Skip to main content

I Hadn't Taught Her, But She Knows Now

Last night my three older children went with the other youth in the ward to various temples in the valley to perform baptisms for the dead. It is a spiritual experience that they had been looking forward to. They were encouraged to bring a family name with them. My mom took them a few weeks ago to do other family baptisms, so they each kept one name to take with them tonight. 

As they were leaving, Estelle said to me, "Isn't it a little awkward to hold a dead body in the water to baptize them?" This was one of those parental moments where it took all the self control I could muster in order not to burst out laughing. She was sincere. Her tender feelings would have been crushed. Baptisms are sacred and not a laughing matter. However, the visual of my children gingerly holding onto the decomposed bodies of their ancestors in order for them to be baptized was not only grizzly, but funny! Poor Estelle probably was not looking forward to turning 12 so that she could have that experience. She told me that she thought that someone dug up the bodies so that they could be baptized. Poor thing. 

I explained to her, using Taylor as an example, that he would go into the water and he would take the place of the person who had died and be baptized for them. I could have continued that we call them baptisms for the dead, not baptisms of the dead, but that wasn't necessary. She got it. I told her that their spirits had probably been taught the gospel, by other spirits and that they still got to choose if they wanted to accept the baptism or not. If they did choose to accept it their spirit would be so happy.

I cannot imagine how relieved she must have been to have had that little misconception cleared up! I'm just sorry I hadn't done it sooner.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Should Have Known, But I Didn't or It's Been a Year

I began this blog one year ago this month.  This is my 31st post.  That puts me at exactly 2.4 posts per month.  Not a world's record, but a personal best.  Up from the zippo I had before.  I started it so that my children would have some record of their family's life.  I haven't been very good at journal keeping in the past.  I have been hit or miss at best.  What I hadn't anticipated was how much I have enjoyed writing and reading this blog.  I have reread my posts, some of them several times.  They have made me laugh, cry and reminisce about my life.  I like to write, so it should not have been such a surprise.  But for some reason or other I didn't realize how much I would benefit from it.  Maybe next year I will average a 3 or even 4 posts each month.  I have ideas and notable life events that I could write about, but we shall see.

Yesterday we had a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad" morning that ended with a Christlike Kindness

Last Saturday morning SHOULD have been an ordinary Saturday morning.  The children have "Saturday chores" that they are required to do before they move on with their day.  There are a few exceptions.  This morning Spencer had an exception because his scout troop led by Destry went on a rock climbing expedition.  It was a gorgeous day!  They had a great time thanks to Destry's former missionary companion and friend, Dallin Ward, who shared his talents and expertise with the group.  Spencer was the star as I was told.   For those of us who stayed behind, it should have been chore time after they left.  They were all playing together nicely for a while and I just let them.  It is fun to see them getting along and playing well.  At around 10:00 I reminded them  to get get started because Emma had her first basketball game of the season and Estelle had a birthday party that both started at 1:00.  That should have been no problem. ...

It Has Only Taken Her 9 Years, but Estelle Finally Sleeps All Night Long In Her Own Bed: She Can Do Hard Things!

Estelle will turn the big 9 on May 4th. She has only slept through the night in her own bed a few times each year for her entire life until about two months ago. After spending a lot of energy worrying and bribing and consequencing I finally surrendered and figured that she would sleep through the night whenever she was ready. I put a pillow and blanket on my bedroom floor and told her to just lay herself down there. That worked for a couple of years until she decided a year ago that she would get in bed with Emma instead. While that did not bother me at all, Emma was not too fond of that arrangement. After a fair amount of understandable crankiness from Emma, Estelle was informed that she either needed to remain in her own bed or sleep on someone's floor. She has been more partial to Emma's floor lately, but after having slept in a bed all night she would rather do that. A few months before she turned seven I thought I had the sure thing for motivating her. Destry had put i...