November 24th

Steven and Verna are now members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!

The baptisms went PERFECT. Seriously I was amazed at how many branch members showed up and how smooth everything went! We met in the Relief Society room and there wasn't enough room for everyone! We were so packed in there. Casey came and Matt too, we were so happy that they came to see a baptism for the first time. Verna's nieces sang the "I like to look for rainbows" song and I played for them, by the end of the song I was balling. I'm surprised I could even see the notes :) I sat down with Sister Peaden and as we listened to Verna's sister and Steven's wife give talks on baptism and the Holy Ghost, I felt the Spirit so strong. It was incredible. I've never felt this way before. This kind of happiness.
Steven was first to get baptized. He totally hit his head on the side of the font as he went down. haha I laugh because later we talked to him about it and he said he didn't even know he hit his head! he said all he could remember was he went down in the water and as he came up he felt a "ahhh" like a sigh of relief. He is so funny. In fact he asked his brother in law if while he was in the water if the man baptizing him, Pres. Bezansen, said anything. haha His brother in law explained that Pres. Bezansen couldn't have said anything, Steven was only under for like 2 seconds. Apparently it felt longer for him. He cracks me up.
Verna did an awesome job, she was in a bad factory accident a long time ago and so she has really bad back problems and walks with a cane. We were a bit nervous because her nephew was baptizing her and he's 17 and this was his first one. As they stood in the water, before he spoke the words he heaved a big sigh, like a "oh boy I hope I can do this" haha I tried to laugh to myself reverently when he did that. But he did great and her only complaint was the water was too cold :) Sorry Verna, we're in Nova Scotia and the water heater wasn't working properly.
So there you go! It was amazing! And after they received the Holy Ghost on Sunday, Verna said she was on cloud 9 and Steven said it was like Christmas morning. They truly are worth every cold night that we are out knocking, every time my feet hurt, and every rejection. I'd do it all over again for them.
In other news, Casey is doing awesome. Matt said that he is going to come to church this week! yay! Oh and we had this awesome experience yesterday! So we had been knocking a lot yesterday, and we were in this really nice neighborhood where every person we have met thus far was very nice but also very content with what they have in their life. So we knock on this one door and a man named Ralph opens the door and immediately invites us in, it was snowing/raining outside,so we were very grateful to be in a warm home. He finds out we're Mormon and sits us down and his wife made hot chocolate for us. He's a retired dentist and his wife is a dental hygienist and so is his daughter. Their teeth were in excellent shape by the way :) And so Ralph starts telling us about all of the Mormon people he has known in his life and the impact they have had on them. Something so simple like when he was in the military and his friend who was LDS didn't drink even though everyone around them was. This happened years ago yet it had left such a great impression on him. He also was puzzled because his dog apparently barks at everyone and goes crazy and he didn't bark once at us. It seriously made him think and he said, "Now why isn't my dog barking?" I replied with, "he knows our message is true" He got a kick out of that one. And we concluded that the dog must be Mormon. He also later was saying what good people the Mormon people are and it makes him wonder, " Maybe everyone should be Mormon" I said, "ya you're right! that's why we're here!" He laughed pretty hard at that one too. We stayed for almost an hour with him and his family and they were just the nicest people. Too bad he's set in his ways but we left him with a pass a long card for the finding faith in Christ video. Hopefully he'll call the number.
IN CONCLUSION to this long e-mail what I've learned is that as members of the church we will never fully know the amazing impact we can have on other people! Something small to you like abstaining from drinking, or not swearing can have and has had an influence on someone like Ralph. And because of that family, we were let in and showed some kindness. That is incredible. Never underestimate the power of an example. I am so grateful for the standards of the church. What an amazing blessing! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I can't believe it's already been 4 months since I left home. Time flys by and I have to start appreciating each moment more before it goes by any faster :) Thank you for your prayers and letters!

love,
Sister Crane