Our Christmas Eve was really special. Church was the best - combined 1st and 2nd branches for Sacrament meeting, so the chapel was absolutely packed with Aussies and Chinese alike. S and C and Ren Rong all came, and that was so good. We had a musical devotional for the second hour of church and somehow Mourino and I were roped into all of them except for maybe three. Still, it was a sweet hour. The music really was powerful - there is something special about singing praises to Christ. I hope you all have been singing your hearts out this Christmas season.
The evening of Christmas Eve, we had dinner at Oli and Mint's house (two of our members). They invited several members of the various Mandarin wards in Melbourne and asked us to bring Ren Rong to have a lesson before we ate. Elder Feng and I didn't prepare (oops) but we went in anyway. We sat down with Ren Rong to discuss gifts of the Spirit when two of the other sisters joined us and hijacked our lesson. I don't remember how it happened, our what any of us said, but all of a sudden, these two sisters were discussing baptismal dates with Ren Rong. Elder Feng and I were a little apprehensive because we knew how much she hates pressure to accept a date - but when these two sisters were talking, there was no pressure. There was no push. It was just two friends helping another plan something they knew she was going to love. We eventually tied it all back together into a cohesive lesson, and Elder Feng invited Ren Rong to give the closing prayer. He asked her to ask Heavenly Father if baptism was for her, and if so, when she should make that step. Elder Feng and I haven't made much progress recently towards baptism, so we were both really hoping she'd pick a day. February. End of January, awesome. Even early March, we didn't care when. She began her prayer, thanking God for the wonderful evening she'd had. We were absolutely dumbfounded when she then asked Him to help her know if this coming Saturday, December 30th, is the day for her.
She had her baptismal interview yesterday. Passed with flying colors. We picked out the suit she'll wear for the baptism. I cannot express how incredible this is. She is making steps to come unto Christ and towards her eternal family and we couldn't be happier.
Nothing else in the next few days really compared. Lots of little blessings. Ren Rong is going to be baptized and it's the most incredible thing.
On an unrelated note, turns out that pretty much all of the baseball fans here in our mission are Yankees fans. This is a problem. Doing our best to convince the Asians that, yes, the KC and the SOX hats are cooler than the NY hats. Slow going, but we're getting there.
Love you all. Have a lovely new year and I'll look forward to hearing from you all soon.
Elder Blackhurst
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