She can't wait until she's eight!

Abra, Billy, and Deklan

Deklan's baptism sure was memorable! Kathi gave a wonderful talk on baptism. She had a piece of paper that said "Deklan now." He had to stand on that paper. Then she showed him one that said "Eternal Life" and she put it farther away than he could possibly jump. She asked him if he could get to that square without touching the carpet. He couldn't. So then she showed him some stepping stones, like repentance, faith, baptism, temple covenants, et al, and we talked about them one by one and he got closer and closer to eternal life as we went. I thought it was an excellent way to illustrate the concept.

After she was finished, Bishop Cordara got up and invited all the little children to gather around the font so that they could watch Deklan be baptized. He reminded us all that Deklan was setting an example for all the children in the room, just like Jesus got baptized to show us the way.

Well, about fifteen children rushed the font and there was the normal scooting around as each child tried to find a place from which they had clear view of the font.

Brad, Billy, and Deklan

Abra and Billy's friend Brad was baptizing Deklan and he had his own three children there. Little Ella, who is only three, was especially excited to be watching her father baptize someone. She was also anxious that he was so far away from her. She kept creeping up closer and closer to the font. I saw her reach out with flat palms, like she was leaning against the glass... I looked away for a moment.

Then there was a tremendous splash and, when I looked back over, all I saw was a little pair of boots go over the edge. Apparently this font didn't have glass to lean on.

Brad stood there puzzled for a moment. Both he and Deklan were ready and waiting. Then it registered that it was his baby girl who had fallen into the font and that she couldn't swim yet! He pushed Deklan aside and reached down and lifted Ella back up to Sheila, who was remarkably calm about the whole thing.

Sheila and my mom rushed Ella off to the washroom and started toweling her off with paper towels. I grabbed one of Rachel's blankets and ran after them (paper towel just doesn't seem very comforting to me). Lucky for Ella, her mother had a change of clothes in the car.


The baptism went on without us. Deklan had to go under three times. The first time, Brad forgot to say amen. The second time, Deklan's foot popped up out of the water. The third time, everything went smoothly.

"Remember, Deklan," said the bishop when everyone was warm and dry, "How I told you that you were setting an example for the other children?"

Deklan nodded fervently.

"Well, they're trying to follow it already!"

With that, Andrew got up to give a talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Ella stayed snuggly in Sheila's lap the whole time and everything went smoothly.

I shouldn't wonder if five years down the road there is a little girl named Ella who is a little nervous about being baptized, although all she said about all the commotion was, "It was warm."