Surprises all around.
I have survived a full six weeks of being a full-time missionary. Transfer calls
came and went, and Elder Gowers gets to spend his last six weeks training me. No
surprises there. The rest of the week was full of surprises. The biggest being
that I got to baptize four people in one day!
I have a little ministerial
certificate that sits in the back of my Missionary Handbook. It bears Thomas S.
Monson's signature, and certifies that I am "a duly ordained minister of the
gospel and as such has authority to preach the principles of the gospel and to
administer the ordinances thereof." Elder Gowers and I got to put that to use on
Friday night. Sister Johansen, a kindhearted sister in our ward, asked us to
attend her son's wedding reception and serve hors d'oevres. She claimed it could
be a good opportunity to talk about the gospel with lots of people. We saw it as
more of a service project. What we didn't know is that none of her extended
family is LDS. That's why they planned to have a ring ceremony of sorts at the
reception, so that all of the family could feel included, even though the temple
wedding had already happened a week prior.
Well, the person that was
assigned to do the ring ceremony didn't show up, so at the last minute, my
companion Elder Gowers found himself standing as a minister before a bride and
groom. We giggled a bit at the peculiar circumstance, and everybody asked us
afterwards if we were really ministers. I was quick to pull out my certificate
and read it to Elder Gowers. Granted, we are not allowed to perform weddings
without the Mission President's approval, but this wasn't a wedding at all. But
we are ministers. That was a fun night.
We also got surprised when one of
our good friends in the ward got called to be our very first Ward Missionary.
They also called one of our recent converts to be in charge of the meal
calendars for the missionaries. She messed it up the first week, though, and we
got double-booked for a few nights. The ward mission leader managed to get it
straightened out eventually. And I think she's got a system worked out so she
isn't printing out a new calendar every week and redoing it.
The
Nielsons also surprised us a lot. I figured that I would baptize two of them,
and my companion would baptize the other two. Sharing is caring, right? Well,
what the Nielsons wanted was for me to baptize all four of them, and Gowers to
confirm all four of them. So I got to baptize them all. It was an overwhelmingly
spiritual experience!
Getting there was not easy, though. On Tuesday, we
had their baptismal interviews, and were surprised to find out that Jody needed
a second interview. So we scrambled to get that taken care of and stressed about
it all night. In the end, we ended up having Jody talk to President Smart right
after he interviewed Stephani Klamm on Thursday, which worked out just fine. We
really shouldn't have worried so much.
I mentioned earlier that the Nielsons were living with Jody's father and
stepfather. Well, on Wednesday, while Jody was out at an employment class,
looking for a job, the grandfather got fed up with his kids and their Mormon
activities and told them they couldn't live with him anymore if they were going
to insist on going to Activity Days and Mutual and church every single
week.
So the Nielson family found themselves homeless. Grandpa cursed about it,
but they knew that getting baptized was the most important thing they could do
right now, and they were willing to call us and ask for help rather than just
give up on baptism. The bishop and ward mission leader came to their rescue
while we tried to teach the rest of our lessons that day. They were still living
out of a Motel 6 when they got baptized on Sunday. Bishop is still looking for a
better housing solution.
So, with no job, no car, and no place to live,
they still let us teach them on the sidewalk of the Motel 6, and we prepared
them for baptism. And let me tell you, it was the best baptism I have ever
attended. I think more people came to the Nielson's baptism than my baptism. One
of our eternal investigators, the lifelong Jew with Mormon beliefs, Barbara
Cooper, actually showed up with a huge smile on her face. Our mission president
and his wife showed up. Our zone leaders showed up with one of their
investigators. And it felt like half the ward came because they had all fallen
in love with this family in just a few short weeks. We had their friends from
the ward, the ones that so patiently gave them rides and let us teach them in
their homes, speak on baptism and the holy ghost. Elder Gowers sang a duet with
another Elder, a piece of music that he actually wrote. I almost cried. You
could palpably feel the spirit as he and Elder Cook sang a duet about a child
asking his Savior for forgiveness. It was so powerful.
Then I got to walk
down in the water and baptize them all in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Have you ever gotten tunnel vision in the middle of
something exciting or terrifying? I was calm as could be, but I didn't see
anything outside of the font and the precious souls that walked in it. I looked
at the girls the whole time, and didn't even notice the witnesses or the roomful
of smiling people behind the glass. It was an amazing experience. Apparently,
I'm a natural, because more than one priesthood leader commented on how I dunked
them so well. We had forgotten to tell the girls to tie their hair back, and so
with Jody, it looked like her hair wouldn't go all the way under for a split
second. I quickly fixed that situation. No stumbling over the words, no
struggles to get them all the way under. Practicing helped, and I'm sure I was
helped by the spirit, as well.
Several of the ward members brought them gifts, which was so great. Elder
Gowers and I made an order from LDS distribution for them. That was
another surprise with our week - we had to make a trip out to the mission office
because it wasn't going to be forwarded to our apartment in time for the
baptism. But they got their hardcover scriptures, the Book of Mormon Stories and
New Testament Stories books, and YW pendant from us, with testimonies and
letters stuck in them. We are so stinking proud of these girls! They overcame so
much to do this, and they are so strongly convinced that they are doing the
right thing. They also read the Book of Mormon a lot. I'm sure those two things
are related.
Barbara Cooper, the Jewish investigator, had a great time
at the baptism, too. She met with the Ward Mission leader from the other ward,
Brother Harris, who was the first Jew in his family to convert to the true
church. The two of them had a wonderful conversation, partially in Hebrew, that
made her smile even bigger than I've ever seen her smile before. You could tell
they were speaking spirit to spirit. Hopefully we'll be able to get her in the
water before I leave the area. We'll be praying hard for her, for sure!
We aren't done with the Nielsons yet, though. They still need a place to
live, and they need to be confirmed on Sunday. The work of the Lord goes
on!
I've learned more about being a parent from six weeks of missionary
work than the rest of my life combined. Every day, I get to see families
interacting in their natural state, and you can learn a lot of what works and
what doesn't work. People are always willing to give their advice on things,
too. Spending a day away from my area on exchanges felt like an eternity away
from my children. I'm sure the missionary work will go on just fine without my
personal influence. But that doesn't mean I don't miss my investigators when I'm
gone. I had to call the Nielsons in their motel room after I got back from
exchanges. At that very moment, I understood a little bit of why my Mom always
asks me to call her when I'm gone. It's something that can't really be
explained, but I felt that parental state of mind in that instant. I hope I'm a
good dad someday. God will have to keep preparing me for that over the next two
years. I can't wait.
