BAPTISM! BAPTISM! BAPTISM! BAPTISM!

So to start off. Game time is coming up soon. We are officially having a baptism this Saturday. It was announced in our Sacrament meeting so it must be legit. The great thing about this is it's both Elder Shaw's and I first baptism so we're just going hard about this. It's just nuts to both of us :) But, one of the craziest things about it was to see the miracles that happened one after another to really make it happen. The first one was Winkler our close friends (like they're literally part of the Portage Branch but because they're an hour and a half away they have their own group) had a baptism this last saturday. It was a Spanish Baptism so that was legit. Pretty much everything except the branch welcome was in Spanish. Even Elder Blommeart, who is not a spanish missionary, did the baptism itself in spanish. He looked terrified :) But, Stephanie was able to get a ride, after much worrying on our part, to it and had a great time. I think that was what helped her have a vision of what she wanted to do. It was so good. Just so good.

Earlier in the week our branch president, you'll be hearing more about him later as well, came over and basically gave her the run down of what she's getting into and what she needs to do to prepare. It was a legit lesson and that was the first of the miracles. She really started doing well after that. 

Another aspect that happened with our trip to Winnipeg for the Spanish baptism was we were all just beat because of it. We traveled a lot of the day and it was just a draining experience. So that happened and then that night Stephanie had the gang of kids that trolls around the coops (the nickname for the apartment complex Stephanie lives in (just think Chicken Coops and you get it)) so that gang of kids decided to stay the night and was just a rumpus all night long. But, in spite of that, when we woke her up the next morning she was dedicated enough to come to church. It was so good. 

Over this time we had been worrying about her desire to be baptized and to read the scriptures so pretty much every prayer that has been sent up to heaven from the Portage apartment has included her in it. And we've seen our prayers answered before our eyes. So good :) She's getting excited, and nervous (she's really shy and the biggest worry she has about the baptism is how many eyes are going to be on her) but, it's working out :) 

So there were four times that I typed out baptism in my subject line but I've only talked about two of them. So I'm sure you're wondering about the other two (if you weren't already I'm sure you are now) So first of all Winkler was having a two week in a row trip out to Winnipeg. Which is soo good for Elder Goodrich because it's his last two weekends in the mission. So we planned it out so that we would have the same baptismal service for both of our investigators. So good :) But, it gets better. So after church in Winkler (our branch president drew a lot (literally it was a green paperclip) and he went down to Winkler) our branch president pulled a guy aside who had been coming to church a lot recently. After he was done talking to them he got everyones attention and was like "I'm pleased to announce that our friend is going to get baptized this saturday" and everyone cheered and was like "WHOOOO!" while that's all going on he goes over to Elder Blommeart and Goodrich and was like "you two better go over every day this week and teach him everything" So now they're doing that. Flippin our branch president is just Fuego right now. He literally just set a baptism up for the Elders down in Winkler in like twenty minutes. It was nuts. 

So now as much of you understand when good things are going to happen there's usually bad things that happen along the way. This has been the theme of this week. I think it's typified of a lesson we had yesterday before we found out Stephanie was doing so well. So this is literally the first time we got into this persons house and we're teaching them and all. She mentions that she goes to the First Baptist church or something (Shout out to Elder Andrus he knows all about the baptists) so we teach her anyways because she's willing to listen. So we get close to the end of the lesson and we just gave her a Book of Mormon. She gets this call (and we can hear the other person on the phone) turns out its a member of her church and she's coming over in (she said) 5 minutes. So we're like Mr. Incredible and we've got time. But, turns out we didn't. So the lady knocks on the door and we're like oh shooooot... The worst part is is the lady we were teaching takes the Book of Mormon in hand to the door. OH shoot... So the lady goes off on whatever she was there for and then suddenly "whatcha reading?" Ahhh nooooo... as soon as she finds out it's the Book of Mormon she just starts railing off anti about us. Meanwhile we're just sitting there like Oh my goodness what is actually going on here. To make matters worse she then tells her we're still here. Dun dun dunnnn... Then with mouth spitting fire she comes in and tells us to plead our case or something (I was going into panic mode) And then *thump chest above heart* mah boi Elder Shaw comes in to save the day. She's claiming that we don't believe in Christ. Elder Shaw defends. She claims they believe in the Bible and not some degenerate copy. Elder Shaw defends. and it all happened in front of the lady we were just teaching. Just like that it's all over. The lady we were teaching then goes on to say something along the lines of "There's always something more to learn and if He (joseph smith) believes in God then its something she's fine with". The lady came back a few minutes later and I'm not sure if she knew we were still here but, she goes on a little bit more about how we believe in multiple gods or something. It was nuts. 

I just fear for the life of the poor lady we were teaching. She is going to be thoroughly antied over when they're done with her. Good times in good old Portage La Prairie. 

So I think this is all the time I got. But, Next week should have plenty of great stories :) Love youz and have a wondrous week