Letter from May 21

It has been a great week!  Yesterday there were some pretty big challenges.  As I mentioned we are teaching a lady named Marleni, her husband is a member that was inactive for quite some time.  He returned to the church and this time with his wife and kids.  Their wedding date is for this Friday.  We have all the papers and documents ready to turn in before Wednesday so they can be married this week.  They are attending church every week and are very excited to get married and the following day she will be baptized.  Yesterday they came to church and everything was going great…until church ended and we went outside.  They came to church in a motorcar.  I’m sure you guys have seen a picture of what they are like, I have sent a few home.  Well when we went outside the motorcar wasn’t there.  The majority of the people here travel in taxis and motorcars, hardly anyone has their own car.  So there were only two cars in the parking lot that is fenced in. Their car had been stolen.  Can you believe that? No one saw the people that stole it. They were very worried and Marleni started to cry.  It was sad. They left church with some family members who are also members to look for the car.  I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m still in shock that something like that could happen.  The challenges that some of the investigators face before their baptisms are big.  I sometimes ask myself why God permits challenges to happen before being baptized, but as it says in the scriptures he does everything for our benefit and progress.  We have an appointment with them today.  We are going to try and comfort them and help them understand that they need to continue with the decision that they have made and everything will work out in the end.  It’s going to be hard though, because the husband, (Jesus) works with that car to provide for his family.  I have learned that when we want to do something good, Satan is always there putting up barriers to stop us, but if we overcome them we are always much stronger in the end.  Keep Marleni and Jesus in your prayers this week.  It will be appreciated.

Also this week we visited a lady named Rosario.  She is awesome and willing to accept the gospel.  Well when we got there she started to speak to me in English. She speaks better English than I do.  That was very weird for me, but in the first five minutes we only talked in English and my companion didn’t understand what was going on.  It was pretty funny.  Then we taught her in Spanish.  She is awesome and I believe she will be baptized this coming week. Gotta go.

Elder Riggs