February 5, 2017

the first book of Fifi

Hey everyone, it's been a really good week this week. Highlight of the week though is our investigator Xanthe's baptism. The family is now all members of the church! (except for the kids that aren't old enough yet) Joey got his priesthood a couple weeks ago so he was able to perform the baptism. Great to see! 

Funny story though, we were filling up the font for like 2 hours and it was only ankle height, so we started pitching buckets of water filled up in the custodial closet into the font. After a few minutes we realized something wasn't right about the water. It was turning brown. Luckily the branch mission leader came and told us that during this time of year the water gets a little murky. We had half an hour before the baptism so we continued pitching water while Elder Bullock went to find a hose to stick in through the window but couldn't find one. However we were able to get the water to about mid-thigh height before it started. By then the water was really really brown. But hey we figured it would be like getting baptized in a river or something. Anyways a couple minutes before the program started one of the assigned speakers came up and told us he hadn't prepared his talk and asked if someone else could do it. Luckily one of the zone leaders was willing to take the fall. With missionaries though it's not like we get scared doing something like giving a talk out of the blue. 

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures with them in the white baptismal clothes just because we were so caught up getting all the stuff worked out. At the end of the day though, it's not about the pictures, it's about the memories you make.

And it was a really good baptism. The Spirit was really strong and to see Xanthe get up and bear her testimony of how the gospel has blessed her family as they've lived the gospel more in their lives. Joey testified as well about how happy he was to be back at church after years of inactivity and how grateful he was to be able to baptize his wife. I could feel the Spirit confirming to me that the baptism was approved and sealed. I was blessed to confirm Xanthe a member of the church on Sunday. It was my first confirmation but I was really happy to do it. 

Just another funny story, though. On Saturday we were door knocking and walked up to this one guy who was standing in his yard. He looked like the kind of guy who would just wave us off but then he asked us a question I definitely have never in my life been asked before: 

"Did you bring Fifi with you?"

Me and Elder Bullock just kind of stand there, like "Uh, no. Who's Fifi? A dog?" 

And he said "It's in your bag, isn't it?"

I replied "My bag's got book of mormons and pamphlets, no Fifi."

And he goes "Yeah, Fifi's one of the ones in that book of yours. Female, right?"

I was so confused. I had no idea what this guy was talking about. But it slowly dawned on me.

"Wait, do you mean Nephi? There's a man named Nephi in the Book of Mormon."

That's honestly the only thing I could think he was talking about. I couldn't really tell what he said after that because he was mostly mumbling at us but he said something about "Smith" and "fantasy man" so we just kind of awkwardly asked if there was anything we could help him out with and walked away. He wasn't nasty or mean or anything but I think he was just sorely confused. He said he had read the Book of Mormon before but I think it was time he reads it again. So yeah, great week this week and hope it was a good one for you!

Elder Cummings