Hi, everyone, I have a nevermo question about baptisms for the dead.

It is my understanding that the youth that perform these must be at least 12 years of age and obtain a "conditional" temple recommend (and need to go through an interview to obtain one). They are then able to enter the temple. They will then change into the "baptism jumpsuit", and proceed to the baptismal font to be proxy baptized for a number of people, one right after the other. Sometimes, they might need a second set of baptismal clothes if the confirmation is done in a different order.

I am assuming they change out of their street clothes into the baptismal garb in the locker room. I am also assuming there is only one locker room for the men, and one for the women.

If these assumptions are correct, then there would be youth preparing for proxy baptisms, brides/grooms getting dressed for their sealings, missionaries changing to take out thier endowments, and adults changing into temple garb to do "ordinance" work for the dead, all in the same locker room.

Now for the question (finally!!)

I have noticed that many of you were stunned when you "took out" your endowments at many of the rituals, including the washing and annointing. Shouldn't you have had an inkling about at least the washing/annointing from seeing adults walking around in "shields"? Or are they kept separate somehow to maintain the "sacredness"?

Thanks in advance,
Sunny

I've only done baptisms for the dead in 2 temples, but both of them had the baptismal font and changing rooms downstairs, so they were completely separate from the endowment section of the temple. They probably do this so the young kids don't get freaked out.

So, the baptism kids were kind of treated like the kids at Thanksgiving, that have to eat at the kid's table? You can go upstairs when you are a GROWNUP?

Yeah, I don't know if I would even consider the endowment ceremony a "grownup" thing...you get to go from playing in the pool to dress up time. ;)

I've only ever done baptisms for the dead and I never saw anyone except the people who were doing baptisms, so I'm pretty sure there are completely separate locker rooms.

Thank you both. That makes sense.

Well, not really, but it at least explains why the washing/annointing is such a surprise.

Assuming my memory is correct, there were separate locker rooms for youth baptisms in every temple I went to (Chicago, Dallas, Provo). The baptismal font is usually (but not always) closer to the entrance with it's own locker room. Kids don't get to see too much of the inside of a temple, no getting a sneak preview of bakers hats and green aprons.

They do a fairly good job with the adult locker room as well, new recruits and the initiatory is usually off to one side. If I remember right, if you're there for an initiatory (where you'd use a shield, which they don't anymore anyway) there was a special changing area/stall in the locker room joined to where they do the ordinance.

So, if you're not paying attention you're not going to notice it, but since that's really the first thing you'd do as an adult, if you saw it on a subsequent trip, you'd know what it was for.

Actually, that makes me think of another small question. Do only the youth do proxy baptisms? If that is the case, do they stop, or "graduate" when they are endowed themselves?

The youth are only allowed to do proxy baptisms, that is all in the temple.

After someone receives thier own endowment, they are "allowed" to perform proxy ceremonies for others; baptisms, washing & annointing, sealing...all the "essentials necessary for salvation"...IF they want to.

Endowed members can - and are encouraged - to do baptisms for the dead. Often the youth leaders will perform them along with the youth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2013 04:18PM by magnite.

Anyone can do proxy baptisms if they choose to do so, most adults don't do them.

Proxy baptisms are pre-organized and scheduled usually by a Ward to Branch. So Ward A has a group of youth that want to do baptisms for the dead on date X. Ward A has to provide a number of adult males with the proper priesthood to perform the baptisms and the confirmations afterwards (usually happening at the same time in the room next door). So, you'd have 2-3 adults baptising each kid 8-12 times in rapid fire, the kid goes and dries off and waits for their turn to have the confirmations (two men rapidly placing their hands on said kids head repeating the same blessing over and over again, those were often the heaviest hands I've ever felt, I swear I would come out shorter each time). Meanwhile, the adult is baptising some other kid, until he wrinkles up too much and gets too tired and wants to tag out, at which point he goes and dries off and another adult from the ward replaces him.

If a random adult wants to do baptisms at a time when no baptisms are scheduled, they are out of luck. Temple workers do not usually handle baptisms for the dead on their own. Often a temple worker isn't even in the room, the provide just enough instruction to run the computer to pop the info up on the screen and then run off to the cafeteria to shush noisy visitors. If there is a set of baptisms scheduled, they can drop said extra adult in the line-up of kids and they can join in the fun.

This did happen once when I was on a kids temple trip, some strange guy jumped in the line-up because he was a convert and had never seen it done and we were there with a scheduled trip.

