BUUEEEENNNNNAAASSSS A TODOS!!!!!!


What a crazy and wonderful week this has been! Guatemala is such an interesting place. There are always 80 year old men with their machetes and straps over their head to carry their bundles of fire wood. We were walking down the road about a half mile above the church and passed a man like that on the other side of the street. We shouted across ,"Ay Hermanito, Buenas!!" He looked back at us with a big toothless grin and shouted "Jovenous! Jose Smith!!" We started laughing and shouted back "We've got everything ready for your baptism next week!" He gave us a big thumbs up and another grin, then turned and kept walking. For everyone we meet like him, we find others who shout "No one's home" when we knock, or "We're all Catholics!" before we can even say anything. 

This week Elder Petronilo and I were blessed to be able to baptize Hermans Jose Rivera, Maria Luisa and Anahi Contreras. We found Maria on the last dirt road of Villa Nueva; basically the middle of nowhere. She's about 55, lives with her daughter, grandson and a massive herd of ducks and dogs. After our first visit when we invited her to pray about the restoration and be baptized, she said she had a dream that a tall gringo with hair of gold came to her house, carried by an angel and preaching truth... All the Guatemalans want to receive their answers through dreams. The next time we visited her, I was handing her my hymn book to use and our hands touched. She started sobbing and waving her arms in the air saying she felt the holy spirit. It was wonderful to see her baptized this week! 

We have met with so many others this week that have all fallen through for one reason or another. I started to feel like I had failed the Lord, but after praying and thinking for awhile, I started to realize that each of these people are all children of God. Not numbers to reach a goal. They are all people with individual circumstances and with individual agency. Our purpose is to invite people to come to Christ and help them to accomplish that through baptism, not force them. If we do ALL we can to fulfill that purpose, we have nothing to be ashamed of.  I have also learned to never forget or minimize the significance and blessing that three soles were able to take one step closer to salvation. 

Brief news flash- Tall blonde gringo alone in Guatemala is now Tall blonde gringo with another gringo in Guatemala!!!! We had companionship changes yesterday, and my new trainer is Elder Sanders from California/BYU Idaho!! He has 7 months in the mission, but all of his time was in one area in the city. So neither of us has an idea what we're doing!!! Hahaha keep us in your prayers cuz we're gonna need it!!!!

 Love you all tons and you're all in my thoughts and prayers always!!!

Elder Tadje










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