Soooo our baptism happened yesterday! Man it was crazy to get everything done. Let me tell you:
-
last week we were in anchorage for two days for these few things:
transfers, zone leadership conf. which sis brown goes to cuz she is a
training sister, recording for me and another sister named sister
rivera, and "sisters training" cuz for the first time in a long time,
all the sister missionaries in alaska were gonna be in anchorage at the
same time. DURING THIS, i got a phone call from the guy that schedules
the stake center (the building where the baptism was gonna take place)
and he told me we could NOT have the baptism at the time we wanted it
cuz the font would be filling during relief society of that ward and the
relief society president said "it was a no go, we would have to have
our baptism at 6 or 6:30." The problem is, our investigator's good
friend in church couldn't MAKE it if it was that late. It is not SUPER
normal to have baptisms on Sunday, but Saturday wouldn't work.
-so, a relief society president was rescheduling our baptism....and
of course all these elders around me hear me going through this on the
phone as we pulled up to the mission home (sister brown was in ZLC while
I was out with sister rivera and 2 other sisters...we'd just come back
from tracting in the snow--we'd already recorded music for the day---and
by the way it snows SO MUCH in anchorage, you get COVERED in it when
you are tracting) so these ELDERS. They are like "YOU KNOW WHAT IS
HAPPENING? SATAN." And "YOU CAN'T LET A RELIEF SOCIETY PRESIDENT CHANGE
THE TIME OF YOUR BAPTISM!" they get ALL worked UP, it is hilarious
.Captain Moroni style, they were about to rip their coat and go fight a
war about it.
- stressful.
- I can understand, though, why a relief society
pres wouldn't want the font filling right there while she is teaching
relief society. Cuz the water would be so loud. And if we filled the
font before church even started, the water would get cold. Seriously by
10 a.m. there would be classes all day til 4 p.m. in that room.
- finally the bishop of that last ward that meets there in that
building called us back (we had called him ever so sweetly and
explained) and said what they'd done before is tie a jumpsuit around the
faucet and the water goes through the leg of the jumpsuit (people get
baptized in white jumpsuits that are there hanging by the font, this is
what we would use) and the jumpsuit acts like a hose and silences the
water
-So the zone leaders that we have are amazing and talked to THEIR
relief society pres who has the 11-2pm ward who said "pssh they can fill
the font during my relief society, no problem!" so they were gonna
start the font at 12, and let it run til 2pm till the OTHER relief
society pres's class came in, and then we were gonna come and fill up
the rest of it at 4 (baptism finally scheduled for 5:30) with pure hot
water and make sure it would be warm enough. BUT GUESS WHAT, so the zone
leaders started the font at 12 like they were supposed to (you see our
ward is at another building 15 min away, so that's why the zone
leaders--two elders who are in charge of the zone, by the way, is who
THEY are ---were gonna do it. BUT GUESS WHAT, someone thought it was too
loud so they turned it off, with a few inches of water, so sis brown
and i headed over there quite agitated at 2 and she took off her tights
and waded in while a class was going on in the room on the other side of
the big ol curtain, and she started doing the jumpsuit thing, we got it
to work, yay, it took a while.
- then we could barely figure out the copy machine to make the
programs and we got quite stressed out and we can't be stressed, we
don't work well together stressed, sis brown and I.
- but the
baptism finally happened, and it was PACKED, and it was wonderful, and
she was baptized, and afterward said she was "overjoyed." the bishop of
the ward didn't want her going a week before receiving the holy ghost in
the next church meeting so he got her confirmed a member and given the
holy ghost right after the baptism, under permission of the mission
president, who attended her baptism.
-When she went under the water, relief and a slight shock went
through my body. It was amazing. Baptisms are powerful, spiritual
experiences.
-While she was getting ready afterward, we had
everyone in attendance write down their thoughts of it on slips of
paper. Or they wrote their testimonies. Or if they were 5 they drew
pictures. We put these slips into a photo album and gave it to her as a
gift, which she LOVED.
SO THAT WAS OUR BAPTISM, it was pretty cool.
It has been
difficult teaching the woman who speaks spanish...language barriers
really are barriers. And our other investigator hasn't been
texting us back...hopefully he will this week.
Hopefully the two daughters of the woman who got baptized will start
taking the lessons with us, one of them already wants to be baptized
but it's just cuz of the way we do baptism, by immersion....we needa
make sure she understands what a huge but life-fulfilling commitment
joining this church is. It takes commitment and a lot of sacrifice to
follow the Savior. To really follow him and do the things he did, is
hard. The OTHER daughter hasn't shown much interest at all but she is
the one who actually came to her mom's baptism--grumpy and not
smiling--but by the end of it was smiling, said she liked the baptism,
and I even was able to give her a hug goodbye.
MOMMY. What immigrant song? I am so confused.
I wear my
purple down jacket or my white fleece under my 50% wool peacoat and am
just fine...but if out in weather about -15 degrees or colder, if I
stand STILL for too long, I really think about buying a better coat, but
this thought never lasts long enough for me to really do it. If I get
transferred to fairbanks in the winter I definitely will actually buy a
coat.
I wear my tall dark boots that are rated down to -25 degrees all the
time. Every day. Except if I know we're gonna go tracting, or we're
gonna go to the musk ox farm, and then I wear my bunny boots. Those
other boots I bought are warm, but the inner liner is so tight every
time you take your foot out, it comes with it, and they are not as warm
as the bunny boots, and I am thinking about not really ever wearing
them...HAHAH...and leaving them here for another cold-footed sister.
On sundays, I take my little flats into church with me and change shoes. Hee hee.
You just wear layers...tights...leggins that are not longer than your skirt...with wool socks on your feet...
Today
I am wearing brown tights, leggings (not even wool socks, it is like 30
degrees). My brown moleskin skirt that goes to mid-calf. My green
sweater with a darker green downeast tee shirt underneath. My big
lightweight earthy tone watercolored scarf. And my peacoat. That's it.
I must run, I love you all. I love hearing about all the detailed family adventures momma tells me.
-sister ashbrook
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