Generally speaking, adults do not do this. Endowment sessions take so much longer than a baptism (3 hours for a movie compared to 5 minute for a dunk and blessing)... So, accordingly, they "need" more adults to do endowment sessions than they do kids (1 kid can do 20 baptisms in 30 minutes, 1 adult can only do 1 endowment session in 3 hours) Besides, the endowment is so much more specialer than a baptism, with all it's symbols and "deep" meaning, and "new things to learn every visit", why would you want to do baptisms?

8-12 even 20 baptisms per youth? Must be getting soft. In the late 70's the 4-5 times I did them in the St George temple the average was usually 50-60 per youth. One less then memorable trip when we had 5 of 8 no shows I got to be dunked 155 times over a 90 minute period. Wore out two RMs that night.

For the most part youth do proxy baptisms but any "worthy" adult can also do baptisms. Say you wanted to do the proxy baptism for your own relatives as an adult, you could do that for example.

I think one reason they use the youth is because they are usually smaller than the adults and when you have to lift a person out of the water 10-15+ times it gets difficult and smaller is easier. It also keeps a check on the youth so they are always "worthy" to attend the temple with their friends, peer pressure works. Parents would also know that their youth is "worthy" with these trips to the temple. It is very controlling as I look at it now.

Thank you so much for all the information. It is kind of fascinating, coming from the outside.

Growing up, I knew what the women's temple clothes looked like because my mom would help people make theirs. It wasn't a huge secret. Of course, no one went around in the full get up to try them on. Ladies would just work on their temple aprons, then ask for my mom for help, & I knew my mom had temple clothes & a veil.

I got sick at the Oakland temple, & they had me go lay down in an office. On the way there, 8 saw 2 women in their temple clothes. It didn't freak me out at all, because I already knew what the temple clothes looked like.

I had almost forgotten about that.

IF I remember right;the baptisms for the dead and kids dressing rooms are completely separate. The kids get dressed in white one piece "suits" and go straight to the font. When you do ennisitories, the adults get dressed in your white dresses (or suites) And you dont put on the endowment clothes til youre in he telestial room. I never saw anything of the endowment cerrimony otil I got my own endowments.

Yep, now I remember Cheryl. The font is in the basement to symbolize a grave. Kids have separate locker rooms.

The following two quotes are from above posts:

"Anyone can do proxy baptisms if they choose to do so, most adults don't do them."

"For the most part youth do proxy baptisms but any "worthy" adult can also do baptisms."

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FYI CLARIFICATION: There was a time when I (worthy) shuffled missionaries to/from the temple for their 6-month visit that occurs around general conference time. On one of these trips my Temple Recommend was expired. The morning of the trip to the Temple the bishop called me and said he would drop by in ten minutes and issue me the "lesser" recommend that he does for the youth baptisms so that I could at least do baptisms for the dead while the mishies are going through an endowment session. (I didn't have time to meet with the stake president before leaving with a car load of Elders to get his signature on my "adult recommend".)

So, I called the temple and got a counselor in the temple presidency who told me that, "Once you are an endowed adult you can only do baptisms with a temple recommend signed by the bishop AND the stake president (the adult recommend)."

I was told that "the recommends signed ONLY by the bishop for the youth baptisms CANNOT be issued to a previously endowed member just to do baptisms." So, on that day I just hung out on the temple grounds till the mishies came out from the session.

That's a bit of a technical answer, but it does clarify the policy in existence just a couple of years ago.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2013 09:49PM by jiminycricket.

That makes sense. An endowed member is able to do all ordinances with a current recommend. No current recommend...no temple for you, even if it expired the day before. Crazy religion this Mormonism is.

Answers to a few questions would be a big help for my literary project (working title: "Dire Covenant").

1) Do boys and girls participate in these round-robin proxy baptisms together? I'm not salacious, but I wonder about the un-spirituality of boys seeing wet robes clinging to the girls.

2) Do boys proxy-baptize males only? And girls for females? Or doesn't that matter?

3) I'm ESPECIALLY interested in the proxy marriages, and the procedures and rituals for that. In my story line, a TBM girl gets wigged out when she learns her mother has been sealing dead women to her deceased father in order to "enhance" his worthiness in the CK, kind of padding his resume. Does this scenario make sense to you folks?

4) I gather the Temple provides a one-style-suits all veil for brides. Can somebody describe that for me? And do they just have few, and hand them out from bride to bride? Would a female in a proxy sealing wear it?

In response to #2 it was both boys and girls in the late 70's and the dunkings/drownings are only done by males as you need the p-hood dontcha know

1. Yes, boys and girl are present in the same room during baptism sections. When I went in the 90ies the white suits were indeed a bit too revealing after they got wet. Those in the know had prepared with white undies to compensate. Still I'm sure it's been a great source of distraction for many young mormons.

