Well, this is not going to make me look very good in some people’s eyes. But it is what happened. I’m not going to make any excuses. I remember a big focus of my mission being that we felt inspired that if the church was to grow in New York City, we needed to baptize everyone. And we did.
June 7, 1996
It was crazy. After we had walked around, we had nothing going on. We went by Fransisco’s home to see if we could see him, and he wasn’t there. We had been looking for him for days and nothing. So we were sitting on Luz’s porch and my comp asked Heavenly Father to hook us up with something good. Just then Francisco pulls up. We leap in his car, teach him, and then he says he would like to go and see the English baptism this evening. We’re like, yes! We had to go and finish teaching the English baptism first. Evylin got home late so while I taught her my comp ran and picked up Fransisco with the Holy Ghost. While I taught Evylin the last 4 discussions. Everyone showed up and we left for Rego Park, [Elder] took Fransicsco aside and Francisco wanted to get baptized. So we baptized Evylin and Fransisco in a fast short but sweet service. […] I felt from the day I met him he was going to be a priesthood leader in the church. We caused a couple of ripples. There were no members were present, the branch had little notice, it was last minute and he hadn’t been to church. But I knew in my heart the Lord wanted it and to see if we would be obedient at doing our job following the spirit. […] I love this work. It was weird because Evylin thought we were going to baptize her daughter. [We couldn’t because of her age] I told her we would give her child a blessing and she said good. […]
June 8, 1996
Root Canal Day… Joy
We saw a fight today like 7 AM. Through our back window. 2 chicks were pretty upset. Not too bad. They only landed a few punches each. […]
June 10, 1996
[Elder] has 10 days left now. That’s pretty hard to imagine. I guess I’m in trouble. The branch and all the missionaries are […] mad that we baptized Fransisco. It’s like nothing is good. We can’t please them. They’ve had something to complain about after every baptism we’ve had and this one broke the camel’s back. At first, they were mad that we weren’t baptizing. Then they were mad that we were baptizing during the week. Then they were mad we interviewed the day of the baptism. Then they were mad because they didn’t meet him and that was the worst. (Also, no members were there). Every missionary is telling us we’ve permanently destroyed branch relations. They’re all mad. Wow, now we need an emergency special correlation meeting to work things out. The correlator thinks we’re number-hungry. Crazy […], all we want to do is fulfill our calling which is to [baptize] if we feel someone needs to get baptized. [We] will baptize them. […]
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June 11, 1996
[…] When we talked to Fransisco in the car the other day he said […] there was a Mormon church beside his Catholic church and this friend was a Mormon and looked like and talked just like me. Wow, it’s very hard to imagine but it must be true. We saw him today and Satan is trying very hard to discourage him. All these bad things are happening to him it’s sad. But his faith is hanging in. He’s being strong I know he’s going to make it. It makes me suffer to think of the problems he’s having. […] we prayed about where to go today and we found an area we hadn’t touched much and the day was very successful. We found awesome people and families. We’re going to baptize them. We promised God to stay up there a certain portion of the day and we found a pot of Spanish a large pot of them so we’re going to work it hard. […]