Hunter's Unforgettable Baptism

July 30, 2011
Today marks my 8 months of serving in the Anaheim mission and it was a great day. There was no better way to start the day off than with a baptism. We had a great baptism for Hunter this morning. This is a baptism I will never forget. It went smooth in the sense everything started on time, no last minute surprise, or anything like that. However, it took Hunter 3 TIMES to get baptized. I performed the baptism and man was that a difficult one to get completely in the water without any limb popping out. The problem was Hunter would not bend his knees. The funniest part of the baptism was right after the first time I tried to dunk him. Kevin Chen and Brother Ying were the standing witnesses and told Hunter how he wasn’t fully immersed so we had to do it again. However, Hunter didn’t realize we had do the prayer over again so he just dunked himself in the water and started to like swim around on his back to get himself fully immersed. It was hilarious but I had to try my hardest not to laugh. Everyone was laughing so hard, especially Minnie, Shu-Chih, and Peggy. I could hear and them all laughing while I was standing in the font. It was so awkward because I didn’t know what to do. Hunter was just laying there underwater so I eventually lifted him up and told him we have to do the whole thing over again. We tried again for the second time and no luck. So finally for the third time I stepped on his feet with my left foot and then with my right knee pushed the back of his knees to help him bend and slammed him down with my left hand on his chest. I got the whole "third times a charm" joke the rest of the day from all the members. I'll be hearing that one for a long time, I bet. It was just so funny trying to get him completely in the water. I told him to bend his knees like a billion times but he just didn’t get it. His knees and feet had such a hard time just staying in the water. I will never forget watching him throw himself into the water and swimming around thinking that’s what we meant by getting completely immersed. I was so confused with what to do when he was underwater. I just stood there with a nervous/not knowing what to do look on my face. Everyone got a kick out of that though. I wish we could have got it on video. President Byers said it will be a baptism I will never forget and one that I will be telling my children and grandchildren about for years to come. It really will be.