Burgos, Tarlac
Philippines
9 May 2010
We were privileged to attend 2 baptisms this weekend. One in the church baptismal font and the other in a river, both were just wonderful.
Missionaries were recently sent to re-open Burgos, an area that has not seen missionaries for three years. It is in the Provence of Tarlac and is about a 40 minute drive from our home. The missionaries have been working for a few weeks and had prepared a sixteen year old young man to be baptized. The Branch President also had two children of a part member family ready.
The branch has no baptismal font in their rented building so the plan was to hold the service in the branch building then adjourn to the river about 1 ½ kilometers from the building to perform the baptisms. The spot was identified and prepared earlier to make it deep enough and private enough for our purposes.
The service was conducted with talks by one missionary and a local sister – all in Tagalog which we mostly don’t understand but we can feel the spirit of the service. At the conclusion, everyone loaded into our car, the mission’s pickup truck (driven by Sister Puzey) and a tricycle and then drove to the river. We had to walk a bit down the river bank, we passed 2 Carabao cooling off in the river. Carabao are the Philippines’ beasts of burden similar to water buffalo. The 20 branch members present were so happy to see the three young people baptized in the river by their Branch President and witnessed by the two wonderful missionaries.
Sunday while attending meetings in Cuyapo Branch we were invited to an afternoon baptism for the Branch President’s son Joseph who just turned eight. We joined the branch at the district center (Stake Center) for a very sweet service and witnessed this young man being baptized by his older brother Harold. Joseph has another brother serving a mission right now.
The best part of this service was after the baptism three young primary girls, ages 9, 8 and 6, and Joseph all bore the sweetest and strong testimonies of the gospel. They spoke with such commitment and sincerity. We were so impressed! Had to give each a big hug! It was a great baptism.
Elder NB & Sister MB
2 comments:
Such awesome pictures! I love the carabou! Did anyone try to talk to him? ;) Such a neat experience- we still treasure Ham's. Love you two-Camille
I love the fact that one baptism was carried out in the traditional fashion (the font), and the other in a river. It doesn't matter where the baptism happens, only that it HAPPENS!! Love you!
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