SWEET AND TENDER MOMENTS

This past Friday through the miracle of Facetime (and the even greater miracle that we were able to connect to it at just the right moment) we sat at the office out here in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, and watched our oldest grandson Abel Paulsen at the beach in California open his mission call to the Ecuador Guayaquil South Mission.  He will leave December 3 for the MTC in Mexico City, and for a brief time we will be missionaries together!

After coming here for Isaac's baptism our four daughters and their families went to California for a beach vacation together, and while they were there Abe's mission call came in the mail - in SLC.  Kim's husband John needed to return to Utah for several days, and before flying back to the beach he retrieved the large white envelope from Lisa's mailbox and brought it with him so they could all watch Abel open it there in California.  He will be an outstanding missionary!

Baptisms are a highlight for every missionary - even us!  

Because we are more than 60 miles from any kind of civilization we do not have the opportunity as missionaries to teach investigators the discussions and work with them until they are baptized.  However, we DO have wonderful baptisms in one of the most beautiful and meaningful settings anywhere in the church.  

Our "baptismal font" is the Sweetwater River.  

This is the river where rescuers known as the "Valley Boys" spent a snowy, freezing day carrying the beleaguered pioneers from the Martin Handcart Company across the ice-filled waters so they could take refuge from the wind in what is now known as Martin's Cove.   

More current information from journals and letters sheds more light on that experience:  there were five young men whose names we know, and many others whose names were not recorded, and contrary to a popular story that continues to float around in the church, none of those young men died that day.  Nonetheless, their great act of sacrifice and charity will always be honored and remembered.

Today when baptisms take place in the Sweetwater River the conditions are not at all what they were when the Martin Company crossed during the November snows of 1856.  These days are warm and green and beautiful, and the children who come here to be baptized are from all over the country as well as from wards in Wyoming. 

It is especially meaningful when the baptisms are part of a ward or family trek.  The participants gather along the banks of the Sweetwater in their pioneer clothing to watch. 

Whenever a new member of the church is baptized it is a sweet and tender moment, and we are grateful to have been privileged to participate in so many of them.