This should be a big week if everything goes as planned. Forgive is almost certainly going to get baptized this weekend. She's so cute. I'm a little concerned for Madame Afiwor, though. She is willing to get baptized, and she keeps the commandments, but because of the language barrier, and lack of reading skills, she is having a hard time acquiring a testimony of the Book of Mormon. She says she listens as Forgive reads it, but I don't think she really listens, or if she does, she doesn't really understand. And because of language issues, she has a hard time understanding the importance of the restoration and everything. Elder Barr will be coming to give them both their baptismal interview this week. We hope she passes, but I've prepared myself in case we are told she should wait. It's been hard, I've been praying with all my might over the past couple days that the Lord would help her understand, that He would touch her heart and help her be able to understand that this is true, and what that means. Then today I had an interesting experience, I was once again praying about this, and during the middle of my prayer, which consisted mostly of, "Please Heavenly Father, help her. Help her understand. Help her realize why we have the Book of Mormon, and that it's true. Help her be ready for baptism. Just help her. Bless her with a testimony. Bless her kids that they will be calm so we can teach her better. Please, just help her be able to be baptized." Anyway, it was during the middle of another one of these prayers, that all of a sudden, I thought to myself, "Well, what does Heavenly Father want? Of course he wants her to be baptized, but He would not want her to be baptized without being properly prepared. He wants her to be baptized exactly when she needs to be."That didn't give me an exact answer to my prayer, but it helped me to realize that I need to focus less on myself and my wants and more on Madame Afiwor and her needs, and especially more on the Lord, and His will. Elder Barr will interview them Thursday, and let us know if she's good to go. If she's not, there may be some reprecussions from the Ward (some of the members tend to overreact to late notice things like this), but I'll know that it's what the Lord wants and that the day she does receive that testimony of Joseph Smith, she'll be able to enter into the sacred waters of baptism to join Forgive. So, tune in next week to see what happens.
As for less heavy news, yes, Elder Stoker is here in Charleroi with me! He replaced Elder Stucki here. We have seen each other only once so far, but we'll see each other soon. He's always asking me over the phone, 'What's Crack-a lackin' Sœur Bracken?' which makes me laugh (His trainer would always say that to me, so I'm pretty sure that's where he got it from). The weather has been crazy here. We still sleep on the living room/kitchen floor, because we're too scared to tempt the heat up in our loft where our beds used to be (this has been our living situation for about the past 3 weeks). But now it's starting to cool down just a tad. Oh, by the way, tomorrow we're doing exchanges, and I will be here in Charleroi with Sœur Mataalii! I'm so stoked. I've had a little bit of news from Court, which is great. Also, some other crazy news, Melanie is going on a mission! She just got her call. She is going to Hermosilla, Mexico! Crazy! She leaves Dec. 18th. That reminds, me, I've done a lot of thinking and praying, and I think I'm going to prepare to come home the 11th of December. So I guess you may plan accordingly.Love you!
Passez une bonne semaine!
Sœur Bracken
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