2. Yes. Boys are baptized for males, girls are baptized for females.

Never went to the temple after I moved away from home at age 16 so I don't know anything about sealings and stuff.

1. Both Boys and Girls participate in the same room at the same time... The clothing used was usually thick and heavy, both girls and boys were usually counseled prior to going what type of underwear to where to avoid, um, issues.

2. Boys only get baptised for males, girls only for females. Gender sticks with gender.

3. As far as I know, proxy marriages are only done for people who were married in life, with some type of proof that they were married. To my knowledge men do not have random women sealed to them. That being said, if he was married multiple times, due to death or divorce he may be proxy sealed all of them (assuming they're all dead), depending on records and how well people read them.

4. As for the "veil" for the brides, I don't really remember. They would be part of the rental package, if it's part of the normal sealing, then it would be done as part of the proxy.

I have always been severely grossed out at the thought of the bacteria in the baptism pool. Teenagers have more bacteria on their bodies than children or adults due to hormones. All those kids, all that bacteria, yuck. I have a friend with a hot tub and when her teenagers have parties in it she replaces the water. It does not matter how much chlorine they dump in, that water is a cesspool.

Manti Temple middle 1970s.

Dressing room had adults and kids. Old dude reading the paper looked exactly like my grandfather.

Baptismal font is under ground level (believe that's a rule) and on the backs of 12 oxen statues (also common, yes?)

I have been inside D.C., Manti, Jordan, Ogden and a couple others. Can't remember the fonts of all.

Baptism went:

"I baptize you for and on behalf of "name" who is dead. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen!"

And down you go. As quickly as the old guy can repeat that phrase, that's how fast it goes.

Before long it's lost it's allure and you just want it over with.

I felt like a wet fly on the end of a fishing line, only not quite so lifelike.

I don't know how many dunks, and didnt care even then, it was just work.

That is 100% from memory:

How'd I do, fellow necromancers?

Sounds about right to me.

I only went to the Ogden temple. The jumpsuit I was given hit a few inches above my ankles. It was made of such thick terrycloth I could barely walk after the dunks. Felt like once wet it weighed more than I did.

I got my endowments in 2008 at the SLC temple and the two dressing rooms for baptisms and endowments are separate. Baptisms were downstairs, along with the dressing room. Endowment dressing room was upstairs. When they took me in for initiatories I was escorted away from the other women getting ready for their endowment so I couldn't see anything. For initiatories I did wear a shield - it looked like a potato sack, closed on both sides with a zipper down the front. I told my husband that if they'd still done the under the shield touching (which I didn't know about at the time) it would have been over right then and there.

For the brides (not sure about what the grooms have as far as facilities) you go into a big dressing room with maybe 20 other women who are all in various stages of undressing. It was really uncomfortable. I had to get undressed in front of my mother, temple matron and all the other mothers, temple matrons and brides - down to my garments and then put on my dowdy temple dress because my bridal gown was just too 'flashy'. It was one of the more violating experiences I had in the temple.

"As far as I know, proxy marriages are only done for people who were married in life, with some type of proof that they were married. To my knowledge men do not have random women sealed to them. That being said, if he was married multiple times, due to death or divorce he may be proxy sealed all of them (assuming they're all dead), depending on records and how well people read them."

It's my understanding that the highest exalation in the CK REQUIRES polygamy. I mean, a newly-minted "god" has to do a heck of a lot of procreating, right? So doesn't it follow that a worthy candidate for godhood has to have a bunch more wives for his breeding stock?

As far as I know, they do not do proxy sealings between random people in the temple... I have only ever heard of people being sealed in known marriages. I'm not saying they don't, but I've never heard of such a practice.

As for the the CK and it's requirement of polygamy, I think that's one of the "we'll sort it out later" questions that doesn't really have an answer.

Thanks--but that creates a problem for me. In my story, a character learns that her mother has been sealing women to her deceased father, which shocks her. Guess I'll have to come up with something else, unless other people have thoughts on the matter.

(Thoughts and suggestions and further info will be very welcome.)

I remember changing in a basement into the weird Elvis white jumpsuit and then we waited for the girls to do their dead dunking in a room watching terrible LDS movies. We then joked about how many cows each of the Laurel and Mia maids were worth. When it was finally our turn we stood in line got dunked a bunch of times, had heavy hands mumble stuff and we got changed. We then went to the cafeteria to eat. The had delicious scones. I would almost go back for the scones and honey butter.


PS: On the trip I remember one the cowboy teens that was forced to be there, chewing tobacco while watching the movies and spitting it on the floor.