The baptism did
happen and it was amazing. She is 76 so I felt bad dunking her underneath the water
as I performed the baptism. As she started to go down she didn't plug her nose
haha and almost didn't go all the way and the thought that went through my head
was "I'm not making her have to be dunked 2x". So I extended my arms
and pushed her all the way under and checked that her knees were under and she
was good to go so I pulled her back up. haha, it was kinda funny. haha but I felt
bad. But she was baptised!!! Then confirmed the next day. It was wonderful.
Joyce is great! And things with Elder Holman are going really well. We have
gotten much better at communicating with one another and have both changed a
lot! Its really neat. His whole high school experience he was to school on time only
3x and on the mission we record morning schedules (if we are up on time) with
a total for the week. And he had only had 2 full morning schedules
before we were together, and this transfer he only had 1 bad morning schedule,
which is awesome! Then as for the Saturday night and Sunday they were very
intense experiences/miracles. Which I don't want to rewrite about so I'll copy
and post my email to President Porter for you.
This was a great week in which many cool
things happened. 1) Joyce Frederick entered into the fold and joined the
church! Such a sweet experience. :) Then there was the story with the Miamisburg
sisters which I'm sure they told you all about but man was that a crazy
experience. We were able to discuss it (Elder Holman and I) and saw all
throughout the day how he was preparing us for that to happen. Even how he had
us give our keys to the Elders and not allowing calls to go through to
different sisters and a bunch of things that were so small but how they were
preparing things for the night to happen. Then we met with the sisters and
sister Nelson faught getting a blessing for a little while but knew she needed one.
We annointed and blessed her (I annointed) and it was a very powerful blessing.
Right before the blessing I had a very strong impression to pull Elder Holman
into the Hall and let him know I felt she had spirits that need to leave, but
also told him to listen to the spirit. But when he gave the blessing, 3x he
cast out spirits and made some crazy promises, one of which was he promised
Heavenly Father would send legions of angels to lift and bear her up and
protect her. We finished giving the blessing and sat down, Sister Nelson was
crying, but then I also noticed, she was drenched in sweat, it was intense and
we were exhausted. Then Sister Tawzer asked me for a blessing which I feel was
one of the most powerful blessings I have given as well, I have never really
gotten super emotional with Gospel related things but when I was giving her the
blessing I started to choke up and tear up, I felt so much love being
expressed to her from God it was unreal. There was also a powerful warning I
felt I should tell you, in the blessing he had me warn her to get help when she
is starting to struggle and to reach out to those she can trust before she gets
into a big hole. I felt that if she waited to long to get help it would be a
real hard time for her to get out. Such an amazing experience, I'm so grateful
our Heavenly Father allowed us to be tools in his hands.
Then that night was
really tough. I started to allow fear to overcome my mind being afraid of the
opposition. I was doing okay most of the night before bed. So after the
blessing, while we were biking back, and talking about how we would probably face
opposition, I had the feeling multiple times, Elder Holman was going to have a
super bad night terror that night. While we were getting ready for bed (I hadn't
told him what I felt) he said to me "Elder Silotti, if I'm having a night
terror, the way to wake me up is to call me by my name, Alex, not Elder, I felt
like I should tell you that". and let me tell you, when he is sleeping he is
much stronger that normal. That's when the fear really set in and I had a rough
time falling asleep. I was trying to pray and quote scriptures but nothing was
working to overcome the fear I was feeling at the time. I finally fell asleep
around 12:20ish. In the night, I woke up to Elder Holman rustling around and
screaming/yelling (not sure what) in a very demonic and inhumane sounding voice
and I started to scream his name in utter fear (my throat hurt after), after 3x
of screaming his name, he finally woke and told me he had been awake the whole
time and hadn't fallen asleep (which was not true). I was sweating and was
terrified to move at all or do anything. I was so scared. I have never been so
fearful and felt so alone and scared in my life. I asked Elder Holman if we
could read the Book of Mormon and at first he said no, but a few minutes later
he agreed. Once we started reading I started to calm down. After 1 chapter I was still fearful but calm enough to stop overheating and sleep. I woke up
still very fearful. I didn't even want to get out of bed to turn on the light.
I was scared to get in the shower or go in the living room it was very bad. I
got in the shower and started to pray for help and was prompted to read the
proclamation to the family and so I did. I immediately started to feel the fear leave
me as I was reading through it, after I got on my knees and was thanking and
begging God to keep helping me, that's when I was prompted to start reading off
the other scripture in the shower. After my shower I felt good enough to
realize reality. I had let so much fear overcome me, but was starting to
overcome it with light. Through the rest of the morning there was still
darkness but not as much. We got to the church and I went into the restroom and
was praying to my Heavenly Father. And had such an amazing experience I started to
tear up again as the atonement was applied as I opened my heart to God and
repented for allowing fear to overcome my mind. God made a promise to me that
when I took the sacrament the darkness would be gone completely and it was a
real promise. I've always struggled with having much of an experience with the
sacrament but this time when I took it the darkness left, I felt so clean and
happy, so much so that I did not feel the need to receive a blessing anymore
because of the cleansing power of the atonement as the spirit washed over me. I
was so happy, but exhausted, I struggled to stay conscious the rest of church.
All day I was worried that the fear would re-enter my mind as I recalled the
past night and the fact that Elder Holman frequently has night terrors (I had
to wake him up last night too but that one wasn't too bad) but I kept pushing
away those thoughts and feelings of the night before, knowing if I was
entertaining them, fear would again overcome me. I did not let Satan win and
got through the day and night with no problems or fear and feel great today,
and so happy at the growth of my testimony from that experience. Sorry my email
was so long, but I felt I should let you know. Love you President!!!
Hope you have a great week Mom, love you!