Rachel was BAPTISED!

Hello! Things back home must be pretty busy with Christmas and the Holidays so
much so that NO ONE EVEN WROTE ME AN E-MAIL! I know that the life size picture
thing looks a lot like me but I’m still not home, still out here on my mission,
and an E-mail would be nice now and again :). But I still love you and hope
that the Spirit of Christmas will fill your hearts with love for your wee little
brother, enough so that you’ll send him an E-mail.

Okay, rebuking aside, the only information I really have to relate from mom and
dad’s email (because they are the only ones who HAVE E-mailed me) is that
they’re getting ready for their cruise and it sounds like it is going to be
amazing! And in answer to the question that was given to me by mom and dad
(because they are the only ones who HAVE E-mailed me)… Senior missionaries are
amazing! I love the senior missionaries here in the EMM, they are the ones that
the rest of us look up to and they are always there to bring a bit of comfort
when you may be having a difficult time. Overall it seems like mom and dad are
doing extremely well and thank you for letting Jaryn’s sister know to let Jaryn
know to write me a letter!

Well, another week and another E-mail. Usually I have a very difficult time
with what to write about but this week I’m defiantly going to write about
Rachel’s baptism and confirmation. Rachel Johnstone was baptised on December
05, 2009 by Elder Larson (who came down from Manchester to be at the baptism).
The baptism was extremely spiritual… The speakers were inspired and gave
beautiful sermons, the songs were festive (we ended up singing ‘joy to the
world’ and ‘once in Royal David’s city’ because Rachel doesn’t like how slow all
the other hymns are (she use to be Church of England and they sing some pretty
intense hymns)), and the people were touched, but I think what really shows the
kind of person Rachel is was summed up in the actual baptism. Normally during a
baptism the person being immersed doesn’t say anything at all they just go into
the water quietly and the ordinance is performed… not Rachel. When she and
Elder Larson got into the water they realized that it was a bit cold and Rachel
walked up to the glass of the font, looked out into the crowd, found Brother
Casewell (he was the one who filled the font), pointed her finger at him and
said “He’s the one to blame for this cold water!” that pretty much sums up the
‘firecracker’ Rachel is… She was baptized and it was an amazing event. The
following day (Sunday, the day of confirmation) I had the privilege of
confirming Rachel a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
and to bestow the gift of the Holy Ghost upon her. After which the congregation
began to bear their testimonies. One by one the members went up and bore
testimony of the Gospel and our Saviour and then Rachel stood up, walked up to
the podium, and bore her testimony which was beautiful and filled with the Holy
Ghost… but before she started to bear her testimony she thought that she would
implement something she had learned to do as a little kid to catch peoples
attention so she said, “alright I want to try something real quick, raise your
hand if you had a piece of toast for breakfast (pause), now raise your hand if
you had a bowl of cereal for breakfast (pause), O.K. now that I have your
attention I’ll start with what I want to say.” The only problem with this was
that everyone was fasting (because it was fast and testimony meeting) and so no
one raised there hand at all… after she had finished, sat down next to me, and
about 4 other testimonies were given she leaned over and whispered, “everyone is
fasting today aren’t they” I just started to laugh and Rachel turned about as
red as an Apple. Despite Rachel asking if people had eaten on Fast Sunday the
meeting was amazing and Rachel just seems to radiate cheerfulness now that she
has been baptised and confirmed. As for Phil he was present at all the events,
has been very supportive, and I still think he is going to propose to her this
Christmas! He knows the church is true and is just doing things on his own time
scale, eventually I know he’ll join as well.

Overall life is great as a missionary… The sky is blue the church is true and
the Book of Mormon is too.

Love,
Elder McKenna

P.S. the Birthday presents for December Birthdays are going to be a bit late...
sorrey :)