Houston, TX—In a joyous celebration of new life, local woman Elli Altneder was immersed at Lakewoord Church yesterday evening. With friends and family standing around and witnessing the event, the brunette, 25 year-old concierge from the Four Seasons hotel stated her desire to be immersed for the forgiveness of her sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit, plus of course the many blessings and financial fortunes that God and Joel Osteen promise his followers.
When an associate pastor looked at her quizzically and asked about why she thought that God would promise something odd like the “gift” of the “Holy Spirit,” the young lady mentioned that she’d seen it in something called Acts when she inadvertently opened the Bible app on her phone one day. The pastor seemed intrigued, telling his nearby wife, “Make a note to check that gift out and see if it says how much it’s worth.”
Following a short prayer by the associate pastor’s associate helper, it was time to get wet. Elli’s best friend, a young man around her age, did the dirty work of plunging her into the Olympic-sized pool, which has a baptism capacity of 48,000/hour under peak efficiency.
When Elli came out of the water, she was crying with joy to be a new creation, and immediately ran to a nearby friend, asking, “Did you get it? Did you get it? OMG I think I look cute at the end there, but I don’t know about the whole holding my nose thing…”
The two conversed while looking over a Snapchat video of the quick dip in the pool as the pastor looked on with a wry smile, chuckling, “Another saved. They really don’t pay us enough.”
Meanwhile, Elli could be heard chatting with her friend, “No, no, no, click that icon, it’ll save the snap to the phone and then we can upload it to Facebook and Instagram.”
After the duo had uploaded the vids to their social media accounts, everyone gathered around and held hands as a prayer celebrating the new birth was said, which took in excess of 5 seconds.
We reached out to Elli today via Instagram DM to ask her how new life is going, and she admitted to feeling some distress, DMing us back within seconds:
“Well, I thought I’d feel dif, u know. Somewhere in Philippians 2—or maybe it was Second Philemon or the Book of Paul?—one of the guys who wrote it said something about being sure of ur salvation.
I woke up this morning and the video has only 1/10 as many likes as the one i posted an hour later. I feel so uncertain now. How can I know I’m saved? i guess when I get all the blessings? I’ll get money, right? I mean even Judas got his 30 pieces of silver.
Anyway I dunno probz gonna redo w a new bikini i got”
—Via ig dm
Immediately afterward, she sent us a picture of herself in a bikini, noting that the offending picture had received literally 200x as many likes, and that she’d probably use that outfit for her next immersion into the newness of life.
Editor’s Note: This is one part in a series which looks at various, cultural and religious facets of the lives of many Americans, which are often overlooked in the hustle and bustle of the fast-news cycle.
