A BAPTISM :o)

Tai with his cousins, Jezza and Tahlya
Sonny (left) baptized Tai(right
March 24, 2011 Thursday

Today was a payday. For the first time in our mission we were able to see someone we had worked with baptized. What a blessing! Heavenly Father must have felt sorry for us so he sent us Faafetai Valeni. We call him Tai (tie). He’d already had the lessons and a testimony. All we had to do was review them with him. Today was his 19th birthday and he chose it for his baptism. His Samoan/New Zealand family members that he lives with provided all the speakers, musical numbers, etc., and it was a beautiful program. When the bishop was welcoming him, he had a couple of young returned missionaries in the audience come up and bear their testimonies also. It was great. His cousin, Sauniuni (Sonny) Faatoia, baptized him. After he was baptized, they stood there in the font and hugged each other. We are so grateful to have been here when Tai came so we could get to know him.
Yingping, the Chinese girl we taught in Como, also showed up for the baptism. She is being baptized on Sunday, and everyone was very friendly and excited for her. She found out our bishop’s wife teaches English so they are getting together tomorrow to help Yingping in her preparations for her next try at the citizenship test. It’s so fun to watch Yingping. She just makes herself at home with any crowd she happens to find herself in.
Today we visited Benny Van Huizen. He is a former investigator from a year ago whom we visited last week and convinced him to let us come over and talk to him about the Book of Mormon. He’s from South Africa. It’s so interesting: we’ve worked with 4 South Africans and all of them have never let us even talk to their spouses or children. Benny listened and dialogued with us, but he couldn’t seem to get past the fact that he is “comfortable” in the church he was raised in (The Reformed Church). We testified to him on many things. He said he’d talk to his wife and decide whether they’d let us come back.
Andrew, the Buddhist we tracted out last week, called and told us not to come today. We just happened to run into the Chans a little later who live just down the street from Andrew, so we asked them to drop by and visit with Andrew and his familyto see if they can convince them to listen to the discussions.