Jakob's Baptism 1-1-11

Jakob's Baptism Invite


Saturday was Jakob's baptism. I've never really been a big fan of Stake baptisms, however, I think the Lord helped me to have an extra special experience at this one. Not sure if it will be memorable for Jakob, but maybe I can help him to remember by writing down some of my thoughts on his special day.


One side note of an incident that took place just before the baptism started: My cute husband has a funny way of making little girls and old women go gah-gah over him. They just think he is so good looking and the old women aren't afraid to tell him or me what they think. An older lady, whose name must remain anonymous, because she made me promise not to tell, came up to me and told me, "Your husband has such a baby face and he is just so good looking." Well, I just have to laugh, because this is far from being the first time someone has said this and it probably won't be the last. I guess that's what I get for marrying such a "hottie." LOL!



Okay, back to what this post is really about. Jakob looked so good all dressed in white. Such a handsome boy. One of the sister missionaries took this picture of our family.





We didn't get to choose who spoke, but the speakers were really great! I really felt the spirit when they spoke about baptism and the Holy Ghost. A member from the stake introduced each of the baptismal candidates by their full names. And since we give our kids Hawaiian middle names, we always wait to see how someone who is unfamiliar with Hawaiian tries to pronounce their names. He actually did a great job with Jakob Kapono Ruesch. They had all the kids getting baptized come up after the speakers and sing "I like to look for rainbows." I know that's not the name of the song, but that's what everybody calls it here. This is the song that Jakob said he wanted for the opening song. I told him, that I was sorry, but he didn't get to choose what the opening song was. He was kind of sad and said, "But Joshua got to choose the opening song for his baptism." I had to explain to him that Stake Baptisms were different and unfortunately he didn't get to choose. So it was really neat that they got to get up and sing the song that he had wanted. After the song, they had our ward and Leeds 1st ward go into the baptismal font first, since we only had one child from each ward getting baptized. Well, first problem was the water was not high enough. They had to try and fill the font with more water. The kid that went before Jakob was really tall and the water barely went up to his knees. Needless to say, he had to get dunked twice to get his whole body under the water. They filled the font up some more before Jakob got baptized. He was a one dunker. We then got to have our very own little ward meeting in the young women's room while we waited for Jakob and Ronny to come back. While we waited, Bro. Erickson (counselor in Bishopric) passed out 4 x 5 cards and we each wrote down something special for Jakob. He then, put the cards on a metal ring and gave them to Jakob. Then he said some words to Jakob and asked Ronny and me to bear our testimonies. It was really a neat little experience. The closing prayer was, "Come Follow Me" - Jakob's choice. And his Uncle Eric said the closing prayer (also, Jakob's choice). So although, the whole baptism wasn't completely personal, it had personal aspects to it and I'm so grateful that the Lord helped me to have a more personal experience filled with the spirit. The Lord certainly knows our needs and loves us absolutely unconditionally.

One other thing that I forgot to mention earlier is that the Stake member who was conducting said that most people have a hard time remembering what day they were baptized, but since that day was 1-1-11 it should be really easy. The first day of the year of 2011, what a great way to start out the new year as a new member of the church!