Baptism! And I've been a missionary for 5 months!

This was a good week!  We had more rain, which was an adventure, and also some cool finding experiences.  We've been struggling to find investigators this week, but we added two investigators who were both investigators a couple years back.  One of them has been investigating the church for literally 12 years!  We tracted into her on a day when it was pouring buckets.  It's interesting, because I've seen her teaching record in our archives several times, but I always passed over her and we never went to visit.  Then the other day we were knocking on doors in the pouring rain and we found her!  She was the only person who let us come inside.   It's interesting how the Lord works.  He knew we'd never go and visit this sister because I'd seen her teaching record a bunch of times and never planned on going to talk to her.  So then we knocked on doors in a monsoon for an hour and a half, and found her in that way instead!  And who knows--maybe she wouldn't have let us in if it hadn't been pouring and we didn't look like drowned rats wearing black nametags.  She says she's never been baptized because she's been looking for a sign, and like Sister Camarillo said, "The missionaries have been coming to visit you for 12 years.  That's a sign!"  We'll see how things go with her.  A lot of our other investigators have been sort of fading away and have stopped keeping commitments.  The ones who came to church last week didn't come this week.  It's so frustrating!  To quote The District (those movies we watched before going into the MTC) "Just come to church!!!!"  This morning I was reading in Jesus the Christ, thinking about why these investigators are just not ready to make changes.  I read about the parable in Mark 4:25-29 when Christ describes a sower, who after he plants has to wait for the blade, then the ear, then the harvest.  Every seed that we plant has to grow!  We can't expect to always sow a seed and then harvest the fruit in the same moment.  Some seeds grow faster than others because they've been planted on ground that has been cultivated and well-prepared with experiences and a desire to receive the truth , and others need more time.  So it may be that with some of these investigators, we've sown the seed, and they'll need some time to grow. They've felt the Spirit and they know what they need to do.  So now they have to decide to do it--to nourish the seed that's been planted (Alma 32)!  Like the sower in the parable in Mark, we might rise night and day for many days and not know what will happen to these seeds we've planted, and maybe we'll have to go and work in other areas before these seeds are ready to bring forth fruit and be harvested.  Sunday we had a baptism!  [J and B] were baptized. It's been interesting teaching kids, especially little boys.  They're kind of crazy and sometimes struggled to pay attention in lessons, but they have learned a lot in the past little while.  They were baptized on Sunday, and it was so good to see them starting on a path that will bring them so much happiness.  Their mom just recently started coming back to church, and I know that having her sons in the church will help them to grow in the gospel as a family.  And nobody panicked during the baptism!  That's been a problem with a lot of the little kids in the ward--they're super scared of water!  But everything went well for [B and J].  J's toes came up so we had a redo, but it was fine. He'll remember it better now!