Teaching and Baptism of Linda Castro

Senior Missionaries usually find themselves  supporting the young missionaries and ward members and focus on reactivating the less actives in a ward or branch. A lot of calls involve a great deal of administrative work as well. Other senior couples spend most of their time studying and teaching classes in either seminary or institute or both. Sister Jones and I were called as CES missionaries and assigned to teach institute classes in the Saipan Ward. We teach two institute classes and enjoy that part of our missionary service. We feel blessed in Saipan to be involved in other endeavors as well. As we reflect on our service we see that we are spending our time in four different kinds of work.

• Working with the young missionaries in supporting their efforts and encouraging them to be committed to the missionary work. We try to provide leadership, encouragement and physical and spiritual support. This part of the work involves teaching investigators and less actives as we go with them to visit people in their homes.
• Strengthening and developing the members of the ward. This involves some shadow leadership with members that are newly called to positions in the ward. This work also involves finding less active members and inviting them to come back into activity. Sister Jones also spends many hours teaching piano lessons to several ward members.
• Preparing and teaching our institute classes. We spend hours studying the manuals and learning about the Gospel and then teaching a small class of Young Single Adults on Wednesday and a larger class of Single Adults on Sunday afternoons.
• Putting a face on the Church in the community. We go about frequently "to be seen". That means going to the library, the Memorial Park, the grocery store and even the tennis court where we meet many people of the community and share our work and the story of the Church with the people of the island.

We often talk of how grateful we are for the variety of our activities and the change of pace that we enjoy in our mission call.

We had not focused on finding, teaching and baptizing because of our other work. That opportunity presented itself in September of 2012.

We enjoyed the wonderful experience of  actually teaching someone the Gospel through all of the discussions and see her enter the waters of baptism. The sisters name is Linda Castro. We were introduced to Linda by a ward member named Delia Castro, a relative through marriage. Over a  period of two months we taught Linda from "Preach My Gospel". We taught her, prayed with her, read with her, listened to the travails of her life most importantly experienced the spirit of our Heavenly Father with her. I had the privelege of performing the baptism on Oct. 20, 2012 and confirming her on Oct. 21, 2012.

The experience has been a highlight of our missionary work in Saipan and something we did not expect to happen.

From left to right, Elder Jones, Sister Jones, Sister Linda Castro and Sister Delia Castro.

Elder Jones, Sister Jones, Sister Piukala, Sister Myette de la Cruz, Sister Linda Castro, Sister Matela.
Sister Myette and Linda were baptised the same day and Linda and Myette became great friends.

Elder/Sister Jones, Linda Castro, Myette de la Cruz, and Sister Pat Sinkevith, a Thai member and friend of Linda.