Did anyone feel embarrassed, frightened or abused as a youngster doing baptisms for the dead?

I was embarrassed by the clingy see-through suits we had to wear in the SLC temple. I didn't like having to strip in front of a matron and drop the sopping suit into a bucket before she'd give out a small hand towel to hold while I walked down a long hall to the locker room.

I was nervous about spirits from beyond watching the whole event and worried they wouldn't dunk me totally and I'd have to do it more than once per spirit person.

I felt badly for one girl who was having a period and had to sit out and watch with all of the boys snickering about it.

I felt like a drowned rat after doing dunks for over 20 dead souls. In those days we had to trip up the stairway and sit on a marble arm chair to have the spirit membership confirmed. Then we'd stumble back into the golden tub for the next dunk, over and over, up and down, being rushed and bumping our shins and stubbing toes in the process.

The Logan temple was kinder and more relaxed. I did the dunkings there too. I think the suits were better and process was more humane.

I remember thinking that the other rituals upstairs must be even worse. I never had to find out. I left the church in time to avoid washings, anointing, and sealing and whatever else they do in their holy buildings.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/2019 09:49PM by Cheryl.

I remember when I was about fourteen, I was the only one from my youth group who showed up at the temple for baptisms for the dead. No problem for the old men doing the baptizing. They ended up dunking and confirming me 120 times. At the time I thought I had done some great thing even though I felt like a drowned rat.
Now I realize I just allowed those old guys to get their quota for the day.

I never did less than 60. Usual for us was 90.

I know the numbers because each time we received a certificate telling us how many we did.

But baptisms were all done at once and after we changed we did the confirmations.

I was dunked 120 times. what's the big deal. At least I went to school felling really clean

I went on a long trip from Southern Idaho to Logan with a seminary group to do baptisms. The bus ride was at least 3 hours. I don't remember too much about the actual baptisms but the temple worker ladies were all in a snit about one of the other workers and were gossiping something terrible! I'll never forget how wrong that felt to me as a young teen in a place that supposed to be so special. That was my first and last baptism trip, I think.

Mormons do love their gossip but one would think they could curb it a bit under those circumstances.

These stories horrify me. Glad you all made it out.

It helps knowing you care

Nah...none of it really bothered me. Takes a lot to scare or intimidate me. I always, even as a TBM, felt it was silly to see people walking around like the pilsbury doughboy. Silly men and women trying to act important.

I was an extremely modest girl in terms of I'm just not comfortable with anyone seeing me naked and having those ladies make me strip before giving me a towel while in the temple was more than I could take. They taught us to be modest and then take us in the temple and strip us bare. WHAT???? Then the washing and anointing. After the baptisms, W&A was nothing, but I had been warned.

And the ladies were really mean ALL THE TIME.

Talking about mormon gossip, our dentist was a bishop when we were young kids. He talked to his assistant the whole time he was working. I never thought much of it until my sister told me they were talking about the members of his ward. She hated him. My sister always picked up on that kind of stuff. I was oblivious. My dad also hated being a clerk (he never wanted callings) because he had to listen to all the men gossip. I remember him complaining to my mother about it after the meetings.

OMG! So sorry to all that had to experience this craziness!

My only dead dunking trip to the Cardston temple eventually degenerated into a water fight. Perfect!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 12:13AM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

After doing so many baptisms!

I know some people like to tell horror stories, but there has really been nothing scary whatsoever about necrobaptism when I've done it. Boring, yes. Strenuous, yes. Tiring yes. Scary, never.

I don't remember ever being asked to strip in front of someone. We had a locker room with private changing facilities and a shower. I never saw anyone "inspecting" us other than to tell us to hurry up. None of the clothes were remotely see through (although as a red blooded young man, I sometimes secretly wished some of them were!!!)

My biggest horror story about necrobaptism, if you can even call it that, is the following. Our temple was a good few hours away by bus, so we had to get up really early in the morning to catch it. That meant little sleep, and I could never sleep on the bus. By the time I got to the baptistry, I was still red eyed and bleary brained. There was an Irish woman at the desk (yes, there are Irish LDS), and she was crazy in that unique way Irish people can be. At other times that would be endearing, but on this occasion it was just annoying. Me and the then bishop - heads like mush from lack of sleep tried to communicate with this woman about the cards, and both ended up completely bewildered. I don't know how we got through the whole thing, but I reckon we spent at least ten minutes trying to work out what the flip was going on. Sorry, not very scary.

When Cheryl talked about this years ago on this board, we had the same problem. I WAS ASKED TO STRIP NAKED in front of 2 old women before they would hand me a towel. I am not making it up.

