Getting Wet

Maritsa's Baptism

¿Que tal?

Maritsa got dunked! Besides her mom telling all her friends three different times for the baptism, people forgetting the hymnbooks, and not being able to find anyone in the Branch Presidency to start, everything went well! Ha ha. It was an amazing experience to baptize Maritsa. As she came up out of the water the Spirit literally took her breath away! Granted the water in the font was freezing, pretty sure the hot water wasn’t working so that could be a large part of why she came up gasping…LOL! All in all, she was confirmed and now a member of the church! Elder Thomas was asked to share something about baptism and as he was finishing up, he started talking to everyone there rather than to just Maritsa. He said “I hope that as we are all here watching Maritsa get baptized, we can remember when we got baptized and remember all the amazing feelings and emotions we felt as we were given the gift of the Holy Ghost.” He then said, “And for those who haven’t gotten baptized yet, I hope you have a desire to follow the example Maritsa is setting for you as she follows the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” It was perfect because sitting in the front row was Melanie, Jacquelyn, and their mom, Christine, who we haven’t been able to meet until yesterday. It was just what they needed to hear, and think about. In large part of what Elder Thomas said, we’re meeting with Christine this week to talk to her!

On Saturday, we went over and talked with the three girls (Melanie, Jacquelyn, and Maritsa) and read a passage out of the B of M. We read about Alma baptizing in the waters of Mormon and all three of them loved it. They were even fighting over who was going to read the next verse. But it was awesome to see these little light bulbs go off in their heads as we read. All three couldn’t stop asking questions about the B of M and about baptism so it was really fun. Then at sacrament the next day, we brought out the Book of Mormon coloring books and they loved them! (s/o to Mama). Melanie was even going through all the pictures pointing to the different people and explaining who they were…”That’s Jesus”, “That’s Nephi”, “Those are the gold plates that the Book of Mormon was written on”, stuff like that. It was pretty awesome.

Take away - If a 10 year old can find so much excitement and happiness from just reading 18 verses in Mosiah, you can feel the same way. I’m not going to get all deep with you guys (lol) but I invite you all to read just a part of the book this week and think about how you feel afterwards. You could be reading it right now, or haven’t ever opened up the book before, but no matter what, you will feel the same excitement and happiness that Melanie, Jacquelyn and Maritsa felt and the love that our Heavenly Father has for us!

That’s it for this week. Everything is going great! Des Moines is still “the Promised Land”! haha

Deficil es bueno… con amor,

Elder Christensen

Bomb B of M Time with the Girls

Dab before the Dunk