Baptism!

some street dogs

Elder Abbott

some homeless people

President Spooner, Claudia and her family

pumping the water out of the "font"

Hey everyone! This last weekend was Claudia's baptism (Botez in Romanian, as it says on the picture of the program)! It was sooooooo awesome! She was baptized by President Spooner, the branch president here, and he also did the confirmation. It was different because he did the baptism and confirmation in English, because he doesn't speak Romanian. I'm pretty sure most of the people there still understood what it was about, including the visitors, who spoke some English which was good. We had the program Saturday night and everything went great! We began with "There is sunshine in my soul today" Then Elder Lee gave the opening prayer and Sora Radulescu, a sister in the branch, spoke on baptism. I then got to speak on the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and then was the baptism. After that, we sang hymns while Claudia and President Spooner changed, then President Spooner gave a welcome to the branch talk, we had a closing hymn (I believe in Christ) and Adi, Claudia's son, gave the closing prayer. She was confirmed Sunday morning during church and bore her testimony there. It was great and super spiritual for both the baptism and confirmation. She was super happy and so was her family! It was great. A cool thing about baptisms here is that only the people in Bucharest have fonts. We have what we call a "bazin" (Romanian for font or tub) which is made of a waterproof heavy plasticy canvas supported by metal poles. We set up the bazin the night before, and then spent all day at the church filling it. It's a requirement that missionaries be present whenever there is water in the bazin, so we had to stay at the church for the 8 hours while it filled from a little hose. Then, after the baptism, we emptied it which wasn't too hard. We have a super good pump that empties the bazin in about 30 minute to an hour. It is super powerful. I had to roll up my pant legs and shirt sleeves and get in, because the pump is handheld. That's probably the closest I'll get to swimming my whole mission! It was great to touch water again! That may sound weird, but as a swimmer it's been weird never having anything like a tub or pool since I've left. Just showers. Pretty much this weekend was super fun! We have another baptism coming up in about 2 weeks too! The other elders' investigator, Gina, will be baptized on the 25th of this month. I can't wait! :D Love you all! Botezuri sunt cele mai tari lucruri! Elder Michael Abbott