6/23/25: Mucho Lodo

 We had a good week here in Juarez. We had the baptism of a girl named Abril.


Abril had been in teaching by missionaries for almost 2 years. After many unsuccessful attempts by many different missionaries to getting her baptized, she just grew cold to the idea and her automatic response was no. I mentioned a little bit about her in my last email.

After much patience and asking why she didn't want to, Elder Call and I learned that it was because an aunt of hers had told her that after she gets baptized, she wouldn't be able to dance or listen to music. We then explained that that wasn't true and then almost immediately after she whispered to her mom that she wanted to get baptized in the next weekend.

We had to travel to Comitan to do the baptism indoors. We would've done it in a river, but it's been raining a lot and we didn't want to do it in the rain and mud. We got our branch president (who is also Abril's uncle) to do the baptism which was awesome. It was his first time baptizing. He was super happy to do it but a little nervous at the same time.

Something interesting about Union Juarez is that the church has really only been here for about 5 years, so all of the members have very little experience. It's cool helping them along in all of the many functions that running the church as a branch requires.

We have about 15-20 people in church each week, and about 50 members in total (inactives and all). It's barely a branch, but I guess it met the requirements a year or two ago and is now considered one.

Scripture of the Week is from 2 Nephi 25:23
"for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do."

This week I've been thinking a lot about faith and how it relates to our works. Repentance is essential and we have to demonstrate our faith even though it isn't what directly saves us. That's what God's grace does. However, faith is an action. It is a desicion, we don't just passively have faith. "Passive faith" is really just a belief, and passive beliefs are not what help us be saved by God's grace. 

It's an interesting topic, and I'm not gonna dive into everything I've learned about it (because that would require a very long essay) and one that I have seen very misunderstood by many people here on my mission.

Anyway, that'll be all. Thanks for reading if you did, and have a great week!

- Elder Allen




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