Juan Carlos

We didn´t see the baptisms of Rita, Nohemi, or Juan Carlos this Sunday, it seems like we´ve had quite a large amount of opposition lately… We have almost lost contact with Rita, a lot of it has to do with her husband, he is forming quite a large obstacle, but we´re certain that good things will happen with her. La Nohemi…bless her heart… The day before her baptism, she had the interview. Turns out she had a slip up with the word of wisdom either that very day or the day previous, and they need to be clean for at least two weeks before baptism, but she will be baptized, I feel a special caring for her. Annnddddd JUAN CARLOS. I only mentioned him last time, but he is incredible! We´ve had quite the week… It started off with him telling us that he couldn´t be baptized after all, and felt terrible for it, but couldn´t tell us why not. He said he was super embarrassed to tell us anything, so all we needed to know is that he wouldn´t be getting baptized and didn´t think he could continue learning from us. He finally wrote us a note and it just said that everything about him contra el evangelio de Jesucristo. But if we HAD to know more, we should ask his wife (who is deaf too, but can hear a little and can talk a little more). So what did we do? We asked her what was up, of course! She told us that indeed, quite a bit of things were going on in his life that aren´t so lovely. We ended up talking to him soon after that and he told us about all the alcohol and cigarettes, pornography, and abuse to his wife that have been dragging him down. In this moment, I think he felt a bit of liberation and determination to change because he went to his bedroom and brought out all his pornography videos and smashed them to pieces on the table and tore out all the tape (yes, they were VHS) Then and there he brought out his coffee and ciggs and dumped it all out. It sounds dramatic (because it was) but he was so sincere and I´ve never seen anyone look so relieved…and although it´s only been a few days, I KNOW he is going to stick with his change, he wants it so bad, he wants this change. He´s read so much, we gave him the Joseph Smith Sunday school lesson book thing that the Sunday school teachers use to teach from and within a week he´s read the entire thing. He taught us a thing or two about the gospel yesterday it was pretty cool. I´m learning a lot more sign language too! I don´t know if it´s different than American sign language… hopefully I can remember it throughout my mission.

I´ve never really been good at expressing my feelings about stuffs, but Know that I am so grateful for this experience. That the feelings I have when I see Juan Carlos with a broken heart and contrite spirit fill me with such hope and joy. There´s so much more with this story that I can´t even touch on, but know that it´s pretty amazing, and you all should be jealous ;) But I know that these changes, his desire to be good, to be happy, to love have only come through Jesus Christ. I know my Saviour lives. I Know He loves everyone of us and that the power He has to change lives and to bring happiness to people is real.

OH! Real quick because I'm out of time! Changes came and went and I ended up staying right here in Machalí with my trainer! (though I'm not being trained anymore, the extra hour of study time is officially gone…yikes!) But we´re super content. I think Heavenly Father knew that I wouldn´t be able to handle the stress…

ciao!