ciera's baptism

This is our niece/cousin Ciera, daughter of my sister, Brenda. She was born three months before Ben, so they have grown up together--at least whenever they get to see each other since we live 45 minutes away from them. She just turned 8 years old and last week was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's amazing how fast time goes!!

It was a great night--Grandpa and Grandma Airplane flew up from California for the occassion. Grandma Airplane gave a talk on baptism, and Brenda gave an amazing talk on the Holy Ghost. I just sat there in awe of the way she spoke, thinking, "Is this really the same sister I've always had?" Well, no--it isn't. She has been through plenty of trials in her life, and to see where she is now is truly a miracle. Brenda is very tender-hearted, and it showed in her talk. It was cute to watch Ben during the whole program because he was really trying to take it all in, I think because he knows his 8th birthday is coming up soon and he will be experiencing the same things. When it was time to go home, we discovered that Will's "Indy's Father's" hat was missing. I was completely frustrated at that point, when Brenda, the tender-hearted one, suggested we say a prayer. I'll let Ben tell you what happened in his own words:

One night at my cousin's baptism, we had fun watching her getting baptized. When it was time to go, I noticed that one of my favorite hats was missing. My brother had brought it to the baptism with him. We tried looking all over the church, but couldn't find it anywhere. My aunt Brenda had a suggestion to say a prayer to Heavenly Father. I had faith that Heavenly Father would help me. And it actually worked!! Brenda got an idea to look by the piano in the room, and then I remembered that I put it down on the seat of the piano. I ran to the room where we sat for the baptism and looked at the piano, and sure enough we saw it. I was overjoyed when I saw it. And then we said another prayer for thanks. I felt happy that Heavenly Father answered my prayer so quickly.

Ben has really gotten into reading the children's publication that the Church puts out called the "Friend" magazine. He had been reading some of the stories earlier, and so when this happened, Ben mentioned in the car on the way home that he wanted to write this story down and send it to the Friend magazine. I don't know if it will ever get published, but it was so sweet that I had to include it here. Ben didn't mention what a cute prayer he said. It was so heart-felt and sincere, and when he asked Heavenly Father to please help us find the hat because it was "Will's most loving hat," it was all we could do not to burst out. He really prayed with great faith, and it was amazing that within seconds of the prayer being over Brenda thought of the piano (where we had been not long before that looking for the hat). It showed all of us that faith can go a long way.

Well, Grandpa and Grandma did come to stay with us on Saturday and left Sunday after church to go home. The boys had a blast with them, of course. They played a lot in the front room with the elaborate train tracks we had set up, and we went to see Marley and Me at the movie theater.

In the end it wasn't as hard to say goodbye to Gpa and Gma because we will be in California in a month to see them--and we can't wait! What a fun weekend!!