Anson's Baptism Part I

Anson turned 8 on Thursday, Oct 30th. Friday was Halloween and Saturday was Nov 1st. Anson was going to get baptised just 2 days after his birthday with a fun-filled, busy weekend virtually every moment.

A couple of weeks before Anson's birthday, I called our Ward Mission Leader to set up Anson's baptism. I told this guy that we'd like to have Anson's baptism at 3-4 o'clock. (Our Stake baptisms go from 1-5 pm.)

I got a call back from our mission leader that Anson's baptism was scheduled for 12:30. No, I told him, that wouldn't do. Wendell needed to get as close to a full work day in as possible and Wendell would miss his own kid's baptism if we did it that early. Well, he told us, everything else was booked.

We never had this problem with Emma, although, I think I started working on her baptism a couple of weeks before her birthday, which would have been a month before her baptism.

Our ward mission leader called me back and suggested that we share a baptism program with another family in our ward. Not only is this child one of 10 children, but they have a very close, very large extended family. I didn't know where they'd put all of us. Sure, I told the mission leader, we'd be happy to share the time slot if we had a different room where we could do our own program.

Eventually, the ward mission leader and the high counselor in charge reneged and agreed to let us baptize Anson at 5:30 pm.

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Nov 1st arrived. My mom and I took Anson out and purchase nice leather bound scriptures for his baptism present (my folks gave him the Bible, Wendell and I gave him the Triple Combination) and pick up rolls, etc.

As we drove past the Stake Center my mom suggested we stop by to check Anson's baptism time and make sure everything was all right. When we talked with the couple in charge of Stake Baptisms, we were shocked to find that we weren't even on the list. Anson's name wasn't there and no 5:30 time slot.

The couple added us to the list and said how grateful they were we stopped by. If we hadn't gotten there when we did, we would have arrived to find the font empty and filling it takes quite a while. They also pointed out a girl and her family who, strangely, had not shown up earlier in the day at the 12:30 time.

Come to find out that was for us, only instead of saying Anson the slot was reserved for Annika--all of 2.5. I am totally not kidding. Our ward mission leader and the high counselor in charge REALLY messed that up. Luckily, except for making my heart skip a beat, everything went off without a hitch--more on that in Part II.