November 17

Oni was baptized tonight. We closed the institute until after her baptism, then opened it for a movie.  Oni, short for Mereoni, was brought to the institute by the sister missionaries. She has been attending activities and classes when she can. She works full time, and I believe, had some difficulty with her parents over the discussions and had to move them away from home to the church. She did the last four during institute class on Thursdays. I would imagine her folks thought she was at institute when in reality she was having the discussions.

Most of the YSAs showed up at the baptism to support her. It is a good thing they did as her parents were not in attendance. I was flattered to be asked to give the opening prayer.  Monika (mo nee kaw) gave the talk on baptism, and Timoci (Tee mo thy) gave the one on confirmation; both are YSAs.  The YSAs that attended the institute had a special number that they had prepared to sing. Scott and I sang with them. They had practiced on Thursday night before and after class. Last Saturday I heard this beautiful singing and when I went to investigate about 10 YSAs were on the front porch being led by Filipe. The hymn is one found only in the Fijian hymn book.  It has a lovely tune and a beautiful bass descant. Thursday the practicing was spontaneous; someone would be playing pool and start singing the hymn others would join in. Several minutes later someone playing cranboard would start and everyone would join in.  This happened all night long.

For the baptism, we sat in the choir seats in the chapel instead of in the pews so that we would feel closer to each other. When the YSAs sang they stood in front of the pews facing Oni.  It was a sweet thing.

Every chapel in Suva has its own baptismal font which is located outside in a courtyard.  Oni will be confirmed tomorrow in church.

Scott wants me to included that the movie we showed was Enchanted.  I couldn't bear to watch it for a third time, so I sat in the foyer/lounge hoping to read, however, a recently returned missionary (less than a week) came out before the movie had been going 10 minutes.  She just did not feel right about watching a movie yet.  We talked for the entire movie.  Some times one is privileged to be in the right place at the right time.