I've been told many times that I must have been mistaken when the bishop asked me to experiment with my gay boyfriend/husband to see if I could get him turned on so that he could get married. Well, I would never even french kiss a guy because I was told I'd have to confess to a bishop. I was so naive that the men I worked with at Thiokol (if you aren't from Utah or are too young, you may not remember Thiokol, now ATK, the company now working on space travel again). When the men I knew at Thiokol found out I went to an R-rated movie, they teased me and told me I had to confess to a bishop. They apologized when they realized how damaging it was to me. I lived in ABSOLUTE FEAR of ever having to talk to a bishop about sex. Then I have my bishop tell me I can do anything EXCEPT intercourse with my boyfriend so we could save him. So tell me it didn't happen, why don't you?

I was TOLD, not asked, TO STRIP BARE and hand them the baptism outfit. I had no idea that you could see through those things. I never watched others walk away. I was TRAUMATIZED by what those old ladies did.

They also tried to bully me when I got married because I had lace sleeves, but they had a cap over the sleeves. ZCMI no less told me I didn't need the sleeves lined as they lined other areas of the dress for me--I bought it there. When my mom showed up, and she was not someone who questioned authority--just the mere fact that an adult was with me, they shut up and let me wear my dress. I never went back to the bride's dressing room because I couldn't bare seeing those old bitches that wanted to ruin my wedding day.

So were you there the day they asked me to strip bare? No. So HOW DO YOU KNOW????? what happened that day. Quit assuming that just because it didn't happen to you, it didn't happen to anyone else. I assume nobody got sexually abused in their lives because it didn't happen to you.

I had not one good experience in the temple. NOT ONE. I was as devout as they come. I was going to be a perfect temple attender. I HAD SAVED MYSELF. I only went back 4 or 5 times. The last time was doing sealings without my husband. They didn't pull him aside. I got to be sealed to some odd duck who was acting like I was his wife. I sat in the foyer for some time waiting for my husband and it was right then and there I decided I would NEVER GO BACK.

So don't you dare think that your experience is just like mine.

I don't remember very much about when I went through the dead dunkings. Other than it was around twelve times, if that, in one trip to the temple.

The confirmation prayers followed. It didn't feel particularly scary or weird. But I did feel chills with one of the confirmation prayers, like the spirit of the dead person was right there beside me.

Whether that was really her spirit or something else, I'll never know.

But it was the only strange thing I recall about it except for the strangeness of the whole event overall.

Amyjo Wrote:
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> But it was the only strange thing I recall about
> it except for the strangeness of the whole event
> overall.

After a few times it doesn't feel strange at all. So much in the LDS becomes routine rapidly like the BoM etc. It's the endowment and sealing which are really weird. But I don't find sealing creepy either.

One of the times that I went a girl vomited while being dunked. They allowed her to get out while they used a net to scoop up the chunks. They ran the spa jets for a couple of minutes. Then a different person was dunked in the cesspool. In the meantime, the embarrassed young woman was adamant about finishing her 15 or 20 assigned dunkings. They let her return and after another 2-3, she puked again and the routine was repeated. The water was NEVER drained.

I observed this while waiting for my ward's turn at doing dead dunkings. There was another group that was also standing "on deck" waiting for their turn after my youth group would finish. I really didn't want to enter the font and lucked out that my group was out of time. I always wanted to be the last because I hated it so much.

messy goop.

If Jesus is offended when people use the word "Mormon" to talk about HIS church, I wonder if dead people are offended when their "special" baptism is done for and on their behalf...in a pool of vomit.

Nope. Can't drain and sanitize. The show must go on!

Thing WILL be different when I buy up all of these temples and turn them into spa-and-bath resort facilities.

Oh boy that just grossed me out reading this.

That water was just left for the next young thing to be dunked in, times 70?

How disgusting. Ewwww.

OMG. It's inane.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2019 11:32AM by Amyjo.

Sometimes the urge to use the restroom increased as your turn to descend into the tank neared. I often tried to discreetly whisper that I needed to urinate before being dunked and the crabby temple worker would loudly proclaim- You should have thought about it sooner!

Well, I gave it to them the 2nd or 3rd dunking. The warm water with the violent action of being shoved underwater then lurched out caused me to pee in the font. I was scared that a tell-tale of a urine stream was going to be visible, but nobody ever said a thing. I later found out from unsolicited talk about the temple trips that a bunch of us had peed, spit and drooled during the dead dunkings.

They are bothered by the event much more than the males. Someone needs to ask them about their experience and fix whatever doesn't work.

Cheryl Wrote:
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> I was nervous about spirits from beyond watching
> the whole event...

Did anyone ever feel that they sensed, saw, or heard these spirits at the times the baptisms were taking place? If you did, how did you feel about these experiences?

