The baptism of Edward

Yes! It happened! This week was great. We started out the week with a dinner lesson with Edward at the Fowler's house. The Fowlers have been great in fellowshipping Edward. We had a great lesson with him on Monday night and finished teaching all of the principles necessary for baptism. That's the quickest I have ever taught anyone all of the principles, in fact, that is the first time that I have taught all of the principles needed for baptism. And everything just clicks for him, it makes perfect sense to him. We got a little worried in the middle of the week because we lost contact with him. His phone wasn't working so we were kind of freaking out a little. His baptismal interview was supposed to be Friday, and luckily Thursday night he called us! He got his phone fixed and he told us the first thing he did was call us. We went by the next morning and went over the baptismal interview questions. We also learned some pretty sad news. It turns out he has moved to south Charlotte, which is in a different stake😢. So we talked to President and the bishop, and we decided to go forward with the baptism and the confirmation on Christmas Day then transfer his records to the Sharon Ward. That's pretty super sad news, considering how people have embraced him in this ward, and we won't be able to teach him the new member discussions, but I am sure he'll be totally fine. People will love him in the new ward, too. That night, Brother Potter (another amazing fellowshipper) picked him up, took him shopping for a suit, shirts, socks, and some ties. So great. He had the baptismal interview, Elder Johnson, one of the Zone Leaders interviewed him and said it was one of the most spiritual discussions he's ever had. Needless to say, Edward passed with flying colors. Saturday morning he came to the Ward Christmas party. It went pretty well, except it was so crowded that we had to sit in a different room with the Fowlers and Edward and a bunch of crazy kids. This ward is so big, and the building is average sized. Anyway, Sunday came and he came to church and right after church he got dressed into his outfit, and we had a good baptismal service. We had Brother Fowler baptize him. It was pretty rough since Edward has only one good leg and that one isn't even that strong. Edward had to hold on to Brother Fowler in a weird way for it to work and Brother Fowler had to squat in a weird position to get it done. They had to do it two times because the first time Edward's hand didn't go under. But it got done and Edward was super happy. We had him bear his testimony afterwards and he bore a super amazing testimony, he told us his whole story. 

So he was born in Ghana and he was a popular guy in high school. He even came out with a

couple music albums that got pretty popular. He was also super good at soccer and had scholarships to plenty of schools and was planning on playing soccer for the Ghana soccer team. But all of that changed when he got hit by a wayward car. He lost the strength in his legs and he only is able to hold his weight on one for a short time, hence, crutches. He moved to South Africa with his mom when his mom and dad split because the mom wanted to practice Christianity and his dad wanted to continue worshiping African idols. He wanted to get baptized but no one would baptize him because he was crippled. He worked as an English teacher in South Africa until he uncovered some sort of scam and exposed it and he started getting death threats so he moved to America. The rest is history. He had such a powerful testimony. He started reciting scriptures from the Doctrine & Covenants and the first four Articles of Faith. He is so ready for being confirmed next week. 

This week other than that was good. I had two exchanges, one with Elder Seely and one with Elder Bingham. They were both pretty fun. Now that Edward is baptized, we are back to looking for more people. We got a new referral from someone so we'll see how that goes. Well, honestly, I can't really think of what else happened this week I am just so excited for Edward! Love y'all!