Tijuana Temple Open House, Baptisms and Spanish Calculus

Nov 16, 2015

Elder Brown and Elder Ruiz at Temple Open House

It seems like it's been a day or two, not a week since I last wrote you all!! However, a lot has happened. For example, I got over a 4-day stomach cramp, my feet developed a lot of blisters and then healed, we ran out of water to drink and water to shower in. It rained, and in Imperial, that's never good. I have taught a few horrible lessons, and met more than a few people in contrary to us. However, those are minor prices to pay for the blessings I've received. We have many progressing investigators. We have more investigators than there are people in the branch. However, there aren't many people in the branch, and the investigators never progress as quickly as us missionaries would like. :) We baptized two investigators last week. We have another sure baptismal date. We visited the Tijuana Temple Open House three times since the open house commenced on Friday, November 13th. I've had a lot of spiritual experiences, and I've learned a lot that can't be written.

Elder Brown, Carlos, Elder Ruiz

I have been serving a mission for 2 months, to the day. I am 1/12 of the way done. It's crazy how quickly the time goes. We baptized two people Saturday and Sunday. The first is named Carlos. He was my first lesson. I committed him to baptism when I taught my first lesson in the field. He then decided not to be baptized but has since changed his mind again. I was able to baptize and confirmed him also. That was a cool experience.

Diego was a cool experience also. He wasn't very sure that he wanted to be baptized, all of the way to Friday the 13th, when he decided to be baptized Sunday the 15th. That was a really cool lesson.

Elder Brown at Temple Open House

I remember thinking, "we need to get the investigators and members to conduct a Noche de Hogar, or Family home evening," and then dismissing the thought due to the logistics of balancing our lessons with our investigators, recent converts, and members. Later that day, during the mission correlation meeting, a brother from the stake told us that the members need to conduct Noche de Hogar's in the homes of the investigators. I learned that sometimes the Spirit may give us enough of an idea to develop it and then act on it. If the prompting doesn't seem feasible, find ways to creatively achieve it.

Mrs. Gourley, you’re going to LOVE this next story!!! We were trying to teach a sister of Karla, named Clara (dangerous naming scheme, I know) but she was doing homework. Turns out, she needed help with math. I ended up teaching her and her friend calculus in Spanish. That was a fun experience! :) We are now teaching her and she is planning on being baptized in December. The family of Karla is opening to the Gospel. She's really a blessing to them and to the branch. She has done soo much for them. Her aunt and cousin might be taking the lessons after most of Karla's family and her aunt and cousin attended the temple open house today.

The Tijuana Temple may well be my favorite one. It's beautiful. It's not large, but it's fantastic.

Elder Brown Enjoying Little Cesear's Pizza