Baptism by fire...truck

Baptism day started out as usual but ended very far from usual.   Everyone arrived at the church at 9:00 in the morning for the service, but the water storage tank had run out of water the night before and no one knew.   We didn't want to change the date or time of the baptism because they might not have came back.   So we thought about going down to the river to do it but because of the poisonous green mamba snakes we ruled that out.   We decided to call the fire service to bring water to the rescue.    They arrived about 45 minutes later in a brand new American made fire truck.   I went out to greet them and give instructions.    I thought that for once we could have a really clean water baptism.     

They took a large 1 1/2 inch hose thru the front door of the chapel and down the hall to the font.  Everything was great till the water came.    I thought it looked a bit dirty when they started pumping it in and by the time the font was full it looked like a big mug of chocolate milk.   It was so muddy that you could not see the bottom of the font.  There were even things floating on the surface.  What they were I did not ask.   I think that they got the water right out of the river (less the snakes).

Everyone just stood there looking at this chocolate mixture for a few minutes then went on with the baptism.   Gods work must go on.   Elder Christensen went in with his white clothes on and baptized three people.   Needless to say they were a bit hesitant to get in but they all wanted to be baptized so bad that I don't think the color of the water mattered at all to them.      

After all was finished the firemen rolled up the hose, got their $75.00 that they charged us and left.   To top it all off there were some people in the chapel cleaning the tile floor.  They were putting down some kind of polish and mixing it with gasoline.   They had a jug of gas in the chapel and mixed the polish and then got an electric polisher and started to buff.    I thought that the whole building was going to explode so I opened all the windows and doors and tried to air the place out.   Needless to say church the next day was almost unbearable from gas fumes.   

God watched over us all and blessed us so that these people could be baptized, although in an unconventional and unusual way, things worked out and 3 more faithful members are now among us.   I think the church will smell like a gas station for a few more weeks, but all is well.