Baptizing in Shingu - Week Ending September 28

Saturday afternoon Sister McIntyre and I travelled to Shingu to interview the Wada's for baptism. We picked up the zone leaders, Elders Shultz and Allen, in Wakayama on our way down. The traffic was good and we arrived in Shingu after a 4.5 hour drive. Elder Shultz, on the far right in the above picture, served as the branch president in Shingu for 7 months. He and Brother Tsuboi (also pictured) were the first to give Sister Wada a copy of the Book of Mormon. Brother and Sister Wada have been studying the gospel with Elders Melluish and Matsuoka (and Elder Maeno before that) the past couple of months and early Sunday morning we were blessed to see them enter the waters of baptism.
We held the baptism in a beautiful quiet spot on a small tributary branch of the famous Kumano River in Shingu. The water was clean and clear and the weather was wonderful. We had a short meeting at the church and then travelled to the baptism site for the baptisms. We returned to the church and closed the meeting. We then had our normal Sunday services.
Elder Melluish leads Sister Wada into the water.
Elder Matsuoka prepares Brother Wada.
The Wada's with Brother Tsuboi and the missionaries.

The Wada's with President and Sister McIntyreThe beautiful country side near Shingu.

The Shingu branch is the smallest in the mission. We had two non-members at the baptism and they also attended church meetings with us after the baptismal service. We first met the Wada's in August when we took our first trip to Shingu. They have a sweet and pure faith in Christ and will be a great addition to the small group of Saints in Shingu.

This was a special baptism for Elder Melluish as he completes his mission this week and was able to be a part of this baptism his last week in Japan as a missionary. A tender mercy of the Lord. He has shown great faith as a missionary.

We spent most of this week preparing for transfers which are upon us this week. We have 8 returning and 9 new missionaries coming in.

Here are few more pictures from the trip.

Sister McIntyre on the scary bridge at the river. This looks down on the location where we held the baptisms.The Kappa is a mythical Japanese creature that lives in the rivers. It looks like a cross between a turtle and a frog. This was a little statue of a mom Kappa with a baby.

This has nothing to do with the baptism but we found it on the way and Kappa are mentioned a lot in Japanese literature. We just wanted to get a picture of one.

Not a lot of time to write so we will check in again when we can!