Foreign Behalfuv: How Strict Are You?

[TripletDaddy]

A group of us went to the temple this morning for a session. The NB temple is appointment only (we forgot), and when we showed up, we had no reservation. We put our names on the waiting list, but it was pretty evident that we were not getting in.

Once it became official that we were not getting in, we were given the opportunity to work in the Baptistry. I always enjoy working there because you can remain fairly active the entire time.

I volunteered to be the recorder. It was good to avoid the alpha male preening over which guy was going to get to do the actual baptisms. Off we went.

The Baptistry supervisor turned out to be a stickler. He stopped the guy doing the baptisms a few times, telling him that this was not a race. Also, he stopped him twice to tell him to enunciate the words clearly...."FOR AND IN BEHALF OF...." He asked him to not slur the words. He was not being rude in any way, just one of those funny old dudes that wanted to make sure everything went by the book.

As I sat there recording, I noticed that I have a habit of being somewhat lax when it comes to giving the baptism the Go or No Go. I noticed that the name on the card said "Althea." The guy in the font said "Aleetha." The name on the card said, "Gonzales." The guy in the font stumbled through with a "Gonzalo." I normally would only stop someone if they egregious misprounced the word to the extent that they are basically saying a different name. Also, sometimes the guy will say "Jones" when he means "Johnson" because he has just done about 10 "Jones" in a row. I will stop those. But I find myself with a soft spot for the guys that have a really hard time pronouncing names. I will encourage them to spell the names out if they can't pronounce them.

Working with this strict older guy today made me wonder if we should be very rigid with the names. We tend to always be sticklers when it comes to the wording of prayers (see Sacrament prayer), but how strict are you when you are at the temple?

I have seen all kinds of names go through.....some of them as simple as "Mr. Smith" or, on a few ocassions, one initial....I baptize you for and in behalf of ....T.....who is....." etc.... But with some of those tough ones, what is the protocol? I didn't want to be the guy interrupting the flow, but the guy was saying some of the names incorrectly.

Of some interest....today we did some cool Navajo family file names. So there was a lot of "Running Feather" and "White Cloud" type of names flying around. I have done several different ethnicities and countries of origin. Today was the first time I had seen American Indian names.

[Clark Addison]

Baptismal recorder is my favorite temple job. Witness is nice, but gets a little boring. Confirmations is OK as well, but you don't have enough interaction with the larger group, confined in that little room as you are. Doing baptisms is fun, but then there is the bother of changing out of wet clothes.

I am pretty lax as the recorder. I will stop them if they say the obvious wrong name, but if it is just a mispronunciation issue, I will usualy let it go. I've had guys in there who, if I stopped them every time they made some sort of pronunciation error, would be in there all night.

The only exception I make it when I get a "Lipschitz". 'Brother Martin", I will say, "I went to Austria on my mission and you really need to emphasize the second syllable on that name."

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Last time I did bs for d with the youth I was also the recorder. Our temple guy in Portland said that if they had a prefix or suffix you were not to pronounce it, rather to spell it out including punctuation.

One of the guys for our ward didn't hear this and when he was baptizing one of the girls was going for Mrs. XXXXX. The guy from my ward pronounced Mrs, rather than spell it. I thought there was going to be a fight in the font. Then when he finally understood to spell it out, he refused to say "M-R-S-period" which had the temple guy really upset.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I'm pretty sure I'm not celestial kingdom material because of something that happened when I was 15 in the Oakland Temple while confirmations were being performed. There was a hispanic kid in my ward who had the middle name of Beaner- no joke- and the men, one of whom was my dad, performing the confirmations had to repeatedly say the kid's full name. I and the other kid that were sitting there waiting for our turn just absolutely lost it for two minutes straight. I tried to think of the saddest thoughts to control myself but nothing worked.

The hispanic kid's dad couldn't be at the hospital when the kid was born. He had an older brother that was 7 or 8 and supposedly the kid's mom was knocked out so the hospital staff approached the brother to get a name. The brother correctly gave the first name the parents wanted but the hospital then asked for a middle name. Not knowing what his parents wanted as a middle name, the brother thought Beaner would be pretty cool. Apparently, the parents never got around to legally changing the middle name.

[Surfah]

I'm pretty sure I'm not celestial kingdom material because of something that happened when I was 15 in the Oakland Temple while confirmations were being performed. There was a hispanic kid in my ward who had the middle name of Beaner- no joke- and the men, one of whom was my dad, performing the confirmations had to repeatedly say the kid's full name. I and the other kid that were sitting there waiting for our turn just absolutely lost it for two minutes straight. I tried to think of the saddest thoughts to control myself but nothing worked.

The hispanic kid's dad couldn't be at the hospital when the kid was born. He had an older brother that was 7 or 8 and supposedly the kid's mom was knocked out so the hospital staff approached the brother to get a name. The brother correctly gave the first name the parents wanted but the hospital then asked for a middle name. Not knowing what his parents wanted as a middle name, the brother thought Beaner would be pretty cool. Apparently, the parents never got around to legally changing the middle name.

My nose is burning because I snorted a chewed up almond laughing so hard you jerk.

[myboynoah]

I'm pretty sure I'm not celestial kingdom material because of something that happened when I was 15 in the Oakland Temple while confirmations were being performed. There was a hispanic kid in my ward who had the middle name of Beaner- no joke- and the men, one of whom was my dad, performing the confirmations had to repeatedly say the kid's full name. I and the other kid that were sitting there waiting for our turn just absolutely lost it for two minutes straight. I tried to think of the saddest thoughts to control myself but nothing worked.

The hispanic kid's dad couldn't be at the hospital when the kid was born. He had an older brother that was 7 or 8 and supposedly the kid's mom was knocked out so the hospital staff approached the brother to get a name. The brother correctly gave the first name the parents wanted but the hospital then asked for a middle name. Not knowing what his parents wanted as a middle name, the brother thought Beaner would be pretty cool. Apparently, the parents never got around to legally changing the middle name.

Very funny story, but whenever I've done the ordinance, we called them "Brother" or "Sister" and then only used the last name. Have things changed? If so, perhaps it was your very irreverence that brought about this change.