Baptism

Finally!!! After a long wait June 2 came and Darren was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You can go here to see the invitation I made about a month ago. Since I think this might be the only time I go through this I wanted to make sure we had a good, memorable experience. We started preparing Darren more seriously about a month ago and we included more baptism related stuff to our  family activities (like family home evening, etc). He was very excited and we were hoping we could jump over some "asperger- related hurldes" and make this a wonderful day for him.

Carmen, Daniel and Darren

My mom came to visit as well as Nedra and Dave. We had close friends join us on that day and it was just a wonderful bonding experience for us as a family.

Darren and my mom Carmen 

Darren with Nedra and Dave

Left-right: Dave, Ryan, Daniel, Max, David and Darren (front)

The week prior to his baptism, we encouraged Darren to pray every morning to receive a testimony of baptism and I think he did, he was happy, cheerful and very willing to make right choices, we tried to do a "baptism countdown" and have a little activity every day for 8 days prior to June 2... we started off pretty good but then it got hard as our routines got changed when our families arrived. Oh well, we had good intentions. I found the countdown at sugardoodle.com by Melanie Day and this is what we did:

Day One
A new birth: We told the story about the conversion of Alma the younger in the Book of Mormon.

Day Two
Have you prayed?: We talked about receiving a testimony of his decision to be baptized and we suggested he prayed every morning. We made "prayer pretzels" with Rhodes rolls that looked just like this ones from rhodesbread.com (of course I forgot to take a picture).

Day Three
You're on the right track!: We talked about road signs and how they help us when we go out on the road and we made the analogy to the "road signs" Heavenly Father has provided to guide us through our journey in life like the Holy Ghost, scriptures, parents, prophets, prayer, teachers.

Day Four
Squeaky clean: We changed it from the original one and instead of making cupcakes we had Darren wash his hands very well and then I squirted chocolate syrup on them and explained him how even when we make mistakes we can always repent and be clean again by washing the "chocolate spots" of our hands using "repentance soap"...he loved this but before he could wash them again he licked all the chocolate of his hands! Oh well, I think we made the point.

Day Five
Take upon us his name:
Daniel and Darren talked about our individual names and how we belong to the same family through our last name. He also talked about taking the name of Jesus upon ourselves and acting the way he would.


Day Six:
Bear each other's burdens:
We didn't get to this one but we were supposed to have 3 backpacks filled with books and help each other carry the "burden" so that not only one of us had to carry the entire weight. I also gave him during the baptism a teddy bear that he named "Covenant Bear" to help him remember the promises he has made to: 1. Bear the name of Jesus Christ, 2. Bear each other's burdens, 3. Bear testimony of the gospel.

Day Seven:
Baptism by immersion: We kind of did this one before the countdown started by taking Darren to the swimming pool and practicing going under the water. We talked about the word immersion means and why we have to be submerged in the water when we are baptized.

Day Eight:
Baptism Book: We were supposed to have Darren record his feelings about his baptism and we are currently working on this since he was gifted a few journals and a cute memory book that Nedra bought for him.

I also made Darren a special towel that hopefully he'll keep forever.

I found this cute quote and I decided to include them as favors using fun size Kit Kats.

I had Harmon's made some white cupcakes and I made the toppers with the number 8 on them and
used these new baptism cupcake liners  that I found at Desert Book.

Nedra and my mom helped me put together fruit skewers (which the kids loved!) and some mini sandwiches. Nedra made her special shrimp dip too.

I guess the most important thing was that Darren made a choice to be baptized, Daniel is a worthy priesthood holder who is able to perform this ordinance and confirm him a member of the church. I was able to enjoy that warm feeling and feel the love of my family and friends. I'm proud of Darren and I love him and Daniel so much :)