First Baptisms in HoHoe

There was a question asked about how we conduct our meetings.  Well, Elder Eppich and I switch off teaching the Gospel Principles class since we only have a two hour church service.  We give out topics to people Wednesday on what they will be speaking on at church Sunday, so the members are pretty good at helping out.  It was only this gone Sunday where we used it as missionary Sunday since none of them answered their phones.  Going on about that, we prepared our talks Sunday morning and were able to take up the necessary time needed. We looked for a few scriptures than relied on the Spirit. Its amazing at how things just flow when you understand the gospel and you listen to the Spirit.  It'll direct you into enough topics to accomplish whatever you need!  Love it.  I hope that on my homecoming talk it goes that easy. :) haha

The place we were doing the baptism was at the river.  There was a woman who owned a house right above where we wanted to do it, so we went and talked with her a week ago.  She was fine with it.  On Saturday night we went back and she was telling us that we shouldn't do it because of the rain.  NAh, it'll be okay!  We kept telling eveyone that, and inside we were praying our hardest that it'd be fine.  Well, when we got there on Sunday and surveyed the area, we found that we no longer could see the roots of the trees like we did a week ago.  Part of the trunk had been covered as well.  I had taken photos of it when we first went there, so I looked at them to see how high it had rose.  It had rose 4-5 feet.  The original place we found to do the baptism was now too deep.  We ended up having to do it where the trail to get into the water used to be.  So crazy!!  It wasn't even a big storm that came through!  We were thankful that these baptisms were able to go through.  Interesting thing, J.  the mysterious phone call man, was baptized on his birthday!  How cool is that? Being reborn on the day you were born. Sweet! Rewinding the story a little to Saturday night, when we went to the house to talk with the woman.  We ran into the daughter who we began talking to.  She knew the church from Accra and we asked if she had ever visited before.  Her response,"I don't like visiting your church!"  Uh.... not the response we were looking for... "Why?"  "Because, whenever someone visits one time, you snatch them!  They always go back! You guys have great strategies!"  Elder Eppich and I smiled.  In response to what she said,"Its because the Spirit is there."  She wasn't believing us. So we invited her to come.  yeah, that didn't happen.  We pray she'll have a desire to visit one day. 

At the baptism, Brother G. was able to baptize his wife H. It was his first time doing a baptism so things were a little choppy. Kind of awkward for everyone, but we got through it!  A part I want to point out, was when he was struggling with the prayer.  He was missing the word "and" when he'd say it, so we corrected him.  It happened a few more times.  The next time he did it, I was listening intently to be sure I was hearing him correctly.  When he would get to the And parts, I would hear this voice next to me,"And"  Then the next one would come,"And!"  I looked over, and there I see Good ole J. slightly bent, leaning over the water whispering "And" to G. so he'd say it right.  J. never heard that prayer before, but he had it memorized after just those few times G. redid the baptism.  J. is awesome!  He really is a future Branch president.

Once Again, another week gone.  Have a safe fun week, and we'll talk next week!  Love ya!

Elder Zaugg