Frozen Delight

One Sunday at Leon a new person showed up at church. He was the nephew of the Branch President and he wanted to hear the missionary discussions and get baptized. Great, but we had only one problem. We didn't have any water to baptize him in. During the summer we baptized people in a swimming pool behind one of the nice motels in town, but now it was winter and all the swimming pools were drained. We didn't have building with a baptismal font of our own. One of the members got a bright idea that we could do the baptism in the reservoir that provided the drinking water for town. It was located up in the hills above the town. It was my turn to do the baptism. We all met at the rented building that served as our chapel and scrunched into a few cars and headed up into the hills.

When we got to the reservoir we discovered that it was frozen over with ice and I was doing the baptism. I got out of the car went down to the lake and discovered that the ice was only about two inches thick. I could brake the ice and we could do the baptism if we wanted to continue. The nephew of the branch president was eager to be baptized and said lets do it now. So I walked out on the ice breaking it as I went until I got deep enough to do the baptism. I was careful to only get the lower part of me wet becuase it was so cold.

Greg, was so eager to get baptized that he came running out into the lake splashing cold water all over me. Burr, when I did the baptism I felt like leaving him down long enough to freeze him solid. But it went quick and we both ran back up to the shore with waiting towels and warm cars. I didn't mind the scrunched up warm ride back to our branch building.

Today Leon has several stakes with many wards, it's own mission and temple. I am sure Greg helped fuel the growth of Leon.