Saturday, January 26, 2008

Baptisms for the Dead

Last night I took my wife and we went to the temple. The occasion was a baptism for the dead excursion where three new members of the church were to go and perform temple service for the first time. Each of them are in their 20s, and newly married, so their spouses came with them. There were several other people from the ward who came with us, so we had a total of 15 people there.

We started the evening going out to eat. We went and enjoyed dinner at The Cheesecake Factory -- an overpriced restaurant, but one which, as far as we can tell, doesn't have a bad dish on their entire menu. We ate too much and were a bit uncomfortable the rest of the evening, but it was a very nice dinner. It was so stress free without the kids that we wondered why we hadn't taken a night out without them for over a month. We didn't have any good reason other than that we've been very busy.

In any case, after dinner we finished the trek to the temple and arrived right on time, as did everybody else. We went in and after having our temple recommends examined, went in and got changed into white clothing. The evening progressed with most people being baptized and confirmed for about fifteen people who have passed on to the other side. I spent nearly the whole evening recording the ordinances, a task I was comfortable with since actually performing the baptisms with the grown adults would have wreaked havoc on my bad back.

I did have the opportunity to perform a few confirmations at the end, and that was nice. I did not get into the water, just out of circumstance, but still felt quite content to have been there and had a role to play in helping these people on the other side receive these saving ordinances.

We arrived home late (okay, it was 10 pm) and my wife took the babysitter home (who babysat for free for us -- her parents "encouraged" her to do so, and we are grateful).

Altogether, it was a great evening. We are so grateful to be able to perform this type of service, and it was wonderful to be there with these fine young people who are just beginning a wonderful journey in life together, which hopefully will include many, many trips to the temple.

2 comments:

martysjotd said...

You need to make one night a week a "date night". It should be as regular as Family night is. Trust me on this one.

Anonymous said...

I am so happy you got to the temple to do baptisms. I remember working in the baptistry in Nauvoo. The spirit is really strong there no matter how small the participation. I am happy you got a night out.

Mom Glad

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