Dear Family,
Thank you for your emails, letters, and prayers. This week it was great to be able to watch some of general conference. I got to see the Preisthood, and the two Sunday sessions. However we had appointments during the Saturday ones so I still need to watch them. However from what I could tell the main theme of the conference was MISSIONARY WORK!!!! Haha so awesome. I especially liked Elder Eyring´s talk about every member needing to be a missionary. I think that is really the only way this gospel is going to be shared to with everyone is if the members are involved in the work as well. This week was a really awesome week because yesterday we got to baptize an elect man named Vilela (54). I will include the story of his baptism.
This week we had an incredible baptism of a man named Vilela (54). His story starts about 6 months ago when Elder Bangerter and I met his wife Claudia. She had been a member of the church for 5 years but was less active at the time. She had tried to convert her husband many times and many sets of missionaries had taught him but he never wanted to be baptized. So we passed by their house and met her husband Vilela. He is a policeman who has been through a lot. He used to be in the special police force called the ROTA which is known for being ruthless about tracking down and taking in the drug trafficers. Once he was even shot 3 times in the stomach, died for a few minutes, and came back to life. After this experience he adopted the motto ´´Hei de Vencer´´ which is like ´´I will overcome´´. His story is really a miracle but since he is a policeman and worked long and unpredictable hours, it was very difficult to teach him. We tried teaching him but it didn´t really work out, for one because he really didn´t want to be baptized. To make a long story short, Elder Bangerter and I both thought it would be better to cut him from our teaching pool, so we did. However about 2 weeks ago Elder Heiner and I were walking on this family´s street and I remembered about them. The last time we had past by their house must have been 5 months ago when I was still with Elder Bangerter. But I had the idea that we should stop by to try and encourage Claudia to come to church. So we stopped by and Claudia told us that her husband Vilela had said that he wanted to talk to us just the day before. However, since he wasn´t home we marked an appointment to visit him. When we showed up for the appointment we talked to him for a little while and before teaching him anything he said ´´Elders I have decided to commit myself to read the Book of Mormon, pray, and prepare myself for baptism´´. I was shocked. He prepared himself for baptism and was baptized yesterday after the first session of conference. His family is extremely grateful for this. Especially since he was recently diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was discovered late and he will be having surgery next week. Everyone is extremely grateful that he will be baptized and confirmed before the surgery. I know that this baptism was a miracle and that God has a plan for each one of his children. It was also a lesson to me about how the Spirit works. When I had the idea to pass by their house that day, it didn´t really feel like revelation or anything. It wasn´t until afterwards that I discovered that the idea to pass by their house that day was definitely revelation and defnitely wasn´t my idea. This baptism was one of the most spiritual experiences that I´ve had so far on my mission.
The church is true and revelation is real!!
Hope you are all, love you guess a lot! Hei de Vencer!
Love,
Elder Caleb Anderson
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