Yesterday our dear brother Afonso was baptized! Definitely one of the most powerful experiences of my mission. 2 weeks ago we marked him for baptism for the 24th of January. And he accepted and we were super pumped! Then on Thursday we had a lesson and we said we feel like he is prepared for this Sunday the 17th! And he said yeah lets plan it for this Sunday! So the next day he was his interview with the Zone leaders and he passes and is declared prepared for baptism! Awesome.
Saturday we meet with him again and he seems excited and anxious which is understandable. We plan the baptismal service with him and have a really spiritual lesson with some videos from lds.org. We go home for lunch and we start a fast. That night on Saturday we get a text from Afonso saying he talked to his brother and has been thinking he doesn't feel ready and wants to cancel the baptism. I nearly break down in tears. We have been fighting for this guys for so long and we kinda go numb. We say a prayer and call our Zone leaders for some help and they send out a mass text for a zone prayer for Afonso. We then text Afonso back and say we want to talk to him tonight if possible. He says he doesn't get off work until 11:30 pm. Dang. We think about it and the spirit is basically yelling at us " If you don't talk to him tonight he wont be baptized! Meet with him at all costs!" So we tell Afonso to meet us at the chapel at 11:30.
Yes I know we stayed out past curfew. And I don't condone breaking the rules. But we thought this was do or die and we followed the spirit and what we thought was right. So at 11:30 we meet him at the chapel with our ward mission leader and we have a conversation for about and hour or so saying how this decision is between him and God. Take this step of faith and put God to the test if this baptism and this church is right. We all bear really strong testimony and put the rest into God's Hands. He tells us he'll think about it more tonight but he's still planning on coming to church. Me and my comp both have so much faith and this feeling that the baptism will still happen!
We get gome at about 1 in the morning praying and fasting. We get to church early the next day exhausted and desperate. Oh by the way mission president is attending our church today. At about 8:50 Afonso shows up! He looks so happy and has his bag of extra clothes and everything! Miracle! Apparently God worked on him pretty hard the night before! We fill the font and prepare everything. President gets to know him and congratulates him. After the block we have the baptism. Afonso wanted a friend in our ward to baptize him and the service was great. After coming out of the water he looked like he was glowing! I have never been so happy for someone else in my life!
Prayer works and is so powerful. God hears our prayers and knows each of us personally and knows what our needs are. He will always put challenges in our way but will never give us anything we can't handle! And we wont receive a witness until AFTER the trial of our FAITH!
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