this story is though. Jose said that he had to work til 3 and the baptism was at 1 so he couldnt get baptized. We couldnt changet the time because it was another big zone baptism. We told him to come on a bus after 3 and we would do his after. We have to do the baptisms in Monjaras because it is the only church with a font.
We had the baptisms t 1 and they were awesome, but he didnt show up after 3 like we planned. So at 4 Elder Guillen and I went on a mission to find him. We went on the last bus to Guapinol ( without knowing if we would have a way home) just to invite him one more time to come get baptized. When we got to guap we found him and talked to him and he said he was afraid to get baptized again because he was baptized in another church when he was younger. We had already taught him the need of Baptism again but he didnt understand all the way. So we taught him for 10 min and he was excited to go. We didnt have a ride back to Monjaras so we called the branch president. He found us a truck and we all piled into the back for the baptism. On the way there it started to rain so we got soaked!! We showed up to the baptism all wet and he changed into dry baptismal clothes. Just to get them wet again in the baptism. It was my comps last baptism and it was special for him. It was special for me too.
This is for sure a story of prayers being answered. The whole time things kept going off the plan, but we always had faith they would work out and were always praying for it to work out. Our prayers were always answered.
I love you all. Have an amazing week!
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