Mark Albright is the president of the Washington DC South mission and shares these missionary stories with Meridian Magazine. This letter comes from Sister Susan Lowe, a senior missionary serving in Malaysia..
If you want to share a missionary story, send it to President Albright by clicking on the “email author button” by the title of the article. Please note the names of new converts and investigators may be changed to maintain privacy.
Dear President Albright,
Christianie is a beautiful little baby girl who was born on November 1st of last year to a wonderful Iban family in East Malaysia, where I am serving as a senior missionary. She is the 5th daughter of Moses and Payah. Sister Clark and I went to a teaching appointment with the sister missionaries and we encouraged them to be baptized, along with one of their teenage daughters. Three of the girls had already been baptized but Moses and Payah and Amelia had not. Moses did not want to offend his family by changing religions and said he needed to talk to them and get permission, but knew they wouldn’t give it to him. I encouraged him to ask them for their blessing, but not permission. That way he could still show love and honor to his family, but yet choose for himself to be baptized.
Payah, on the other hand, was worried about being baptized when she was so far along in her pregnancy. It was frightening for her to think of being immersed just weeks before the baby was due. I felt impressed to tell her that the spirit of this baby was undoubtedly looking down from heaven on this very evening. I asked her what she thought her child would want. I explained to her about her unborn child being with our Heavenly Father and knowing how much Heavenly Father loved this beautiful family. I expressed how special it would be to be baptized as her child lay tucked tenderly inside her, yet her child’s spirit stood hand in hand with God.
Moses and Payah and their daughter Amelia were baptized two weeks later on September 25th. Christianie was born 5 weeks later. Once again we went over to their home with the sisters to celebrate the new arrival of their baby girl. I bought a cake and balloons for the children. The baby was beautiful and it was so fun to share in the excitement. Then Payah drew me aside and wanted the sister missionaries to tell me something. Through interpretation, Payah wanted me to know what happened the night I taught her about her unborn child being with Heavenly Father. At the moment I said the baby would love to be part of her baptism, the baby began to press hard with her little feet inside of the womb, and Payah knew at that moment that she was to go ahead with the baptism.
It was a beautiful experience for me. The sanctity of motherhood touched all of us that night. When I held that little girl in my arms and looked in to her eyes, I knew she had just come from being with her Heavenly Father. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Sister Susan Lowe
Senior Missionary
Miri, East Malaysia
Singapore Mission
