Dear Family and Friends,
What a week! So many crazy and exciting things happened in Worcester this week. The most exciting and important being that Tony Collazo was baptized! Teaching him and watching him grow as a person has been truly amazing. When we first began teaching him, he was reserved and quiet. Now he has so much light and he has such great potential to help others come unto Christ. Elder Asay was able to baptize Tony and on Sunday I was able to give him the Gift of the Holy Ghost. What an amazing opportunity it was to give him that sacred blessing from our Heavenly Father. I know that Tony will have such a great impact on helping his family and friends receive the gospel.
It was such a relief to see him get baptized because when we first began teaching him he was very unsure and then later on he said he wanted to wait at least a year before he would get baptized. Our Heavenly Father has a plan for everyone of us and if we pray to him for guidance he WILL help us. Tony is such proof of that, now he is preparing to take his mother's name to the temple and have his girlfriend perform her baptism. Such a stud!
So funny thing, Satan was definitely not happy with us baptizing Tony because right after his baptism, Elder Stewart came into contact with a man named Pastor Sam. After the baptism, we were going to stop by a potential investigators home. When we knocked, no one answered and we were on the porch talking and somebody opened the door who lived on a different floor of the duplex. (Homes are so weird in Massachusetts. A duplex can have 8 families living in it). We introduced ourselves and began to share our message with him. He would not give us his name and he very hesitantly shook our hands. Pretty fishy from the start. He stopped us and began to ask us questions like: "Who is Jesus?" "Who is Satan?" "Who is Joseph Smith?" He asked us these questions in a very weird way, basically checking for our understanding. Then, he told us to come into his home. He sat us in his living room and told us to take out the Bible. For the next 10-20 minutes, he tried to share as many scriptures with us in an attempt to disprove our message. We answered back calmly every time with strong testimony and politely listened. Though all of what he was saying was going in one ear and out the other.
After a couple attempts to get him to take a Book of Mormon, we told him we would have to leave. But here's the thing. I was NOT going to leave that place without giving him a Book of Mormon. So when he was offering a prayer before we left, I hid a Book of Mormon under his couch cushion! Haha!! I can only imagine how mad he will be when he finds it. It was obvious that Satan was trying to get us to question our testimonies from this experience. But, to be honest, it was such a testimony builder! I know without a doubt that this church is true and that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I will never deny that.
We are teaching some amazing people. We have a new investigator named Giordan who is a funny kid. Thank you for all the support and keep Faustina, James, and Emmanuel in your prayers as their baptisms are closely approaching! Love you all!!
Love,
Elder Gutierrez
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| Tony's Baptism |
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| Tony's Baptism - September 10, 2016 |
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| "The Happy Family Super Chinese Buffet" (So gross, but somehow we end up eating there at least 2 times a month) |
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| Bob sang us a song last visit. |
