The work in our area looking good. We just had three baptisms in two weeks so we are back at the beginning stages. Luckly we have found a lot of people over the past 2 weeks so we have varias houses to follow up on and see how they are doing and if they are keeping their commitments to read.
The zone is doing great as well, I almost got to baptize someone in a river because we went to esquina to do a baptismal interview of a kid and I was assigned to do the interview. Usually we ask the investigators who they want to baptism them and the kid said he wanted me to do it. haha I responded telling him that he had to pick one of the two elders that taught him(because esquina doesnt have any preisthood in their area) and he said he still wanted me to baptize him. And in esquina, the church is a rented out store that the church fixed up to be a ´´chapel´´ and so there isnt a baptismal font. SO they do all their baptisms in the Río Paraná. But unfortunetly, it rained all morning, so the baptismal service got postponed til the afternoon and My comp and I had to leave at 11am. So.... it didnt happen,.
So some bad news to share. Saturday night was a pretty rough and sleepless night for me. Saturday night after we got back home from the baptism of Luis and Alan, I recieved a call from Elder Taylor(the elder I trained in Ibarreta). I answered the phone and from the beginning I noticed a weird tone in Elder Taylor´s voice. It was as if he had just been crying. I got all tense and listened as he told me, ¨Elder Keicher, I have some bad news. I just got off the phone with the cousin of Oriana Ayala(member in Ibarreta), she just let me know that Maxi Falcon got hit on his motorcycle by a man under the influence friday night. And today(Saturday) at 3 pm he past away in the hospital¨
Maxi Falcon is the son of the branch President in the Ibarreta branch. An area I served in from january 2017 to August 2017. I grew really close to the falcon family in that space of time and worked closely with maxi. He was 17 years old and blessed the sacrament ever Sunday I was there. I honestly didn´t believe Elder Taylor, even though I knew it wasn't a joke. He was a super strong kid and had a strong testimony of the gospel, even though he didn't like to show it sometimes. I remember his dad telling us that he would get in fights a lot at school because others would pick on and criticize him for being a ¨Mormon¨. But yet, he never wavered and was always positive. I remember so clearly the time when President Falcon and Maxi knocked on our door at 10:45pm after getting back from their yearly temple trip to the Asunsion, Paraguay temple to give us 2 Dominos pizzas they had bought for us (as seen in the picture). He had just gone to a For the Strength of Youth camp in January and was getting ready to serve a mission within the next 2 years. I had even left one of my white shirts still in plastic to have for his mission.
It was pretty difficult for me to recieve that news. This morning(12deFeb), they had his funural. I called President Patanía Sunday asking him if I could go to the funural but unfortunatly, Being 10 hours away from Ibarreta prohibited that from happening. This came as a wake up call for me. Honestly, in my life I havent experienced many deaths, it is something that I just havent seen. You always hear of people dying every day, from sickness, old age, car accidients, etc. And to me, I never really took it to heart how fragile life is. To think that Thursday you could be living your normal daily routin, and in the blink of an eye, your funural is that next monday. To me, I had never thought of it like that. We never even imagin that our own death is a possibility right now. If someone where to ask me what I would want my funeral to be like or would make any sort of reference to my death, Immediately with out even processing the question, I would think 60-70 years in the future, with my own kids giving a talk of the ages about how their dad was this and their dad was that. I would imagine one of my life long high school friends relating to a jam packed chapel about how their high school friend Corbin went through his entire life without seeing a single star wars movie or maybe even the time when he got his girlfriends name engraved on his NikeiD cleats, only to break up with her before the first game of the season(true story). These and many other things I would imagine, and I believe we all would think the same way. No one plans on dying young. It´s something so unthinkable that it doesnt even seem possible. But it is. and it happens ever day all over the world. And if we are not ready TODAY, nothing is sure. Tomorrow is NEVER graunteed. Our Father promised us that we would have a chance to come to this earth and recieve a body. But didnt promise a time frame. For that reason, we have to really ask ourselves what we are doing in our life. Am I just trying to ¨Life it up¨ because you ¨only live once¨? or am I trying to follow the steps that will make me happy right now, in 20 years, and even after this life. Because all things idicate that there is a God and that he has a plan for His children. We, as his children, have to follow this plan he has set for us in order to recieve all the blessings he wants to give to us. If I am a rightous father and my child doesnt want to follow the concepts and principles that will help him become successful in his life, even though I love him with all my heart, It is his desicion to listen and do the things I have tried to teach him. The same with our Father in heaven, we just have to humble ourselves enough to sumit to His will.
I hope you are all doing well and I hope you are all doing the things you need to do personally to be happy today, tomorrow, and for the eternities. Have a great week (:27 Have ye walked, keeping yourselves blameless before God? Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins? 28 Behold, are ye stripped of pride? I say unto you, if ye are not ye are not prepared to meet God. Behold ye must prepare quickly; for the kingdom of heaven is soon at hand, and such an one hath not eternal life.
Elder Keicher
Argentina Resistencia Mission
[Bridge that broke out side of Esquina]
[The soccer court behind the church]
[This time I insisted on the selfie... sorry]
[Baptism of Alan and Luis]
[Nahuel insisted on the selfie]
