Baptism
Well, it was a pretty sweet week, we….got….a….BAPTISM!!! YEAH!! Anyways, it was pretty crazy how everything worked out in the end after everything fell apart. First off, I have to give a background on this lady, her name is Carolina. She was found in January of 2005, and had been investigated the church ever since. She had become one of those internal investigators, who missionaries set tons of baptismal dates, but it never happens. In fact, when I got here, she had one, but it feel throw. They had never even gotten to the baptismal interview before. Well, a few weeks ago, we were on AP exchanges and Elder Christensen and the AP Elder Jackson went over and tought the 3rd lesson. She asked when she could get baptized and they set another date for the 19th (the day Elder Jackson was touring Wilson with his family, because he was going home…and also another Elder that helped teach Carolina, Elder Martin, was leaving). So, we started to make preparations for that. During this whole period, Elder Christensen and I were kind of going crazy trying to make sure everything would work out all right, cause we knew her history. So, we tried to stop by everyday, call, going through some extreme measures to make sure she was at the baptism and interview. On the day of her interview, she was seeing her kids at the social services building (she lost them for a stupid reason and social services is dumb), and we even tried to translate for her to make sure she got to her interview, but the social services lady was way mean and rude to me. But, she eventually made it to her interview, although a little late but she did it. So, that was the Friday before the baptism. Well, the next few days, we tried making daily contact, leaving notes on the door, calling her but it was impossible to contact her. The only time we saw her was at church. Even, the night before the baptism, we could not get a hold of her, we stopped by, called…everything!
But the next morning…just after I woke up, at 6:30 am, the phone rings…I pick it up and it’s her. She then goes on to tell me that she is on her way to work…and that she is going to visit some cousins afterwards….I asked her if she was going to be able to make it to the baptism and she said no. I was shocked, I didn’t know what to say, and she just told me to call back. Well, I had to call the mission home, where Elder Jackson was, and tell him she called and after that, everything went crazy. Our one single purpose that day was to find Carolina before the baptism. So, we called everyone that had contact with her, we even thought about driving out to where she works…way out in the tobbaco fields….but we couldn’t contact her. Well, when we got back from District Meeting, we sat around for a while, debating on what we should do. We basically had two options, 1) To forget about, go to work, find some new people or 2)Spent the whole afternoon making the program and feeling up the font. Well, we made it a matter of prayer…first, as a companionship and later individual. After the companion prayer, we separated and went to different rooms. I remember the impression I got was that we should go through with everything first, but afterwards I felt that we shouldn’t do it. I felt stronger about the first thoughts. And later to find out, the same thing happened to Elder Christensen. So, we decided to still make the program and fill the font. We made a trip to the library, made the program, and later went off to the church. At about 6 o’clock, Elder Jackson and his family had arrived, also our Branch President. Still, there was no word from Carolina. It felt like it was a worthless cause. Then, at 6:30 (baptism was going to start at 7:00), the phone rings at the church house…Elder Christensen answered….and it was Carolina! She said she was coming and that she was just waiting for her ride! Well, all three of us start celebrated…more a sigh of relief. But…the ride wasn’t over yet. In turns out, somehow word had leaked out that the baptismal was canceled, so some people who we had already asked to participate weren’t going to be there…namely the speaker on the Holy Ghost and the person who was going to conduct. So, Angel Lopez who was doing the talk on baptismal, volunteered to also do the Holy Ghost and guess who got stuck conducting…me!! It was a pretty sweet expierence, I never would have imagined myself conducting a baptismal…it wasn’t that hard. So, after that everything worked out perfectly, the service was sweet, and Carolina, the impossible baptism, finally got baptized. I guess one of the members was in contact with her the whole day, and she said she was doubting and didn’t think she was going to do it, but at the last second, she had a change of mind. It definately was a miracle. This experience really strengthened my testimony on the power of Faith and Prayer. If we wouldn’t have done all of the preparations, and everything we could have done and put it in the Lord’s hands, I don’t think that it would have worked out.
Well, it will be one story I will never forget, one of the great succeses I have experienced out here. We have another couple potential investigators, we are still trying to find more hispanics! Well, I know that the church is true and that if we do all if can do with the best intentions, that it will be given to us what we stand in need of.
Con Amor,
Elder Hardy