Week #57: ¡¡¡Bautismo!!!
Como anda buena gente!! How is everyone doing? This week was fantastic, to say the least. Im gonna get right to it...we had Paulinas baptism!!! It was a very special day for sure. Paulina is a 9 year old girl and her mom is a member of the church already. Her mom had been inactive for a long time, but just started participating again in the ward and her daughter, Paulina, immediately wanted to get baptized when she came for the first time to church!
We started teaching Paulina a month or so ago, and this past weekend we had her baptism and confirmation. Her baptismal day was crazy, but ended great. We ran into some problems (including not having hot water) but everything turned out perfectly. She couldn't have been happier. I was just so happy to see her and her mom with the biggest smiles on their faces that day. It is a day I wont forget for a long time.
I began thinking a little more about baptism in general. I was thinking, 'how is it that we are saved through baptism?' We all know that through baptism we can enter the kingdom of God, but how is it possible? No unpure thing can enter the presence of our Heavenly Father...but somehow getting into the water and then coming out makes it possible that we can become clean from our sins...? I quickly came to the conclusion and the reminder, that it is only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ that baptism makes it possible to be forgiven of our sins.
The Atonement is easily the most important doctrine that we have in the Restored Gospel, but also probably the least understood doctrine as well. Because Christ felt our sins, our weakness, our sickness and our afflictions, He can forgive us of what we have done. He understands us and our trials. He cries for us, when we cry and he rejoices with us, when we rejoice. He knows that only by and through His Atonement for us, can we be saved and live with Him and God again.
If it weren't for His sacrifice for us, there would be no hope for a better world. There would be no meaning to this life and it would be filled with a temporary happiness bound to end when we die. But thanks to Him, there is hope. We can live with our familes again, and we can be forgiven of our mistakes through baptism and repentence. The whole gospel of Jesus Christ is centered on the atoning sacrifice of our Savior.
I promise as we increase our understanding and testimony of the Atonement, everything will become clearer, and the complicated subjects will become easy. Se que mi Salvador vive, y que El expio todos de nuestros pecados. Gracias a La Expiacion, disfrutaremos las bendiciones de Salvacion para la eternidad con nuestras familias y nuestro Padre Celestial en un estado de gozo y paz. No hay otro camino ni nombre dado para recibir todas de estas cosas.
