Baptism Interview at the County Fair and baptism.
The summer of 1961 was as special as any summer could be for an 8 year old member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and that was where I was during that year. I can somewhat clearly remember working hard to make sure I had the Articles of Faith memorized and was ready for any question that the Bishop could throw at me when I had my baptismal interview. I also remember waiting for the call to go into the Bishop’s office as had all of my friends prior to that. I was the youngest in the group and consequently the last.
The day finally came when the call came and Bishop Moon set an appointment with me. We were to meet at the county fair ( a pretty important event in those days in Duchesne County) and I was somewhat surprised that it wouldn’t be in the Bishop’s office. I was to learn at a fairly young age that the Lord’s work could be done anywhere that there was peace and quiet. However you wouldn’t expect there to be much peace or quiet at the county fair with the concessions booths, exhibit halls buzzing with people and all of the livestock barns full of noisy animals. However when the Bishop and I met in the cab of his pickup truck it seemed that the world was locked out and it was just the two of us. I cannot remember what was asked or if I thought that I day failed any of the questions but I do remember sitting there in the passenger side very intent on the interview. (It is kind of like the day I was married, the most important date in my life and the main thing I remember was pacing in front of the temple because my bride and sweetheart still wasn’t there and they were driving from Mapleton to Manti that day to be there.)
Anyway I must have passed since I was baptized at the start of the next month the day prior to fast Sunday. It was the 2nd of September 1961. We went to the font in the old Stake Center in Duchesne where I spent Sunday’s for the entire segment of my youth growing up years. I even reported to the High Council in that building the day after I got home from my mission and the day I gave my talk in Sacrament meeting and the day I headed off to Snow College for my sophomore year for which I was two weeks late. A lot of other things took place in that building as well and it was a major part of my life. But there was a baptismal font in that room down the hall towards the Junior Sunday School room. We had an opening exercises in the Cahpe; after I had gotten dressed in my white clothes and we watched as other children my age from the stake were baptized. I don’t remember how many but I do remember sitting there by the font watching two or three before it was my turn. Dad then led me down into the water, of which I was very afraid of in those days, and we proceeded to do as we had practiced. I let dad hold my wrist with the one hand and I grabbed his arm with my other hand. He said the prayer, something he had done for all of my other older siblings and then proceeded to baptize me. As I came out of the water having survived the drowning the witnesses kindly told my dad that my toes had come out of the water. So we repeated the event a second time and I survived it as well but the witnesses then informed my dad that he had missed a word in the prayer, a prayer that has to be said word for word as the Lord had directed Joseph Smith. So we tried it again and that time dad said the prayer correctly and stepped on my toes so I wouldn’t come up. I am sure it was as hard on my dad to have to have done it three times as it was for me and I guess that was what really ended up making it so special in the long run. My fear of the water after two times was gone and I listened closely to the prayer the third time and we were there in it together until it was right.
I have baptized several investigators in the mission field, all six of my own children, done baptisms for the dead and even had an opportunity to baptize a new convert in the ward here at BYU and everytime I have practiced the prayer repeatedly and stepped on the toes of the one I was baptizing because I remember so well the events that occurred on the day I was baptized at a tender young age of 8 years old.
