The thought occurred to me the other night as I looked out at 3:30am that this was the first time in 6-8 weeks that I have seen the stars about that time in the morning. I remember looking out at night at the cabin and the whole sky is lit up with stars as far as you can see which isn’t far because of the trees. Anyway there was only two stars visible, one on each side of the temple. Come to think of it we haven’t seen much sun in the past few weeks either. Oh! I remember we are in monsoon season. It rains every night, most of the night interspersed with torrential down pours, and a lot of time during the day. It stops raining shortly after we are to be in the Temple and starts up about time we leave. Good calculations I think. At least it is not raining when the patrons come and go. I hesitate to say its clear when the patrons come and go because I’m not available at a window to tell. I do know it has been a long time since we have seen the sun. It is usually very overcast. IN FACT it is approximately 6:15 PM and it is pitch black outside, I think a lot of this is because of the overcast conditions.

The other day at the Baptistery we had a one legged boy, I say boy because he looks about 14 or 15, but in actuality he is 24. He came with the Single Adults and a ward youth group to do baptisms for the dead. He had obviously been missing his leg, just below the knee, for some time as his crutches were very well worn. This is the first time his group had come to the temple to do baptisms and the whole group was so excited to be there. It is wonderful to feel of their sweet spirits as they come. One little boy, when I say little I mean little. He stood about to the cross buck of the baptistery door which is less than 3’ high. He came running out of the baptistery to the non-members waiting room. I chased after him to find out why someone let a little boy into the baptistery in the first place. When I caught up to him I asked him how old he was and in a much discussed voice replied, “Elder I’m 12”. The voice matched the 12 but the body sure didn’t. Anyway back to the Young Man who had lost his leg. We do confirmations first and then baptisms so we don’t have to use so many jump suits. They must be in white for both activities. This Young Man finished his confirmations and went out to the font to watch the other boys being baptized. I got the feeling that he really wanted to be but either felt he couldn’t or wouldn’t or been told he couldn’t. I sat down beside him and asked him when it was going to be his turn to be baptized. He told me he couldn’t be baptized. I asked if it was because he had open sores on his leg or what, to which he replied that his leg was all healed but it would be too difficult for him to get into and out of the font. I told him that he could be the last one baptized and that all of the P’hood brethren would be there to help and he could be baptized. His eyes just twinkled. When it came his turn I had to rally all of the brethren around as we helped him into the font and the baptizing brother held him up and steadied him while saying the prayer. His good leg was the outside leg which was fortunate for support and he was baptized for 20 deceased brothers and then we all gathered around and helped him out of the font. I couldn’t really tell if it was tears of joy or water dripping from his head but there were sure a lot of drops in the right places. He thanked me as he was leaving for helping him do what he had come to do.

The other night I came in on the 2nd floor of the patron housing, which is where all the youth groups stay when they come to the temple, our apartments are on the 3rd floor. I went past the laundry room on the way to the elevator. There were 4 ironing boards with irons set up and behind each was a young boy and behind him another waiting, very adapted at ironing, ironing their white shirts because they were coming to do baptisms the next day. I might add NOT A MOTHER IN SIGHT. Mothers take note, these boys couldn’t have been more than 12-14 years old and their mothers had trained them well. The next day those white shirts were spotless and wrinkle free.

Every day we have at least one really strong spiritual moment but most of them we will never be able to tell you about them until we meet on the other side. This is one unfortunate thing about a Temple Missionary. You just can’t share with your family and loved ones the really good stuff.