Baptisms and Baptisms

This has been an exciting several weeks.  Months of hard work and effort by the missionaries and the member of the ward have culminated in four convert baptisms so far in March with two more scheduled for next week--six in all!  While the number itself is amazing, I don't want to appear as if I am boasting because of the number itself.  Rather, I feel much like Ammon when he replied to his brother Aaron's rebuke by proclaiming: "Behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God" (Alma 26:11).

By no means do I think our work is now completed or that we can rest from our labors, but it has been a great blessing to me to participate in seeing these people enter the waters of baptism.  As each of these brothers and sisters have come unto Christ through this essential ordinance, I have been reminded of the covenants I made with my Father in Heaven when I was 8-years-old.  I may not have totally understood those covenants at the time, but as the years have passed and my knowledge has increased, I am better acquainted with them now.  Participating in conducting these baptisms has renewed and strengthened my own baptismal covenants.  In a sense, they have become new to me.

This morning, 10-year-old Lily Clayton was baptized.  She was hesitant to come into the font with Elder Jones (the process of her making her way into the water and getting baptized took about 20 minutes--give or take), but as I watched the scene play out, I was very much reminded of my own baptism.  To keep this post relatively short (for me, anyway), I will not go into minute detail, but I will say that the idea of immersing myself completely underwater has never been high on my "to-do" list.  Like Lily, I wanted to be baptized, I just wasn't too sure about the actual methodology (although I kept this crucial piece of information to myself).  Unlike Lily who was the only baptismal candidate, I was one of around six or seven children (as I recall) being baptized in the venerable American Fork, Utah tabernacle.  When I made my . . . forceful pronouncement that I was not going to go through with the process, I became the focus of several anxious priesthood brethren, including my father, who had to really put their heads together to help this obstinate child complete this essential step to returning to Father in Heaven's presence.

To his credit, I do not recall my father ever fibbing to me by saying he would not place me under the water.  When he proposed to me that we would "practice like we had done at home" his reply to me every time I questioned his intentions ("You're not going to put me under the water!") was to calm my fears and tell me everything would be alright.  Realizing that my "trigger" was his beginning to say the baptismal prayer, once he had me in the correct position (knees bent, hands at the ready), my guess is he raised his arm to the square and silently pronounced the prayer.  I suspect the presiding brethren gave dad the okay, and, before I knew what was happening, he put me in the water and pulled me out in one fluid motion.  To this day, I am amazed at my dad's restraint from really "laying on hands" when I looked up at him with water dripping off my face and said, "That wasn't so bad." :)

Ah, memories.  Next week Lily's mom, Amanda, and another sister, Marie, will be baptized to complete this amazing month.  However, the title of my post indicates "and Baptisms."  My reason for the seeming redundancy is that later on in this afternoon, a group of our recently baptized converts and a few additional ward members made the trip down to the Redlands Temple to participate in baptisms and confirmations for the dead.  One of the great blessings of the temple is the opportunity it offers the patron to experience King Benjamin's definition of service in a unique way (see Mosiah 2:17).  On a very small scale, we are given the chance to do what Jesus did for all of us.  Through the Atonement, our Elder Brother stood as a proxy for each of us and did something for us that cannot do for ourselves; He overcame physical and spiritual death.  In the temple, we have the opportunity to stand as a proxy for someone who has not received the essential ordinances of salvation and receive those ordinances in their behalf.  We believe that the person for whom this work is done has the agency to accept or reject the work done in their behalf, but the most important thing is that the work is completed so they can make that choice.

In the same way participating in the baptismal services have renewing my own memories of my baptism and reminded me of the covenants I have made, going to the temple with this group renewed in me the wonder and spiritual power of the temple and the blessings it offers to those who serve within its walls.  I am grateful that we were able to put this trip together and look forward to next quarter when we will plan another such trip.