Spiritual Treasure of Proxy Baptisms and Confirmations

My wife and I recently flew from Austin to Seattle for the baptism of our youngest grandson, Lucas. As I carefully watched him, intensely attentive to every word and event, the Spirit was strong, as always seems to be the case at such times. The Holy Ghost testified to me, as He has to all of us, that this act of solemn covenanting with God is an extraordinarily important event.

"But how can an eight-year old truly understand what he is covenanting to do or even Who he is covenanting with?” we have all asked. Recall that when the Savior appeared to the Nephites after his resurrection, “He taught men, women, and children ‘in number about two thousand and five hundred souls’ (3 Nephi 17:25). . . . If, as a number of gospel scholars have shown, Jesus’s teachings in 3 Nephi are seen as ‘a sacred, ancient temple experience,’ as ‘teachings, instructions, doctrines and commandments’ given ‘in connection with or in preparation for’ the types of ceremonies we associate with our temple experience, it is noteworthy to me that the Savior would speak to and teach not only the adults, but also the youth and even young children, including inviting each of them to be physical witnesses of His resurrection.” (Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple, 103-104) If He has such confidence in these young people, should we have any less?

Moreover, this act of solemn promising can, and should, I believe, also be viewed in the

context of the spiritual stature each of us achieved in our premortal existence. We all see what our children, or children in general (including ourselves), can grow up to become, even in the nanosecond that represents our mortal sojourn on earth. (Lucas’s father (our son), for example, has matured immeasurably in his comprehension of and ability to keep gospel covenants in the relatively few years since he was baptized.) If, as we learn from Alma and in the endowment, we each were foreordained to specific missions in this life, “‘being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of [our] exceeding faith and good works’ (Alma 13:3),” shouldn’t we at least try to imagine, and continuously hold in our consciousness, “the high and holy station faithful sisters and priesthood holders [that is, each of us] attained in our premortal existence”? (Drawing, 157) Remember also the eternal principle of futurity--“out of small things proceedth that which is great” (D&C 64:33; see also Alma 37:6; D&C 123:15). 

“Sometimes—perhaps even much of the time—neither [our youth] nor we may feel that there is all that much that is especially ‘godly’ [or even particularly notable] about our lives. But how much faith is demonstrated in their (and our) sincere participation in [the sacrament] and in the baptism and confirmation ordinances our youth officiate in in the Lord’s holy house! As they bring with them (and we bring with us) our offering of a ‘broken heart and a contrite spirit,’ manifest through our desire to repent and to be clean, we can realize the Lord’s promise to know, then and from day to day and week to week, that the ‘course’ we are pursuing, the ‘covenant path’ we are on and the direction of our life’s journey, is ‘pleasing in the sight of God.’ Such ‘assurance[s] of faith’ and ‘hope’ (Hebrews 10:22; 6:11) are, without doubt, among the spiritual treasures God was referring to when He promised to ‘manifest [Himself] to my people in mercy in [my] house’ (Doctrine and Covenants 110:6–7).” (Drawing, 114)

For me, no one illustrates the power of gospel covenants better than my great-grandmother, Barbara Baumgartner. We and our five adult children and their spouses recently returned from a visit to the alpine village of Weissenberg, Switzerland, where in 1858 , Elder  Samuel Dat Wheeler left a missionary pamphlet at the Baumgartner’s door. Barbara, at age 16 and an avid reader, studied the pamphlet, comparing its scriptural citations to corresponding verses in their family Bible. She was soon converted. However, because of family opposition, she waited to be baptized until she was 19. With the help of the mission president, she immigrated to Provo, Utah and soon began corresponding (in German) with my great-grandfather, Andrew Fluckiger, who also had joined the Church in Switzerland and was then living in Star Valley, Wyoming. They exchanged photos and then determined to meet in Salt Lake—and be sealed together for time and all eternity. It was 1899. After raising 10 children and the passing of her husband, she served in the Mesa, Logan and Idaho Falls temples, eventually completing all of the work for her and Andrew’s ancestors as far back as was then possible.

What motivated Barbara and Andrew—and so many others—to leave family, friends, their village lives and country and continue faithfully on the covenant path to the end of their lives? As our grandson Lucas will discover as he continues to follow the Savior, there is real power in our covenants—the “power of godliness” (D&C 84:20). May sweet Lucas—and each of us—ever be faithful to the sacred promises we make with our Father and our Savior and Redeemer!