Last week me and my companion Elder Seumanutafa had a huge huge miracle!!!! So about a couple months ago when I was with my companion Elder Baumer. Elder Baumer always kept telling me this one lady that is bed ridden, she wants to get baptized so bad. and we always kept going by and trying to see her but she was always in the hospital or the care taker that is Samoan just would ignore us tell us she's not there. So we always would try to see her and it wouldn't work out! But finally about 8 weeks ago we get a call from her care taker and he sounded really worried, and he told us that this lady that is bed ridden wanted to see her. so we schedule to go over the next day and something always came up.
Finally a week later we get a chance to go by and I have no clue what to expect cause all I heard that this lady really wanted to get baptized! so we go in me and my companion Elder Seumanutafa go in and there is this lady that is laying on her bed and she cannot talk very well. we find out that she has this disease called ALS. It's where the muscles start getting very very weak. so this lady she cannot move anything, only her head to nod yes or no and she can try to talk a little bit but it is really hard to understand what she is trying to say. so man all i remember is that we talked to her a lot about the Resurrection and that this right her is just only for a little moment. man it was a great lesson! after that they wanted us to give her a blessing.
and no problem so we ask the care provider what her name is and he tells us that her name is
Manat Soutsavang.....
Man for a second that name sounded familiar and bam, it came to me that it was Kham's last name.
haha hecka got me excited so right away i ask her. if she knew kham and dawn and them, she looked at me, smiled and nodded yes. hahaha I was happy cause mutual friends! the care taker was telling us that she married Khams brother, hecka small world. so .... mutual family! even better so I told her that we were family.
later that night I was talking to the Laos elders ( Cause Manat is a Laotian) asked him if they wanted to teach her and he so no cause she is paralyzed, I was totally fine with that cause i really wanted to teach her cause she is family! so finally i still didn't know what to do when we went by to see Manat. didn't know what to share what to tell her. so my Zone Leader kept Telling her blood is going to be on my head.....
and that got me thinking. so the next day we see Manat we're talking to her. and that thought came to my mind that her blood was going to be on my head. so randomly I asked her "Do You Want to be Baptized?" and she said yes man i was excited! and then she tried to say something else but we couldnt understand so we got some of the people at the house to help us out trying to figure out what she was trying to say. so this whole time she was asking us, When? and we look at our phone look 3 weeks from that day and tell her October 8th. man I couldn't believe it, it defiantly was a miracle! so we got everything figured out. She couldn't make it to church obviously. So after the three weeks we got the baptismal interview in the week of their baptism.
The day of her baptism... it was the most frustrating day of my life... so we start church at 2 go til 5. and the baptism was suppose to be at 5:30, but didn't get started til 6. but man it was so spiritual! man especially When we got her baptized. so we need 3 people to help out with the baptism. it was so hard but man it was so great to see how much faith she showed to god and especially everyone at the baptism. how she need to be clean from her sins. so it was really hard how to do it as fast as we can and as careful as can. but I was the one that was holding her, you know like a baby. so spiritually also scary as heck. but we all knew that it was something that god would help. it was so spiritually when that happened and also to see aunty dawn uncle Kham and the rest of the family! and angel and aunty Dawn when they sang the song how great shall be your joy. it really hit home and i knew this is what god wanted me to do, to be here and to be able to baptized her.
But today we found out she had just passed and my heart is filled with joy, to know that this was a miracle to find out that this is what needed to do before she was has passed! man i just cant stop thinking about how she is in spirit paradise and i am so grateful for the gospel of CHRIST in our life! cause if it wasn't for him we wouldn't have no purpose. and i know that this is truly why i was called here to this area at this time in life, to bring this one sou unto Christ and i know this is the god work and it truly is the most greatest feeling in world. i really cant explain myself fully right now but its true. love you and I know families and friends will be together forever.
ofa atu!!!!
