Well, family and friends. This week is a week I’ll never forget.
The bikes are broken so we’ve been walking around everywhere. Elder Nash and I are getting a lot done so that’s good. My feet kinda hurt though, but whatever.
Anyways the reason why this week was unforgettable is because of what happened on Saturday. Up until this point in my life, my worst day was the day I hit Spencer while playing racquetball, but Saturday was probably the worst, no, definitely the worst day of my life. I’ll try to describe it the best I can.
So we have this investigator Benjamin, and so you know he's 9 years old. I don't know what I've mentioned about him, so I'm just going to say it all. He’s 9 years old and the Mother is kinda less active but had been going strong. So Benja because he’s more than 8 years of age is our responsibility as missionaries, and so I taught him the lessons with Elder Molina. He was ready to be baptized, but the thing is that he has a fear of water and this fear of water has caused a ton of problems in the past. In fact, he’s tried to get baptized on 4 separate occasions. Sometimes he was too scared to try. 2 times some part of his body left the water and didn't count. Each time he got scared and said no, I don't want to redo the baptism and left. And Benja picked me to baptize him this time. (My first baptism.) So with this in mind we had his baptism last Saturday.
We showed up at 5 when it was supposed to start, and nobody was there. We had to wait and wait. The family showed an hour later, and then the counselor of the ward showed up. So was a little on edge about that, but finally everything was good and calm. I had practice with Benja like 5 times how it was going to happen what we were going to do. I had prayed and in fact was fasting at the time. Everything was perfect. I got in the water and went to perform the ordinance and made very sure that everything was submerged (in the water), and then when I looked up, the counselor of the rama told me that I forgot to say Amen. (I am pretty sure I said it but maybe too quietly.) So I had to do it again, and Benja got scared. They shut the door so we could talk. I sat there talking with him for like 5 minutes and he was completely unresponsive and in total and complete fear. So his mom came and talked to him, and finally he leaves the water after like 15 min. So I just stayed there in the baptismal fount and cried. Finally, I left and walked in the bathroom and sat on the toilette and cried.
I went from disbelief and shock to being sad, then angry, but why am I telling this depressing story? I still don't understand why I messed up because it happened when I was trying to everything so right. I do know that we don't always get to choose our circumstances, but we do get to choice how we react. At first I cried, then there was a part of me that wanted to be mad and that wanted to say that I didn't do anything wrong. (The guy is just hard of hearing.) In the end the Mom was pretty mad when I got out of the bathroom and she left. That night I called her and told her that I was so sorry that all I wanted and all I want is to help their family. In the moment I know that she was mad, but after talking to her that night we both felt better. In Basketball, I remember after getting in a fight or disagreement with my coach, my mom told me to go apologize after. This didn't make any sense because I didn’t think I did anything wrong. I felt like he was the one who judged me wrongly, and I was just defending myself. But there is so much power in those two words: I’m sorry.
That’s all I’ve got. Hard week.
