Letter #47

 Hola, como estan?? Esta semana fue super loca, a lot went down this past week

To start off, sorry it's been a while, I sent an email last week but I don’t think it ever went through.... so just for a quick recap, I got transferred to an area called La Espiga, where I'm covering a ward and a group, and I'm also a trainer, training Elder Godfrey! 

Training has been fun and interesting. Let me just sum it up in one conversation we had... the gist of it was me asking "where are the norms (missionary standards handbook) that they gave you?" His reply was "I never got those" It's been fun though, he's doing well and learning pretty fast, even though some days he makes me want to pull my hair out (I suppose that’s why they call it having a kid in the mission)

The work is going great over here, we have a lot of people progressing and a couple fechas (baptism dates) here pretty soon! There were some crazyyyyy stuff that went down this past week though. We share the ward with sisters, and they had two brothers get baptized this past Sunday. However, in the week leading up to his baptism dude went through a lot.

First of all, we get a call last P-Day from the sisters right as we sat down to get a haircut that he had attempted to commit suicide and he was in his house alone. So we jumped out of our chairs, ran to his house, and found him with a screw in his chest. I wasn't sure exactly what to do, so we called his family, they called the police, and then we just sat down with him and listened to hymns and read Helaman 5 in the Book of Mormon. (First testimony of the Book of Mormon this week, it brings peace to the soul, but just wait, it gets even crazier)

The week goes on like normal until friday rolls around and we get a text from this same guy, the pictures will explain

Basically, he had stopped to help some people pulled off on the side of the road (don't do that in central america) and they pulled a gun and tried to rob him. He refused and ran away, and they shot him in the leg and in the chest... right where he had his bag with his Book of Mormon. The craziest thing was the bullet stopped right on the chapter that the sisters had left him to read, and the bullet was touching the words in Alma 46:2 

"a tal grado que estaban resueltos a quitarles la vida." (I'll let you do the translating on that one)

The moral of the story is that God lives, and that baptism and the Book of Mormon. His life was saved by God twice in the same week, and he was able to be baptized this past Sunday. I had the honor of performing the baptism, and the Spirit was incredibly strong. I testify that baptism is essential; God protected him to be able to take this step in his life. And how did he protect him? With His word; The Book of Mormon. We might not all have dramatic life or death situations like this in our lives, but the message is the same. Having the scriptures close at hand and heart bring comfort and protection, I could testify of that before, but now even more so. Please don't let your guard down, study the scriptures every day! It will save your live (quite literally)

Elder Bagley