ANOTHER BAPTISM

March 27, 2011 Sunday

Today Yingping was baptized into the church. We started teaching her when we were in the Como ward when we first came down from Broome. After we were moved over here to the Thornlie Ward, we taught her one more time and then handed her over to the elders with whom we had traded wards. They were able to find another Mandarin speaking girl in that ward to fellowship her. And they were finally able to commit her to baptism. We were so surprised when she asked Orson to perform the baptism. And I was asked to give the talk about baptism. So this morning we went to all three meetings at the Como Ward and then the baptism. There was a good crowd because they held it a half an hour after church ended. A fellow from Africa (Sierra Leone) who has helped fellowship Yingping spoke about faith and gave a great talk. The Relief Society president spoke about the Holy Ghost. It was fun to go back to the Como Ward. We were only there 3 weeks but got acquainted with some really great folks over there. We see them often at the temple because they are temple workers too. By the way, almost all the temple workers here have a regular ward calling as well as their temple assignment. The seminary teacher here in Thornlie and the RS president in Como are both temple workers; so even the big callings are no excuse for not being a temple worker!
We invited Yingping and Maud over for dinner tonight before they went to a CES fireside. We found out that Yingping is 27 and Maud is 29. Maud is from Taiwan and has been a member for 12 years. She first got acquainted with the church from elders who were teaching English classes. She’s only been in Australia about a year, but her English is really good because she spent a year in the states traveling to St. George, SLC, Idaho, and Washington and staying with families of missionaries she has known in Taiwan. She’s planning a 3 month trip to South America beginning in May.
A funny note: the recently returned missionary who taught the investigator class today spoke with barely an Australian accent. She’d served on temple square and found that people had a hard time understanding her “Australian” so she worked hard to learn an American accent while she was there. Who would’ve thought that would be necessary? But when we get home and introduce ourselves as “The Pohtas who served in Australyer,” do you think people will notice?
Yingping & Maud
Orson, Yingping, & Marilyn
Elder Kent, Yingping, Elder Able