Lourdes Got Baptized!

"The biggest news of this week is that Lourdes got baptized! Finally! But, oh was it an adventure! The baptism was Friday morning. Lourdes didn´t want to use a normal baptismal tunica, because she wanted something special and pretty that she could keep. So we bought her a temple dress and made this cute sash with a little flower to wear. Well, the night before we decided to test it to make sure it wasn´t going to be transparent when it got wet. But it was....completely transparent, like saran wrap. So we began calling every missionary in the zone trying to find a tunica for her to wear. We found a couple, but Lourdes didn´t want to wear anything but the dress we had put together.

Anyways...her baptism was at 11 in the morning, so we planned on waking up at 5:30am to be at the capilla by 6, so we could fill the font because it takes about 4 hours to fill it up. Our alarm didn´t go off, so we woke up late. So, we scramble over there and start filling up the font, but there´s no hot water. In fact the water is ice cold. So, we make a million phone calls and the maintence guy comes over to look at it. It turns out there is no gas in the entire capilla and therefore no hot water. They call a gas maintence guy and he comes over and fixes it. But by the time we have the gas for the hot water, the pila is already full with icy water and its 9:30. We know Lourdes will not want to get baptized in the cold water, so we drain it and start to fill it with warm water. But its 9:30, it takes 4 hours to fill up, and our baptism is at 11:00.

Also, we had Stake Conference last Sunday and nobody has cleaned the capilla since and it was filthy. So, in our skirts and heals we vaccumed, mopped, and I cleaned urinals...yes...urinals.

Finally at 11:00 people start showing up. But, the font was only about to a person's ankles, so we stall. We take pictures, we introduce every single person in the room to Lourdes and her kids. And then at about 11:30 we start. We asked one of the elders to direct the meeting and tell him to stall. So we had the program, and then Elder Daines gave an impromptu talk and bore his testimony about 3 times. Lourdes had asked us to do a muscial number, so we sang, but because I was singing we asked a young woman in the ward to play the piano. But what we didn´t realize, is that she played from the simplified hymn book which means the song was about 5 keys higher. It was awful, we were skreeching. It was the worst muscial number in the history of baptisms, I´m sure.

Finally at 12:00 we can´t stall any longer and we all head over to the font. The elder that is going to baptize and Lourdes go down into the font, and the water reaches barely above their knees! But they did the baptism, and it worked. And Lourdes wore a white t-shirt under her dress so it wasn´t too horribly see through.

Hermana Windous and I bore our testimonies afterwards, and then Lourdes bore her testimony. It all worked out. It" was crazy, but it all worked out!