LDS Euro Project

I stumbled on the LDS Euro Project website today. It includes a record of the missionary that invited my grandmother to join the church and also the man who baptized her.

From the history of my Grandmother Anna Hypolita (Eilersen) Hansen

Some time elapsed and one holiday there was to be a baptism of a young man – though there was a font in the church he wanted to be baptized in the beautiful ocean. A group of the young people went early in the morning for a picnic in the forest adjoining the ocean, and the missionaries and other joined them later in the afternoon…

Mother remembers how impressed she was that summer day at the sight of the young missionary in the water baptizing the convert – she thought, “It must have looked like that when John the Baptist baptized Christ”. She knew this was right and she wished it were she. This was the first time she really admitted to herself she wanted to be baptized. As soon as it was over the ocean again became tempestuous and waves moved in angrily against the beach.

After he was dressed, Elder William Norman, who did the baptizing, called for Lita to wait a minute he wanted to talk to her. She hurried on but he caught her arm and said, “all the while that baptism was going on you wished it were you being baptized”. She denied it, laughingly, “What ever gave you such a silly idea?” Just then the scripture came to her mind forcefully, “For My Spirit shall not always strive with man”… but she said nothing.

It wasn’t long until she told her mother she was ready to join the church. September 20, 1910 she was baptized in the font under the chapel by an older man named Lewis Breinholdt. She didn’t want to be baptized by a younger missionary – she didn’t want anyone to think she had joined the church because of one of the young elders. She wanted everyone to know that she knew it was true and she recalls, “that was the happiest day of my life”.

The LDS Euro Project confirms the information above:

Branch presidents of the Aarhus Branch were:

4 Apr 1909
Christ C. Johnson, with Hyrum Nielsen, G.A. Nielsen, Niels Iversen, and Martin C. Jensen as assistants. Oct 1909 assistants: Hyrum Nielsen, Louis M. Breinholt, and Sister Hannah C. Nielsen.

3 Apr 1910
Niels J. Larsen, branch and conference president, with secretary Andrew Funk and other missionaries in Aarhus Branch: Hyrum Nielsen and wife Hannah Nielsen, Louis M. Breinholt, William D. Norman, Andrew Funk, and August O. Nielsen.

2 Oct 1910
Michael Hansen, with assistants: Louis M. Breinholt, William D. Norman, Peter Martin Petersen, N. Claudius Holst, August O. Nielsen, and Andrew M. Andersen (Oct 1910);. J. Lyman Nielsen, N. Claudius Holst, Andrew M. Andersen, and Peter Hansen (Apr 1911); N. Claudius Holst, Andrew M. Andersen, and Peter Hansen (Oct 1911). Michael Hansen released to return home.