The baptism of Jose

The baptism of Jose

Family and friends at Jose's baptism

Another shot of family and friends at the baptism

Eric with Jose in classic thumbs-up pose ;)

HEYYYY!! What's up family!! Well, firstly I want to wish a happy birthday to Papa and Devyn! From the photos you sent, it looks like everyone had a great time!!!

A lot happened this past week! First thing that I want to tell you about is the BAPTISM!!!! This Saturday Jose got baptized! It was an awesome baptism!! I have to tell you that all baptisms are good, and I probably shouldn't pick favorites, but I'm going to be honest and say that Jose is my favorite baptism. Maybe partly because it's my first baptism as comp mayor. (Even though we both work together as a team, any returned missionary knows what I mean when I say it just feels more special when you get the baptism as senior comp.) We found this guy knocking doors, and we were the first missionaries to ever talk to him. He's 18 years old, and is ready for the priesthood, and in a year, A MISSION!!! He's had a HUGE CHANGE OF HEART and has made big changes in his life!! President Villalba called him a "eligido" which is like an elect or chosen one. He's just a cool guy and we're good friends.

His name is Jose Pena. We found him when we were just knocking doors and doing contacts. His brother let us in, who had been baptised in Rosario at the age of like 9 and never went to church again and doesn't really remember anything about the church. We shared something with him and Jose was in the background and didn't participate much, because he didn't have much interest. We passed by again to see the brother another time, and Jose was there again and listened but just didn't really care about religion and that type of stuff. I never would have believed then that he would get baptised a month later! Anyway, eventually we started teaching to Jose more and less to his brother, and finally just to Jose. He's just a really chill guy and we became really good friends with him and he has great trust in us, and he was able to stop smoking. Anyway, he plays the guitar a lot and knows lots of cool songs. The coolest song, though, is the song he wrote in between his baptism and confirmation, which he sang to us yesterday. I'll copy it here.

(Because Eric's blog is public and Jose wants to publish his song, I removed the Spanish lyrics.)

That's the song!! I'll do a basic summary in English for everyone so you know what he's saying. Basically he says that he's finding the path to happiness and that his old life has finished and that something better and new has started that gives him more happiness, God is his guide and it would be harder to destroy him now because he's stronger now than he was before.

So that is a great song!! He wants to sing it in English too (he plans on starting a band and selling this song) because he says that's where the real money in music is (very true), so yesterday we started translating a bit, trying to translate it so it fits with his music, which is also really cool!

So the whole baptism went really good. You ask the person who is going to be baptised, who they want to baptise them, but Jose wouldn't choose which one of us he wanted, so we had Elder Larson do it because being new and his first transfer, he hasn't baptised anyone yet. In case you're wondering why I am wearing white, it's simply because I think it looks better in the pictures and helps to bring the feeling of the spirit to the baptism. We started out hearing a couple of talks, then we had the baptism, which was way cool. It was kind of funny when they were in the water and Elder Larson was getting started, he was going to baptise him facing away from the people so that they couldn't see his face, and he didn't understand the testigos (witnesses) that were telling him (in Spanish) to turn around, but finally he got it and they turned, and Elder Larson did the baptism perfectly. After that we did a special song of "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" with just us 4 missionaries, and then we had food. The next day was the confirmation, which the bishop performed, and Jose really liked it. He also said he really felt the spirit, after saying jokingly, "senti tres manos nada mas." (We have no idea what he means by that. Maybe it is an expression in Argentina.)

Anyway, this morning we went running with Jose which was pretty fun too. I won the race at the end, but I guess that's because I have the longest legs, ha ha!

Anyway, you are probably wondering about transfers, I'M STAYING HERE another transfer and SO IS LARSON! ALSO THE OTHER TWO ELDERS! So we all got our wish, because we all wanted to stay together as a pench, companionship and in the area, so we're happy!!!! I'm still district leader over the hermanas. Well, I'm definitely happy with the changes this transfer. Okay, I'm out of time, so very quickly I'll answer some questions. Yes, I like training, yes we're going to get a Christmas tree, and yes, starting in January you can send packages directly to the pench.

I love you all very much!!! Thank you for all you do and for the support of everyone!!

Love,
Eric

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