Letter 25: “A baptism that I will never be able to forget”

Sonsonate, El Salvador
June 25, 2011

Jose was Baptized (on a chair)
Yay! Jose was Baptized!!!!!!!! And it was a baptism that I will NEVER be able to forget! And let me tell you why:

So the baptism started as the beginning of a bad joke. We had a font, two priesthood holders and... a chair. Let me explain :)

Hermano Max
We thought it would be a good idea to have Hermano Max baptize Jose because he has been visiting him with us and is his friend. When we asked Max to do it he was honored and it made him so happy!

But there were two things we didn’t think about... one, he has never baptized anyone before and even though he said he knew the prayer and how to do it... He didn’t and two, he [was an older man].

One or the other is manageable, but both of these facts together make for an unforgettable experience.

The support & The chair
The elders in our area came to support us and it’s a good thing they did because no priesthood holders from the ward came! (The bishop had a meeting...and I don’t know where everyone else was).

Elder Beaton explained to max how to perform the baptism, but then we realized that Jose couldn’t really bend his knees to be dunked and he is really delicate.

So we decided the best way to do this is to have him sit in a chair in the water so he just needed to be laid back and Max could support him coming back up.

However, then his legs would float up out of the water... the solution to this was to have one of the Elders be in the water too, to hold down the legs.

The plan was Perfect…. right?

The experience
We got everything situated and when the time came all three men entered the water. However, when Hermano Max started the prayer he bowed his head and started saying 'Nuestro Amantisimo Padre Celestial...' ...?!? [Our most infatuatuos Heavenly Phather….] (????????)

We took a quick minute to tell Max how to say the prayer and when he said it they went to immerse Jose... but Max was worried about him drowning so he didn’t want to submerge the head!!!!!... so we resituated everyone so Elder Aguilar was in charge of baptizing and Max was in charge of keeping the legs under the water...

Well Max didn’t entirely understand his job because when the prayer was said again and E. Aguilar submerged Jose, Hermano Max LIFTED Jose's Legs in the air!!!!!

I felt horrible because E. Heil turned red and left the room, E. Beaton could not stop laughing and everyone else was just stunned... for about five seconds we had no idea what to do or say!...

Achieved
In the end of the day Jose was baptized… correctly. It makes me think of D&C 22... It doesn’t matter if you are baptized 100 times, you just have to be baptized once with the proper authority in the correct way...

And in the end we achieved that much... there were hugs and congratulations all around.
I am so glad that Max had the opportunity to help with the baptism because it’s something that he will always treasure... and I will never forget!

Updates
We are teaching more and more Irvin and Zuleyma and they are progressing! They came to Church yesterday and all is good.

Please continue your prayers for them and me... they are working!

There are miracles everyday we just have to look for them!

I love you all!