Faith and Baptism

"When you choose to follow Christ, you choose to be changed."

     -President Ezra Taft Benson

I decided to put my quote at the beginning of my email today, because

it has a lot to do with what happened this past weekend. We had a

baptism!!! Flashback to three months ago, my other companion, Elder

Palhares, and I were given a member reference of an older couple,

Joaquim and Nilde, who were doing lots of family history work at a

different church building. We went there and started teaching of

course! Coming back to this past weekend, they were baptized into the

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the day after

confirmed and given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The experience was

absolutely fantastic! I loved seeing them make progress and change

their lives. Miracles happened as they started reading the Book of

Mormon, prayed to know the truth, and came to church one Sunday to

watch the Prophet and Apostles speak in General Conference. They have

large health problems. Nilde had diabetes. I say had, because she no

longer needs to take the medicine or worry about the problem. As they

began searching for Christ in the right way and place, her health

problems began to disappear. A true miracle from God.

Joaquim has serious problems with his heart. Years ago, he had a heart

attack that left him absolutely dead without a pulse for six minutes.

SIX MINUTES DEAD. However, he was miraculously spared and given more

time here on Earth. Thanks to a procedure created by Elder Russell M.

Nelson before he was an Apostle, Joaquim had his two collapsed veins

restored to normal operation. Joaquim was left with several problems

though. One of them being that he cannot stand cold water. He almost

instantly catches hyperthermia in cold water. Knowing this, we tried

heating up the water last Saturday, but the water heater wasn't

working correctly. With little time, we started boiling large amounts

of water and throwing it into the baptismal font, but it wasn't

enough. The water wasn't even room temperature. We debated what to do,

and decided to continue and let them decide what they wanted when the

time came. I entered the water, and invited Joaquim in with me. He

started to step in, but stopped at the top and commented that it was

too cold. Others told him to desist, to give up and do it later, but

Joaquim knew that this baptism was what he wanted. He knew it was

right and he put his faith in God. Slowly, he entered the water. You

could tell he was cold. But he went in still and was baptized. As he

came out of the water, he smiled real big and told us how warm he

felt. He left the water without a single problem and without a single

sin. Clean and changed because of his faith and determination to

follow Christ.

I hope everyone has a good week! I hope everyone likes this story and

always tries to emulate the faith that this brother had. Keep safe and

work hard! Choose to follow Christ!

Elder Ashford