Baptisms and a Transfer

It's been a wonderful week. Lots of good things have happened. But I think the best thing that happened was the family we've worked with got baptized and confirmed! It was a wonderful baptism service. We were able to find clothes that fit everyone, thank goodness, although it was a close call with the mom who is very pregnant. The bishop performed the baptisms. They all were so happy, and lots of ward members came to support them. 

The most exciting part of the whole thing was the fact that they were doing this together, as a family. It's a saying in our mission, "Baptize families", but I'd never really understood how wonderful it was to see a family join the church together until I saw it this weekend. It's just a different spirit, everything seems more complete when a family joins the church together. I am so excited for a year from now when they will be able to get sealed. I'm also excited for the baby to come in a few weeks, and I'm glad that I'll still be in this area to be a part of it. 

Sadly, Sister Winsor is being transferred. I'm sad to see her go, but I know it's right. We were talking about all that's happened this past transfer the other day, and I thought back to the beginning of the transfer. I came into this transfer feeling this sense of urgency, that there was something very important that needed to be done. I thought that feeling meant that we were going to be teaching and baptizing a lot of people. But what I realized as Sister Winsor and I talked the other day was that we were the ones who were taught and changed. Because we already knew each other, were already comfortable with each other, we were able to help each other see what areas we had room for improvement and then work on those areas. I really have grown so much since being with Sister Winsor. 

And so I realized that the urgency that I felt was because I needed to learn and change so much. I'm not saying that either of us were bad missionaries before we got put back together, because we weren't. That's another thing that I've recognized since being Sister Winsor's companion again--I've changed a lot in the past year, and so has she. But there's still more for us to do, more for us to learn. We can still be better missionaries, even though we've been missionaries for a long time now. God has definitely used this time that we've been together to focus us on what more we can do and helped us to see what our full potential is. I'm grateful for that. I'm excited to get a new companion, and for all the wonderful adventures that we're going to have as we both try and learn this area together.