First Baptism!

MY FIRST BAPTISM was this week!!!!
So, they always say there is a lot of opposition that happens just before a miracle, and well they're right! It's kind of a crazy story.

So, there are these three boys who were all half Samoan, (I'm not sure what the other half is) and their mom is a member who just recently, within the past 2 years, has come back to church and has been bringing her sons and they have been taught by the missionaries. However, their dad was very much against all of this and said no to baptism for a very long time. But, he just recently let up on it and said "whatever" to the boys and allowed them to be baptized on August 30th - the day after the youngest of the three turned 8! And then I arrived in Centerville.  . . .  So Sis K and I planned the whole baptism and went to the church the morning of August 30th to set up and get ready. About 30 minutes to 10 a.m. when the baptism was going to start, we get a call from the boys' mom. Their car would not start, and they were going to need a ride! So, we freaked out. We were like, oh Satan, you poop! Such a mean dude, thinking he was going to stop this baptism. So we started calling members frantically, because we couldn't drive them! They were all under the age of 18!

We couldn't get a hold of any members, and we were getting a little more frantic at this point. Then we remembered that we had seen a lady cleaning the church when we arrived. So we ran down the hall, quickly told her our dilemma and asked if we could have her drive us down to pick these boys up. She said she could, but then that almost didn't happen cuz she had about 4 kids with her and the Elders were there. She couldn't leave them at the church with only the Elders. But then, on old guy got there. So we ran out to her mini-van and took out all the car seats and piled them up, jumped in, and off we went to rescue the boys so they could come get baptized! When we got there, there were 3 boys to get baptized, their half brother all the way from Hawaii (who came to baptize them) and their cousin. So he had 5 big Polynesian boys that we needed to get into a car with only 4 open seats. But, we made it work. It was like clown-car status. Sis. K sat on the floor and I sat on her lap! So we hauled all those big boys to the church for their baptism, which was amazing! There are about 280 people in the ward (that actively come to church) and I swear about 150 people came to the baptism! The chapel was definitely full, I wished I could have taken a picture! But only mental pictures are appropriate in the chapel of course :]  But, we couldn't even fit everyone that came, into the room with the font to watch the actual baptisms! It was wonderful, the ward is so awesome!