Today I had the opportunity to go to a baptism, I have been lucky to watch this man as he has been taking the discussions and has been coming to church. I have been able to see him grow and see him change.
When this man first began coming to church he would come to church in normal day clothes, many times his clothes looked dirty and his kids looked like they quite possibly had not had showers in days. At first when he started coming his kids were very loud, and they would fight lots, he would pay attention to them and not get much out of the class.
As time has gone on he started coming to church looking a little bit cleaner, along with his kids. These past couple of weeks when he has come into class it has almost been like he didn’t even hear his kids, he would be so involved with the lesson, listening and soaking up whatever was said- his kids were getting better, they still had problems, but the elders would manage it and everything would be fine.
Last week I was sick and didn’t attend church and so it was a surprise to me this morning when Sister Wood told me that there would be a baptism, I asked who she told me, I was a little surprised as I hadn’t seen him in a couple of weeks and didn’t realize the change. After we had talked about it I saw him walk in, he was wearing a brand new white shirt, nice grey slacks, and Sister Wood said that he had even bought a new tie- he looked so nice on the outside, it didn’t even begin to show the change, the cleanliness, on the inside.
It is not very often that I get to watch someone and be able to see the complete difference, but this time I was able to and it made me very excited to see it, as far as I can tell he is a good man and he has just received one of the greatest blessings that he could ever receive.
Something that I thought interesting about this baptism was that it wasn’t one of the elders that did the baptism; it was someone from the ward. When I asked Elder Christiansen about this he explained that it is because missionaries change but members are forever, they are the ones that need to be there to do the fellowshipping for the new members. He said that a special bond is created between the person being baptized and the person doing the baptism, it also is a great spiritual up lifter for both (which considering most people in my branch are all converts they need- even those of us who are not converts need that). I thought it interesting, but true after I pondered it. Those of you who went on missions did the elders do the baptizing or was it generally members?
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