The "Life of Riley" in Mexico City: Glory Days!!

Gabriel and Elder McClure

A united, healed family!

Rubi's birthday and baptism celebration.

Oh, how wonderfullllllllll!!!

I sure did love me this past week. So much good was done. I love successful weeks!

Thursday was one of the most stressful days of my missionary life! Honestly just about everything that could go wrong, went wrong. Well, at least in my perspective it was that way! Getting the baptismal service ready was a rough experience! We went about trying to get keys to the boiler for the hot water in the font and after begging and pleading and searching just about every house in the ward we found keys. Yay. But, then we opened up the closet where the boiler is and realized there was no gas. That made me mad. Maintenance in Mexico is not a forte. Then, calling our bishop asking for help, he told us it wasn’t his responsibility and that he was going to arrive late to the service, if he was even going to get there. We went running to the mission offices to ask help of the assistants and they told us “tough luck”. Then President saw me stressed and I told him why and his only reply was "Well elder, in my mission we baptized in rivers," and ya, that was it. No help from the mission. So we decided to just go with ice cold water, but as we started filling the font we realized that the drain was broken and that all the water just left the font. Ahhh, what do we do? My companion is brilliant! We got a black trash bag and used it to cover the drain! Wooo. It kinda held! Cold water and broken font, but fixed, none the less.

What else could go wrong? Well, more went wrong, but I’m sure that by this point you all are bored of reading about my stressful day, so let’s just say more stress happened and then ya, it was time for the service! Oh how sweet it was! It was Rubi’s birthday and she had no clue that her dad was getting baptized! She, along with everyone else, was just waiting for the service to start, thinking 2 little girls were going to get baptized, when her dad walked in wearing white. She, in that moment, was Skyping in with my old comp Elder Stout and Elder Crandall for her birthday and she was taken by surprise seeing her dad in white! Then it hit her, and she started to cry. It was the sweetest service ever and you know what? I couldn’t even feel the cold water. To me it was warm for the happiness that filled my soul. And that’s not to mention Gabriel. He told me the same thing. He couldn’t even feel the ice cold water.

The baptism was a little rough because that man is like 6 foot 3 and I’m just a little small fella! But by a miracle I got him up and out of the icy font and oh how sweet it was! Their testimonies afterward were incredible! This family was a ruined mess just a few months ago. In Gabriel’s case he had to hit rock bottom before coming to his senses and learning about the gospel. But, oh how they have changed! They have been healed! A broken apart family is now together. All are members now and they are working together toward a temple sealing in just a short year from now! I’m so grateful to have been part of this miracle! Thanks to Elder Stout being guided to find that family. He was able to help the mom and daughter and I got here just in time to participate in the miracle that took place in papa Gabriel’s life. I personally watched a broken-down, mad and sad man make a full 180 with a twist and he is now a holy man. He went from rock bottom to heavenly high and all in a matter of weeks!! That, my friends, is a miracle and I’ve been seeing so many miracles and eating so many tacos in these past few weeks that I must say I do believe these are glory days!

Life is good--too good and I love it. We are so blessed. We are seeing the hand of the Lord in all we do and it is refreshing and renewing. It would be impossible to say that God is not involved. It’s sooo easy to see His love spread upon all who learn His word and obey his commandments. After all the trials of that cold and rainy Thursday I’m happy to say that we won. And we will always win, so long as we have the Lord on our side.

How happy I am. How tired I am.

We are so very blessed.

Loves,

Elder McClure

I want to throw a shout out to Elder Kazuhiko Yamashita. (See Elder Yamashita on the screen.) As a missionary myself his conference talk went straight to my heart. I can’t explain how it feels to personally know the person who’s speaking at General Conference. It helps me be more receptive to his words and just lets me know even more that he’s a chosen servant of the Lord. I LOVED Elder Yamashita's talk!