First Baptism

December 8, 2013 - excerpt from a letter from Evan

     Miracle of the week. Christian is getting baptized. Nobody knows that except for us, Brother Heller, Christian, and the zone leaders. I am going to try to explain how it happened, but to be honest, I am not sure. We had our weekly meeting with Christian. We were not going to have a joint teach because Mathias was translating for his friend Waleed, whom he invited to church, (We had eight non-members at church this week, including Kamila.) Elder Davis felt prompted to ask Brother Heller to come along. We followed the prompting. Brother Heller is really great. He likes to joke a lot. We started our meeting. Christian was saying that he had not received an answer, but we discovered that his real concern was that it was not logistically possible for him to prepare himself to be baptized, that it would take too much time. We explained to him that all we needed was a date and an interview with the zone leaders to see if he was prepared. We started going through the baptismal questions, showing him that he was ready. We were going really slowly because Brother Heller kept talking about things. I felt like it was detracting from the Spirit. Sadly, I started to get annoyed, but the Lord makes up for my failures. We skipped all the commandment check questions (He is keeping them anyways) for sake of time. Elder Davis asked him the final question. He told him to forget the word baptism and to just use the word covenant, which the German word for that, Bundnis, literally translates to alliance. Out of nowhere, Christian turns to Brother Heller and said, "Wenn wir uns taufen... wenn ich mich taufen lassen, werden Sie dass bitte machen?" In English, When we allow ourselves, when I allow myself to be baptized, would you please do that? I do not know who was more surprised, us, or Brother Heller. Christian committed to making out an appointment with the zone leaders and we are going to set up a date with him this week via telephone conference. I am so unbelievably happy. His family can be together forever. Our branch is going to panic when it gets out. This is big for them. We should probably wait until after the Christmas party this week to announce it. But yeah. 

January 6, 2013     

     I was really thinking about all the blessings of the Gospel this weekend. Christian was baptized. He was confirmed yesterday. He received the gift of the Holy Ghost. He received the Aaronic Priesthood. His family now has a Priesthood holder. He is preparing to go to the temple and receive the higher Priesthood. He has received a full remission of his sins. He is going to help to strengthen the ward once he has a calling. He is able to perform ordinances for deceased ancestors. He can help us to do missionary work. There is more work to be done now that he is baptized than there was to help him to get to baptism. It will all be worth it though. 

     Probably the best moment was when Carolin (his wife) came up during fast and testimony meeting to bear her testimony after Christian was confirmed. Her gratitude brought the Spirit into the meeting to strong. We had two investigators who were coming to church for the first time in that meeting. They could not escape the Spirit.