"The Devil Rides Upon The Waters" Is An Understatement

Hello again everyone! Coming live from the state that has entered the fifth season of "pollening", it's Elder McMullin! As always, feel free to send me an inflatable pool or some Raid, and I will happily accept. But, without further ado, here we go!
    This week was kinda good for work. It wasn't anything bracket busting, but considering the aerosol-straight-to-the-nostrils this week has been emotionally, I would say we did pretty well. We found 3 new people, 2 came to church, and we had 5 lessons with members participating.  However, the crown jewel of the week (and the transfer) was getting one elusive baptism- CODY!!! But more on that later. 
    In other news, it is spring out here in Carolina! Almost at once, the Swamp has come back alive with buzzing, squeaking, chirping, whatever sound a turtle makes, and hissing! It's fun to see some color back in the trees and fat little bore bees humming around, but it's also terrifying. Apparently the E city house is not as secure as I thought, and bugs have been seeping in every crack and crevice. Just yesterday we saw an abnormally large spider dancing on the kitchen floor, a grasshopper-looking thing on our wall that we tried to kill with a nerf gun, and ants. In our kitchen sink. Fed up with it yesterday, I deep cleaned the kitchen at about 11 PM, which is why this email is a little bit later than normal. I also learned that Elder Juncker may have a bit of arachnophobia. He silently backed away from the kitchen spider, telling me with a note of panic to "step step STEP ON IT". even though I was in shoes, I also have a arachnid apprehension streak in me, so I got the broom and slapped that John into the next life. Similar to the one in the Nags Head building, which leads me to...
    Cody's baptism! It was quite the situation this week to get it planned. We checked the E city building on Monday, and they had almost all of it ripped out and cleaned, so we (foolishly) thought they would be done by Saturday at 6. We'll, Thursday rolls around, and our ward member who specializes in home renovation calls us and tells us their redoing the tile as well, meaning they'll be done Saturday, if they're lucky. This, of course, puts us in a tailspin. We frantically call President Hutchison, President Gray, and any one else with authority to figure out what to do. The message we get from the mission president was to find a river. The branch president agrees, and my heart skips a beat as we'll be able to do every missionaries dream: baptize in the ocean. So, we dedicate pretty much all of Friday to finding a decent body of water to perform it in- and come up empty handed. You see (and to explain the title line) every single one had a fatal flaw. The Bairs backyard access to the OBX wasn't safe with their failing bulkhead. The pasquotank river doesn't have a private event space. The Bonds' backyard waterfront didnt have enough parking, and Adventure Park's kayaking ramp didn't have open bathrooms. It truly felt like Satan was ruling his own dominion and making just enough go wrong that we were screwed. But God prevail, the Nags Head building came through. 26 hours before the baptism, we sent out the all-call that we were doing it in the Outer Banks and prayed that Currituck came to play. 
     And that they did. While we were killing spiders and mopping out the font, they reorganized everything, meaning a formal dinner get-together snapped into existence in less than 12 hours. About 45 branch members made the trip over, and each and every one commented how great the baptism was. The only hiccup was yours truly tried to juice the font to full while Elder Juncker was giving a talk, so the water was about 112° F when the baptism happened. Other than that, it was perfect. Cody was crying, so was his family, and the Spirit of God like our font water was burning. He bore testimony of his incredible change in personality and actions, and how the light of Christ is impossible to sink below. I have never seen such a story, and I probably never will again, but I felt honored to be a part of that covenant son of God's journey. It has made every part of Elizabeth City worth it, and I'm excited to see him in a year for the next step!
   Anyways, I hope yall have a great week, and talk to you again soon!

From your favorite spider slayer, 

Elder McMullin

Photos!
1: The Branch had come to play
2: mops with threatening auras (the drain hadn't unplugged and we needed a stick)
3: Font flick!
4: THERE HE IS!!!!
5: A little bit of fun based on the recent Giza news
6: Nags Head should thank ME for cleaning out this abomination.





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