Week 59 - Selma Baptism

  This past weekend was General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We all had the opportunity to listen to the morning and afternoon sessions on Saturday and Sunday and there was an additional priesthood session on Saturday evening. With all of this going on, plus the fact that Saturday was preparation day for Hayden, he just managed to type a quick email between conference sessions. I think more details will come next week, and all of the photos, I hope!

  "Hi everyone,

  Ha! I'm laughing--I brought my camera in, but I didn't take new pictures this week, despite having things to share. I never have my camera on me in these situations....except for the Elders from Puerto Rico though, other Elders have the pictures, so I better get on with the story!

  In the Mission Office we received notification that because Puerto Rico was practically wiped out by not one, but two hurricanes, all the missionaries serving there would be sent to continental U.S. Spanish speaking missions. After dividing them up I guess, we ended up with 3. We picked these faithful Elders up Wednesday night and they shared with us the stories and blessings from the Lord's hand involved in these events. They didn't get the opportunity to pack anything, nor retrieve anything, so they only brought what they took to the safety shelter, which wasn't much (especially since at that time they were unaware that they would be leaving Puerto Rico.)

  To be short in writing, here are some of the miracles: They got 8 companionship's of Elders to the Mission Office with just 3 cars with a 4 hour notice of evacuation; an Elder preserved the records of his family history that he had, uncertain of why he needed to bring that to the shelter but acting on a prompting; all the trees were falling one direction, and an especially large one near the church would have crushed the building right down the middle, but it fell to the right instead; the food rations the missionaries had brought to the office lasted the whole mission a week and a half when they thought they would run out by day 7. Modern 5,000? Also, in 45 minutes of proselyting time between the first hurricane and the additional warning to flee the next hurricane, they placed 7 Book of Mormons. That was good to hear.

  Our dinner with a member last night had a dog that looked a bit like our dog Charlie, so I took a picture with him. Elder Biggs has it. Hopefully Charlie won't feel betrayed!

  Most shockingly, I got a call Tuesday afternoon in the mission office from Elder Derbidge and Elder Lopez (who are now companions, (yes the Elder Lopez from Selma, since there are 4) They said that Kevin was getting baptized! Further, Kevin asked for me to baptize him! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and those Elders' preparation day is not today, but it happened. He also received a waterside confirmation, with General Conference taking place this weekend.

  Now I have enjoyed the first session of conference, and am frantically hustling to fit in email time as well as lunch. So I'll have to take off, but I'll try to provide some pictures next week. We had Elders buy us Taco Bell with their cards.

Saturday preparation days right?".....

--Elder Schaff