Birthday - April 14, 2014

My birthday was great. I ended up with 3 cakes (sort) and a pineapple! When we ate with the members that day, they bought me a delicious chocolate cake. I also got a pie of sorts from the Sister Missionaries, and two Hostess cupcakes with a candle when I went to help a member with an English Assignment.

And for the pineapple... I received that on Tuesday as a gift from my Zone. They sang me a birthday song with a Ukulele, and have me a pineapple dressed in a grass skirt. The word for Pineapple is Spanish
is Piña, which is another word that they use to say girl, as in a girlfriend. Therefore, the sang about my ´Mexican Pineapple´ or my ´Piña Mexicana´. It was clever, and of course, my face turned red!

This Saturday we had a Baptism! Sofia Benavides, a 15 year old form a less active family that we reactivated, and her brother Isaac, were baptized Saturday. I have to say, it was super hard to get everything organized, because we weren’t able to meet as a ward conference on the Sunday before because of General Conference. To have a Convert baptism, we need a lot of support from the ward for the talks, prayers, musical numbers, etc. But everything turned out well! They were both baptized by members in the ward, and confirmed this Sunday. They only problem was that we found out Isaac was 9, when we thought we was 8! Converts of 9 or more go through the missionaries, and children who are 8 go through the Bishop. Isaac should have gone through all the steps of an investigator to be baptized, but didn’t, because we thought that he was 8, and therefore went through the Bishop. And his parents never corrected us! He turned 9 in March, so we are still waiting for the word of the Mission President to see what is going to happen with that... I think everything will go ok as is. If worst comes to worst, he will have to be rebaptized, but I doubt it.

So, we had two convert baptisms this week when we only thought that it was one! This definitely helped us to realize the importance of checking records. Well, we learned a lot from the last baptism, so our baptismal service for Victorino this week will be much more organized! He is super ready for baptism. He has learned thing, attended 8 times at church, and is already in Mosiah in the book of Mormon even though he is a slow reader! I am super excited, because he is someone that Elder Baptista and I found in the Street together, and whom we are going to baptize together!

Thank you so much for your birthday wishes!

I send all my Love,
Elder Redford