the one about a wheelchair

Ahh, finally a break from the heat. It rained pretty hard yesterday and today is nice and cloudy.

Yesterday we had the first baptism that I've been a part of! Her name is Vanina, and she'd been an investigator for about 4 years. When I got here a few weeks ago, she came to the point where she had to really decide whether she wanted to be a part of this great work or not. Good thing she chose to get baptized. She's a very smart 18 year old and she knows a lot about many churches.

I'm kind of tickled with myself; I now have a cheesy story about helping someone in a wheelchair. I think everyone secretly wants a wheelchair story. Anyway, it all started a few weeks ago when one of the missionary couples were recognized by another couple who'd recieved a wheelchair from the church for their son. The church gave these wheelchairs to the community as a humanitarian thing, not a proselyting tool. But the people who got the wheelchair wanted missionaries over anyway to talk with them, so that was cool. We went to their house and met them and their son who uses the wheelchair. They adopted him as a baby after his mother died in labor. He was born parylyzed from the thighs down, so he can get around the house on his knees well enough, but the wheelchair really helps to go out and about. He's in his late 30's and is a bit slow mentally, but not too much. Yesterday we took him to church, and I piloted him from the bus to the church, then at church, I took him to the investigator's class after sacrament meeting. He's no lightweight and I had to haul him up 2 flights of stairs. Good thing I'm so buff. It's just a small sacrifice to help my fellow man to be fed spiritually.

Well, that's about it. Things are going great. Bye!