July 29, 2013

Missionary Slim uses the interwebs to help a missionary in Utah 'attend' a baptism. Sweet! (Week 77 in Pennsylvania, Week 1 in Dover, PA)

It's always amazing when weeks like this happen, when everything seems to be so mundane, so ordinary. We taught lessons, we found some interesting people, that sort of thing. But the weekend was something spectacular.
First off, this week we're splitting our area. Sister missionaries are coming in to take over the York half of our area. My companion and I are now officially serving in the Dover area. That means that nearly all of our investigators are being turned over to those sisters, and that means that the coming weeks will be very interesting indeed.
We got a call several weeks ago about a referral - someone had stumbled upon Mormon.org and started chatting with the missionaries there. Those missionaries in turn sent the request to us to stop by and visit this person. After getting in contact with him, we found out that he was going out of town for a long time, and wouldn't be back until this past week. So, I gave him a call, set up a visit, and we went over.
We sat down and started visiting with Kyle, and asked him the usual question: "What possessed you to go and visit Mormon.org?" His is probably the best response I've ever gotten. I'll paraphrase:
"Well, my family is Catholic, but I've never really attended or gone to church at all. I've never read the bible, I've never really prayed or anything. One day, my family was taking a 'What Faith are You?' quiz. All of them ended up being Catholic. When I took it, though, I ended up being Mormon.
"I was curious, so I went to the website and started looking around. Then a chat box popped up, and I started talking with the missionaries. They answered a lot of my questions, and I learned a lot. And ever since then I've just had an incredible desire to learn."
Pretty awesome. He's in the sister's area, so that might make it hard for us to keep tabs on his progress. I'm pretty sure that he'll make great progress though.
This weekend, we had two baptisms. Yes, two. I'm amazed myself. The first was for a sister named Sarah. I've probably talked about her before - she was taught all of the lessons online by a sister missionary in Utah. She's been eluding us the whole time, but when we finally got word that she has a baptism date, we finally got in touch and arranged the whole affair.
The baptism itself was probably the first of it's kind - I'm sure no other missionary would ever try to pull the stunt that I did. Sarah didn't really know a whole lot of people from the ward, so when it came time for her to choose who to give her talks on Baptism and the Holy Ghost for her baptismal service, she was at a loss. She knew of one person to give a talk, but she couldn't think of anyone else. We missionaries wanted to stay out of it.
Someone made the suggestion "Why not have Sis. Russel do it?" Yes, a brilliant idea! Have the missionary that taught her give the talk. After a little bit of brainstorming, and talking with Sis. Russel, we decided that it would be possible to do a Skype-in talk on baptism. This was pretty incredible for Sis. Russel too, because she had always been told that as a computer missionary, she would help the people to baptism, but would never actually see the service herself. Well, we did just that. We carted a laptop computer over to the font so she could see the ordinance, and she was 'present' for the entire service. It was pretty unique.


The second baptism was for Juan, a 12 year old who we've been teaching for just a few weeks. His entire family has already been baptized (except the dad) and they are very friendly towards the church. He's your regular, average kid - playing video games and pranks, but usually wanting to do the right thing. Well, he did. 


So, the work is certainly moving forward. I'm glad I was able to play a part in the baptism of these individuals. It's been an incredible experience.
Here's to the future!
Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim

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