Joshua's Baptism

This would have been blogged earlier, but Liz let me get around to it instead of doing it herself. It was definitely kind of her, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to do it. It was lovely, and small and wonderful. We just had a few friends and our home teachers there, and the Bishop even remembered, eventually, after someone called him to remind him. He's a busy man, and we're so glad he helped us get it done on Thanksgiving weekend.

Michael gave an excellent talk that he researched, wrote, and delivered all by himself. It was fun to watch him use his scripture tools to find scriptures that taught about baptism and talk with him about what they said and meant and taught. He then compiled and wrote that thing like a beast. Here it is, for your belated enjoyment:

Baptism is a commandment given to us by our Heavenly Father. If we follow the commandment of baptism we will be able to live with our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again.

Jesus sets a good example of baptism. He was baptized even though he was perfect. The reason he did that is because it was a commandment given by Heavenly Father.

Because he did that he received the Holy Ghost. If we get baptized we too will get the Holy Ghost, like Joshua.

When I was baptized, I received the Holy Ghost too. After it was given to me I felt it telling me that what I was doing was the right thing. Since then I have had lots of experiences with the Holy Ghost. There are lots of feelings that can represent the Holy Ghost. My most common representation of the Holy Ghost is a warm feeling in my heart. Sometimes it’s tears.

When I was baptized I promised to do lots of things. I’m just going to name a couple of them. One of them is to take the Sacrament on Sunday. Another one is to keep his commandments.

Baptism is a covenant between each of us and our Heavenly Father. Baptism is not the only commandment, there are lots of others, we have to follow all of those other commandments to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I had the honor of Baptizing Joshua, one I had not had previously, since Michael asked Grandpa to baptize him. It was a wonderful and humbling feeling to baptize my son and feel not only the workings of the Holy Ghost during the ceremony, but also the bond formed between us as a result of our participation together.

We sure missed having family there, but there was a sense of being enveloped and loved by our Ward family that we have hoped to feel for a long time. Our home teachers (YES! we have home teachers for the first time in almost 3 years!) came and our friends made the morning journey, even though we had kept them up late the night before. It was such a blessing for Joshua and for our family as a whole.

It's hard to think that anyone could have been more excited about being baptized that Joshua was. Fire in that one.