A Baptism!

August 11th was a very happy day in the Tsuruoka Branch.  Dr. Kobayashi was baptized!  It was sweet!!!

 Dr. Kobayashi's story is a literal fulfillment of a promise  given us by one of our area presidency.  He told us that hearts are prepared and, if we do our part and be obedient, we will find them or they will find us.  Dr. Kobayashi was the latter:  One day, the phone at the church rang.  It was Dr. Kobayashi.  He said he had been introduced to the church in America.  He saw the elders riding their bikes and realized that it was the same church.  He asked if he could learn more.  After that, he came every Sunday to church.  He is a busy doctor and Sundays are the only day he has off, so most of the lessons were taught on Sundays, too.  Elder Hinton and I were privileged to be part of some of his lessons.  He speaks fluent English as well as his native, Japanese.  He studies and reads everything he is given.  He loves the scriptures and the Howard W. Hunter priesthood manual.  We gave him "Jesus, the Christ" in English for his baptism.  He is consuming it.  He definitely is a heart prepared. 

We had some difficulty getting the portable font filled in time, so the priesthood formed a bucket brigade to get the font ready.

While the men filled the font, a few of the sisters practiced our choir musical number.  This is only about half of the sisters who sang, plus we had many men.  It was sweet to hear our Japanese brothers and sisters sing their praises in "For the Beauty of the Earth"  during the service.

 The program was very nice:(Just in case you can't read it!)  Sister Hirayama spoke on baptism, President Smith (mission president- the one on the far left in the top picture) spoke on the Holy Ghost.  He is an orthopedic surgeon (in his former life) and shared a powerful experience about how the Holy Ghost helps him in his profession.  It was a perfect thing to share at a doctor's baptism.  The branch choir sang and Elder Dance played a piano solo.  Brother Kobayashi bore his testimony and President Endo gave concluding remarks.

We had 31 branch members there.  That is close to our average sacrament meeting attendance.  Many of them were moved to tears, remembering their own baptisms.  Thinking about it, we realized that every single member of the branch is a first generation church member (except the three young adults, one youth and two children.)  They are all convert baptisms.  Every. single. one.  But it's been a very long time since Tsuruoka Branch has seen a baptism.  Ken found the records and the last recorded baptism was August, 2007.  That was the 8-year-old baptism of the one youth in the branch.  Who knows how long it's been since there was a convert baptism?    No one seems able to remember.  But it has been a very, very long time.  We and the elders have decided this one just broke the dam (so to speak) and there will be many to follow!

Elder Hinton and I were in charge of refreshments after.  We cut up a lot of fruit for a fruit salad and I made brownies and cookies.  I should have got more "mingling" pictures.  But I was too busy mingling, I guess.  It was wonderful to see so many welcome Dr. Kobayashi into the fold.  We just couldn't have been happier.

Our hearts are full of gratitude for this blessing for the branch and mostly for Dr. Kobayashi. We have  prayed every day that the branch would see a baptism while we are here, and the Lord heard and answered that prayer in a powerful way.  We are greedy, though, and are already asking for more!  Sorry.

You know how you pray for the missionaries every day?  That may seem rote to you, but, believe me, we feel it!  You are making a difference!  That is our testimony.   As they say in Japan, "Yoshi!"