I know a couple of Mormons who told me that they felt that the specific spirit for whom the work was being done was present and was making his or her presence known.

commongentile Wrote:
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> Cheryl Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I was nervous about spirits from beyond
> watching
> > the whole event...
>
> Did anyone ever feel that they sensed, saw, or
> heard these spirits at the times the baptisms were
> taking place? If you did, how did you feel about
> these experiences?
>
> I know a couple of Mormons who told me that they
> felt that the specific spirit for whom the work
> was being done was present and was making his or
> her presence known.

I've heard these stories. It's not happened to me. Well, I had a warm feeling when I did the endowment for a certain relative who I'd known in life and that's about it. It was a surprise since I felt little before or since in a session. Never seen, heard or felt anything else there.

The temple itself never scared me. The temple accom though, that's another story. Not the bedrooms, they were fine. I was downstairs one night and ended up very spooked. I'm not a superstitious man - hopefully I've moved beyond that, but that night I slept with the light on.

I did baptisms for the dead once, when I was a youth. I didn't like the clingy (when wet) white outfits we had to wear, especially because a man did the dunking and I was a young female aware of how I looked in a soaking wet outfit. I only had to watch the female in front of me to know it wasn't very modest.

I was really hoping to see dead people from the other side peering down at me after I emerged out of the water. I'd heard stories, but alas, no dead appeared to me.

Another thread got me thinking...Mormons baptize the dead by proxy. Why then can't they teach the dead the gospel by proxy? That way young missionaries won't be needlessly killed because they're "needed on the other side" to teach the gospel.

I've never seen anything embarrassing through a wet baptismal suit on a man or a woman.

Wow, there you go again... You seem to deliberately try to aggravate posters. I'm a female and experienced first-hand wearing the clingy and see-through while wet baptismal clothes. I could see the underwear of the girl in front of me through her wet baptismal clothes when she emerged from the water, which is why I was uncomfortable. The OP mentioned the same.

If you didn't notice you probably weren't looking. There's a reason a woman was standing nearby with towels, covering the girls as we stepped out of the baptismal font. It wasn't just because we were cold.

heartbroken Wrote:
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> Wow, there you go again... You seem to
> deliberately try to aggravate posters.

No, I'm not. I'm relating my personal experience. I've never seen this, and I went many times, As a stupid hormonal young man, I expected to see it, and didn't. If it was once the case, there must have been complaints and it was changed.

At our temple, we got given the jumpsuit and also some undergarment to go under it. This was *before* I went through for my endowment. The undergarment itself was a bit creepy TBH - one of those one pieces with a zipper you stepped into, like a leotard. But see through? No. The material these jumpsuits were made of was similar to what fencers wear. Very hard to rip or split, and tight woven.

... we all got towels put on us. But we were all dripping wet, and women tend to have longer hair. There were mats put on the floor to stop people slipping and cracking their skulls on wet tiles.

The awkward thing I remember about dead dunking was a talk the Bishop gave to the youth group right before an upcoming temple trip. He had noted that there was a "problem" where many of the youth were wearing colorful underwear which became very visible when the white jumpsuits were wet. We were told to wear white underwear so they wouldn't cause a "distraction".

If I remember right this was a bigger problem with the young men's undies as most of the young women figured that out quickly after their first trip and/or one of their friends would warn them. The young men either didn't care or they were doing it on purpose.

He wrapped things up by suggesting that this would help prepare us for wearing garments later too. Which, you know, we were all looking forward too at that age.

That's as far as I got in the temple (never made it to the endowment because I didn't go on a mission).

I enjoyed "dead-dunking." It all seemed pretty cool, and the temple we would go to is one of the prettier ones in my opinion. I only have good memories of it.

Now that I know what the endowment ceremony is all about I'm glad I dodged that bullet. Net result is that I only have good memories of the temple. Not a bad way to be.

honklermaga Wrote:
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> Now that I know what the endowment ceremony is all
> about I'm glad I dodged that bullet. Net result is
> that I only have good memories of the temple. Not
> a bad way to be.

The baptismal font is the soft entry into the temple. Although some people have bad experiences (see above), it's not totally different from what happens in a chapel, other than a) the proxy aspect, which is a bit strange and b) it can be hard work as you don't get bap'd once but many times.

A lot of people must go for their endowment and think the temple is all like this. They get a bit of a shock when they find out it's not.

So it's best seen as a case of switch and bait.

I think I only went 1-2 times. I don't really remember much about it.

However, I remember I kept making up excuses to get out of going. I was on my period (I wasn't), I missed my interview (on purpous), I was sick. Guess there was something about it that I didn't like.

We lived an hour away from the Los Angeles Temple where I did some dunks for the deceased in the year 1970.
I remember going back into the water numerous times.
There was a closed-circuit television just above the dunker's head which scrolled the names just slow enough for him to hurry through the '....of jeezus kriisss, amen'...

The entire experience was terrible for me.
I don't remember seeing anyone naked.

I do remember seeing naked men after I was baptized though...