Sat., May 16

Today was such a special day, it was Mark's baptism. He is such a special "young" man, even though he is almost 30 years old. Mark had cancer when he was 10 years old. It was in his brain in the form of tumors. It was a very rare form, that only a couple of other people in the world have had. They gave him a 3% chance of making it through. Mark was in the hospital for about a year, he said. With radiation, they were able to treat it and he did live through it. Mark has a shunt in his head, a funny eye, because the tumor was behind it, and many scars on his head. His hair grows all funny too from all of the surgery he has had.

We met Mark out in front of our apartment one morning when he was moving out. Because he works nights, we seldom would see him except for occasionally on his day off. So one day we were able to introduce ourselves to him and we invited him to come to church with us. The next week we had a missionary potluck and invited him to that. There was a program there on Temples and many people in the ward bore their testimonies about Temples. Mark was very touched and asked many questions. Two days later we taught Mark his first missionary lesson.

Every Sunday Mark has been to church faithfully. He offered to say the prayer in our Gospel Essentials class the second Sunday. The first Fast Sunday, he bore his Testimony. It wasn't very long, but then he felt the spirit and was afraid he was going to cry, so he cut it short.

Mark reminds us of one of those people who Heavenly Father sent to the earth and gave him trials to protect him from the rest of the world. He did not have to ask if the Gospel was true, he already knew it. He has never doubted it. He knows that people look at him funny and he is very child like, but really he is pretty smart; maybe just a little socially deprived. It has been a privilege to teach him because he has been so anxious to please and to have what we have.

Today at the Baptism, the spirit was very strong. Mark chose to have Bishop Williams speak about the Holy Ghost and one of the Counselors speak about Baptism. They were great talks. Also Brother Whiting did the Baptism and will do the confirmation tomorrow. Karen Pedderson and I did the Music. We also had about 7-8 men from the Elder's quorum sing the song, "Baptism," from the Primary songbook. It was beautiful. Elder Whiting said he felt like angels were singing with them because it was so nice. Somehow their voices were enhanced with beauty. There were many tears shed and heart touched. I believe that is because Mark is such a special spirit.

Tonight Sister Kelly invited us all out for dinner to celebrate his baptism. The Sister Missionaries were there too. It was fun and we all laughed and had a great time. Sister Kelly explained to Mark that he needed to get to know everyone in the ward because we would eventually be leaving, and he needed to have other friends too. He looked pretty serious when she told him that. But in the same breath, she invited him out there any time. That was good.