First Baptism

Ethan was "lucky" enough to be part of a baptism on Sat., Sept. 24, 2011.

His piano playing skills were finally outed--they needed a piano player for the baptism program so Ethan was "it".

Elder Hall, Dustin & Ethan

Ethan played "God Speed the Right" (from the hymnbook) & "The Spirit of God" from the simplified hymnbook.

"The baptism was great.  Everything went smoothly.  Elder Hall and I pulled triple duty:  music (he led and I played), prayers and witnessing.  The confirmation i sacrament the next day was pretty great as well.  Elder Hall and I got to stand in, and when Dustin's uncle said, 'Receive the Holy Ghost,' the Spirit filled me really strongly.  It was pretty much the best feeling I've ever had in my life.  And his uncle, who's a temple worker up in Washington, gave a really awesome blessing."

Another part of his e-mail from Sept. 26, 2011 is:  

"We spent pretty much all of today in Bakersfield.  We went down there for district meeting, left around 9:30 and got there around 11.  Then we went and ate out as a district (we do that every week) at 12:30, then hung around for a little since we had president's interviews at 2 at the stake center.  So that lasted a couple of hours.  Pres. Castro talked to all of us one on one ant the rest of us got some instruction from the assistants to the president and one of our zone leaders.  So it was a good day.  Then on our way out (after a stop at Wal-Mart)one of the members in the Kern Valley, an older man, called us and said his wife was in the hospital in Bakersfield.  He wanted to see if we could send some missionaries over to give her a blessing, but we just went ahead and did it ourselves since we were there.  WE'd actually given her a blessing a couple weeks ago here in Mt. Mesa, but I guess she's gonna be going to LA for an operation.  So that was a good experience."