Special Weekend With Special People

I´m so glad that I can just say that it was another week in Paradise and what a very special week it was. We are already able to see a lot of the fruits from our labors and efforts here in Tarapoto and everything just seems to be getting stronger and stronger little by little.

Elder Vasquez and I had a couple of very special baptisms this past week, one that I´m not soon to forget. We completed the Soria Ramirez family by baptizing the wife, Olga Ramirez. Olga is eighty years old and has been receiving the missionary lessons for over two years. Last year her husband Victor was baptized but Olga just couldn´t quite make the decision to enter the waters of baptism. It was kinda sad because for the longest time the missionaries stopped visiting her. We found her by looking through the old teaching records in our Area Book and decided to see how she was doing. We began teaching her, gaining her trust, and building a very special bond. She chose her own baptismal date and hung in there to make it a reality. It was so funny/special teaching her because he just had eye surgery and she has to wear really dark glasses and she never looked like she was paying attention until we would ask about what were teaching and she would give us a little summery of what we taught always followed by her simple testimony. She has a daughter who isn´t a member who had tried to discourage her from getting baptized but every time she would say something to Olga, Olga would tell her that what she was doing was what the Lord wanted her to do in this moment in her life. She is such a great example to me of strengh and following the Lords will even when its not easy.

Before entering the baptismal font she expressed to me that she wouldn´t be able to go up the steps that led to the font. I told her that I would have to carry her then, and that’s what I did. I picked her up in my arms and led her into the baptismal font. She was able to stand up for the prayer but in order to dunk her I had to pick her up again and lower her in the water. It was really a special experience for me, being able to help Olga make her first covenant with the Lord. I carried her out of the water and on her wrinkled and aged face was a smile from ear to ear. Even though she doesn’t have any teeth it made my day seeing how happy she was. We also baptized her granddaughter Micaela who had actually came from a little mountain village of Shapaja just to be baptized. It was a special weekend all around!