Eight is Great

Today is my son #3's eighth birthday and he was also baptized. We just came from his baptism. The whole experience was really fast....it is fast Sunday too. The baptism was taken place at the temple beach. Because his b-day happens to fall on the first Sunday of the month, I decided it would be only fair to everyone that I not serve snack after the baptism.

The day was very cloudy and windy. There were some setbacks but the service went great. Everyone who has an assignment was there. It was a good turn out.

It was really an awesome service. My daughter #1 talked on "baptism" and her visual aid was a bowl of bleached water with a white handkerchief and chocolate syrup. White handkerchief represent us when we were born, clean and pure, no sin. So in her talk whenever she mention a sin, she would squirt a little chocolate syrup on the handkerchief and pretty soon the handkerchief was all dirty from the chocolate. Then she immersed the dirty handkerchief in the bleached bowl of water {which represent the baptism itself} and with a little time, the handkerchief came out all white again. It was really beautiful to see a 17 year old did a talk like that.

Then daughter #2 sang a duet with my friend's daughter a cappella style. They sang the song "Baptism" from the Primary song book. They both have beautiful singing voices.

Then my friend, Joce, did the talk on the "Gift of the Holy Ghost". She started off by sharing a most recent Holy Ghost experience of hers. She said that last night she was impressed upon or inspired by the Holy Ghost to work on her talk last night but she said she didn't listen to it thinking she has time to do it this morning. Well when she got up this morning when she typed up her talk, her printer wouldn't cooperate with her. So she had to copy all her talk from the computer by writing it up and of course, she did not have enough time to write everything. That was her example of what happens when you don't listen to the Holy Ghost. Then she had all the Primary kids who were present to recite the Fourth Article of Faith. I can proudly said that the kids did great reciting the article by memory. She then proceed on about her talk with the different visual aids she brought with her and how they relate to the Holy Ghost. She had a blanket, a flashlight and a compass. That was a beautiful talk, too. Even with the wind blowing really hard we were still able to hear everything.





After the talk on the Holy Ghost, we proceeded on to the ocean to have the baptism itself done.
Living in Hawaii, baptisms done in the ocean is a customary thing to do.











My husband performed this part of the service
He did a really good job, they both did. Even
with the waves coming in and out and the wind, he was loud enough for us to hear him.






After the baptism, the bishop gave his welcoming remarks and then we closed with a song and prayer. The confirmation will be done in Sacrament today. With the new year, our ward starts at 12 p.m. today.

I assigned sons#1 and #2 to give the opening and closing prayers. I tried to get my family involved as much as possible whenever we have a baptism in the family. What was my assignment, you wonder? I was the one who was making all the calls to invite people to the baptism, {I was unable to hand made the invitations since I had to make a 116 "Thank You" cards for my husband to pass out to his work on his last day. He's starting a new job somewhere else on Monday.} in charge of giving out assignments, making the program and making sure whoever has assignment show up and of course, I was the chorister. I had planned on having someone play the keyboard at the baptism but she didn't come on time and of course because it was too windy, I'm not sure the music would have worked that well there, so close to the ocean and all.

All in all, I would say that the whole thing turned out great. Even with the wind and cloudy sky, we only had a little drizzle of rain here and there, but nothing major enough to get in the way. I am glad that we were able to have Joey's baptism done today, he picked perfect spot for his baptism and a really good day, too. He has been looking forward to turning eight for the longest time and I am really proud of him.