"So when am I getting baptized?"

2/25/16

Aloha my ohana!!

So, as you probably have figured out by now based on the picture I sent to you guys, we had a baptism this weekend!!! :D It went great! I'm not too sure if I already told you the story of T and E, but whether I did or not I figure it can't hurt to share it again! :) haha! So basically they were another family that our Branch President and some other members at church just walked up to us and said "alright Elders, these kids are getting baptized next week and we need you to go teach them." And yet again, just like the other kids they have done this with before, they gave us about half a weeks notice before the scheduled baptism day!! So of course as always we were just scrambling to get over there and trying to cram in what for most people is a process of a couple months or a couple of weeks at best, into a couple of days. Thankfully, the baptism date for this one got pushed back a tiny bit, just a few weeks, to accommodate for the family so that took a lot of pressure off of us and gave us more time to actually finish teaching them before they got baptized. 

Anyway, they actually both come from a very active member family but I guess for whatever reason they just kind of fell through the cracks and didn't get baptized right when they turned 8 and so it ended up that one was 9 and the other one was pretty close to turning 9 before they actually got baptized, making the baptism one child of record and one convert. (that seems to be a strangely common occurrence here in this branch! haha) What was extra special about this baptism however was that both of the children asked if I could do their baptism for them!! :) So I happily said that I could and this last Friday we had the baptism! It was great! :) Believe it or not, out of the 8 or so convert baptisms I have been able to witness on my mission so far, this was the first time I got to perform the actual ordinance! It was really exciting and brought back a ton of great memories about performing baptisms for the dead in the Temple with the young women of Lakeshore ward and others.  I also got to perform one of the confirmations for them in Sacrament meeting the following Sunday, and my companion did the other. It was spiritual experience for us all I believe! :)

Well as for other news this week. We also have been teaching and are REALLY excited about and looking forward to yet ANOTHER baptism this Saturday as well!! And you'll never believe it, but this one is going to be ANOTHER service with one convert and one child of record baptism! :) haha! So I'm not sure if I've talked much about J before but he's a young boy who lives at pink building (basically the central hub for all the Marshallese here in Waipahu) and he quite literally just walked up to us one day and said "hey Elders, so when am I getting baptized?" Of course we were a little caught off guard because we hardly even knew who he was, but we were more than happy to oblige and immediately we set a goal for his baptism and started working towards it! This time was nice too because we set a date that would actually give us a reasonable amount of time to teach him the lessons and make sure he was ready for baptism and the commitment involved. And I am very please to say that I firmly believe that he is!! :) I'll be sure to let you know more about that next week after the service! :) (Sorry, I just noticed that this paragraph has a lot of smiley face emoji's in it, but I suppose it is a very happy thing to talk about so even the keyboard that I am typing it into is happy and seems to require that I add a lot of smile faces! :) haha) 

The other person being baptized this Saturday with J is a young girl who turned 8 years old not too long ago so she as well as all of her family are of course excited about that as well and she is especially excited to share a baptism day with J who is slightly older than her but still a good friend seeing as they live three doors down from each other on the same floor of the pink building! haha!

Well, there is a ton more going on but one of the consequences of being so busy is a lack of time to really write about every detail so I will just say that we have quite a few new investigators and families that we have found either on our own or with the help of members and that we are very excited about and I hope to be able to write more about them in the near future. But for now I have to get going, we have a lot of work to do and not enough time in the day to do it all! I hope you have a fantastic week and remember how much God loves you and know that I also love you and will keep on praying for you as time goes by! Kommol tata im bar lo eok!! Kiki in jabinabin! :)

-Elder Powell