10/29/20 FAVORITE BAPTISM MEMORIES #4 — After our icy baptism adventure, I asked the church leaders to “fix it.” A few days later, they told me they had taken care of it.

As I prepared to enter the pool, I noticed steam billowing off the surface. As I stepped into the water, I almost screamed out in pain. The water was (nearly) BOILING HOT! I am quite hot-natured and a heavy sweater. As sweat poured out of every pore in my body and my glasses fogged up so completely I was nearly 100% blinded (after that I always took off my glasses before baptism), I tried to conduct the ordinance with some semblance of dignity. But as the toes of each candidate touched the surface, they drew back with a gasp. I told each one to take a deep breath—surely they could stand it for a few seconds. Somehow we all got through it, clean as a whistle, and red as a beet all over!

Turns out, my men had purchased a heater for a cattle feeder. It was basically a giant electrified horseshoe, with not much of a temperature control. After that we tried to postpone baptizing in the winter until freezing weather had passed. Whew!