"ELVIS
AARON PRESLEY”
Temple work in the Mormon religion is sacred and undisclosed.
Youth,
as early as twelve, are permitted to do baptisms for the
dead.
The belief is that the spirits who have gone on before us did
not
have a chance in this mortal existence to accept the gospel
of
Jesus Christ. By standing in for them in the baptismal font, a
huge
tub supported by twelve life-sized, oxen statues, the living are
dunked
for each and every name on the roster for the day.
Our district temple was Washington, D.C. whose noticeably-stark
white
marble structure stands beside a bustling freeway system,
leaping out when motorists rapidly round the bend.
Everyone going to the temple must sit before their presiding
bishop
and be interviewed to discover their being “worthy” and
“pure”.
Questions range from psychological to sexual in nature, often
being asked several times, “Are you touching yourself inappropriately?”
I never thought it was inappropriate to touch oneself
given the length of the arms, so naturally I said, “No.”
The chartered bus ride to D.C. included the urban punks,
all
making sphincters of themselves with their inability to communicate
with a limited vocabulary and their usual hate-filled remarks, shocking
me further to note that the conduct they
consistently exhibit was acceptable for a laminated Temple
Recommend
card. Their volume also kept anyone from sleeping, creating
a draining, exhausting itinerary.
Once inside the temple’s hushed, dimly-lit corridors, the boys
are
separated from the girls, adults included, and ushered into the
locker
rooms adjacent to the font itself. A glass partition viewing
area
peers down onto the font allowing spectators the opportunity
to
witness the sacred ritual.
Each individual receives approximately 30 names to be baptized
for. The information appearing on a monitor includes that
person’s birth and death dates, along with their parents and
county
registry.
While waiting for my group to be called, I joined a number of
people
sitting in the viewing area anticipating the much-revered
doing.
A moth was flying about the heads of one of the girls who
swatted
at it, knocking it dead to the ground. Mortified, she shrieked
in a hushed manner, “I just killed a temple bug!”
More and more people were getting baptized as the hours dragged
on. Departing the font, saturated from being fully submerged,
they’d exit the area into their prospective gender’s
locker
room facility, sending another one out, keeping the process
moving
like clockwork.
A confused participant came back into the font area after
showering,
drying his hair with his towel, wearing nothing else. His
manhood was dangling and swaying for all spectators behind
the
glass to take in a full, unrestricted view until he realized where
he
was. Without making a scene, or covering up, he did an about
face,
parading back into the locker room undraped, allowing everyone
a complete package observance.
Some girls covered their eyes, as some shrieked, calling his name.
The guys all laughed. Others silently salivated.
At long last, my time was announced.
After pulling on the thick, white, cotton clothing, I entered the
bathwater-warm
temperature of the baptismal font. Striding in the
chest-high water towards the one baptizing me, I held my nose,
closed
my eyes, and waited for the lowering beneath the surface
hoping
that nothing, including a strand of hair, would rise above
the
splashing apertures, resulting in a re-take.
The words were quick, but clear, mimicking John The Baptist’s
when
he baptized Christ, Himself. Then I heard the name of the
first
person I was standing in place of: “Elvis Aaron Presley”.
Under the water I went.