Mon 1/25/10 12:46 PM
It was good to get a couple more emails this week than usual! Thanks Hannah and Whitney! Those pictures of pretty lady Megan were really cute!
Congrats on the success with the diet, Mom and Dad! I am glad to hear that it worked well for you. The oranges are perfect and delicious! Thank you! And I am glad to hear Dad's seminars are going better as well!
My new companion, Elder Lester, is a stud missionary! He definitely lives up to the hype, haha. I have already learned so much from him, and we get along really well. He grew up in South Carolina in a part-member family. He and his mom are the only active members. He has only been out for 3 months, but he seems like he could be ready to go home. I am excited to see how much success we will have together!
That's good that you got Sister Wilson's email. The Wilsons are awesome! So the story of our "secret" baptism... (It probably won't have the same impact it had for us, since you guys thought she would be baptized the whole time, but it's still cool) : So, Tuesday afternoon, we had Sister Smotherman's interview, and she was solid and ready to go until the very end when she denied to her daughter that she was getting baptized on Saturday. We were really confused and thought she might just not have wanted to have her daughter there or something. So, that night and the next day we tried to call and get that straight that it was going to be on Saturday (because that is why our district leader came all the way down from Green Bay to interview her that week). They didn't answer, so I was getting pretty anxious about it. Finally, Brother Smotherman called and said that because of his recent knee surgery, the doctor didn't want him to get his knee wet or put any weight on it, so they chose to push the date. And they decided that Feb. 20th would be good. I said, "Wow, a whole month out?" And it was their choice, so that was the decision.
So we went throughout the rest of the week, until Sunday afternoon at 4:30, thinking that she was not going to be baptized until (at least) the 20th of February. We had lunch after church with Bishop Jones and his family and talked a little bit about what was going on with Sister Smotherman, and Bishop said he wanted to come with us to our next visit with her. When he drove us back to our car, which was at the church, I asked him if he wanted to go visit them only with us, or if he would go without us first. And he said, "Ya know, maybe I'll just stop by right now." So, two hours later we got a message from him that said, "Call me back as soon as possible... Meet me at the church at 7:30 tonight. Sister Smotherman is going to be baptized tonight... Don't tell anyone this is happening. I repeat, don't tell anyone... until then just pray that everything works out smoothly. And afterwards you can go back to your apartment and shout for joy." So we got that message and were like, "Holy man, I can't believe it". But we couldn't say anything around our dinner hosts, so we just kept it inside till we got in the car to leave. We found out from Bishop that the real reason for postponing the date was anxiety and not wanting to be the center of attention or in front of large groups. (we kinda knew that already though) So, it happened! with us, Bishop and Sister Jones and their youngest daughter, and the Smothermans with their son, Dillon. And we went to the Wilson's to celebrate. (Bishop told us that it wasn't as big of a deal about telling people after the babtism).
So, I hope you felt some of the rollercoaster we felt from this story. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Love, Elder Vogan
