Beyond Belief (7 page)

I
gather my scriptures and wait for my Sunday School leaders to finish the morning lesson on the importance of faith in our daily lives. Once the Young Women’s class is over we head to Sacrament meeting, the most boring part of church, where we are required to sit silently for a whole hour listening to our elders drone on like dial tones about gratitude and prophecy and blah blah blah. We’re only thirteen. How can my friends and I be expected to pay attention to church stuff for three hours every single Sunday?

Just before we are dismissed, Sister Armstrong stands up and makes one last announcement. “I have some exciting news,” she says, grinning. “Our class has been selected to perform baptisms for the dead at the temple.”

I stop packing up my belongings and blink at Sister Armstrong.
Baptisms for the what?

I had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more than four years earlier when my father married my stepmom. Her family had been Mormons since the church’s earliest days. Because I was nine the church proclaimed I was old enough to make my own decision—they wouldn’t baptize me right away like my younger siblings. I had to take weekly lessons for months just as if I were an adult. Much of what the missionaries taught me was confusing, but I wanted so badly to be a Mormon—and, more importantly, to be part of my new family—that I just nodded and agreed, as if I understood everything.

It was no wonder that every week still brought new surprises about my adopted faith. Most things, like tithing, taking the Sacrament, and missionary work are like normal parts of any church, but “baptisms for the dead” sounds positively grotesque. Before I can stop it, my mind conjures images of decaying bodies floating in a baptismal font, bits of flesh and gore breaking free from the corpses as they are plunged underwater. I shudder.

“For those of you who don’t have temple recommends, you’ll have to make an appointment for an interview with Bishop Carlson.” She continues smiling beatifically at us. “What you’ll be doing is very important. You’ll be giving people who died without hearing the Gospel a chance to return to Heavenly Father’s side one day.”

After we are dismissed, the other girls get up and leave, already chatting and laughing, as if Sister Armstrong has just announced another car-wash-and-hoagie-sale fundraiser for Girl’s Camp. Their voices drift in from the hallway and I briefly consider joining them, but I linger in the room. Mustering up my courage, I slowly walk over to Sister Taylor, who is putting her teaching manuals and Scriptures in her big shoulder bag. I sit down next to her. Sister Taylor is the leader of the Beehives, our young women’s group, and
I spend more time with her than with any other leader. I trust her to answer my questions without making fun of me.

“Uh, Sister Taylor?” I stammer. “What exactly does Sister Armstrong mean by ‘baptisms for the dead’?”

Sister Taylor puts one last notebook in her bag and calmly looks at me. “It means we do baptism by proxy.” I must look even more confused because she continues. “We do them in place of people who have died. You will be baptized on their behalf. It’s how we give others the chance to accept the Gospel even though they weren’t able to do so when they were alive.”

Although I still don’t understand the “by proxy” part, I am somewhat relieved. Instead of sharing a pool of filthy water with a bunch of rotting corpses, I’ll be immersed in sparkling clean, chlorinated water just like my own baptism, but this time I get to do it inside the temple.

T
HE TEMPLE IN
S
ALT
L
AKE
C
ITY
has towered over my life for as long as I can remember, even before I was baptized a member of the church. It radiates holiness and virtue, from its white spires that shimmer in the sunlight to the golden statue of the Angel Moroni calling upon the faithful below. The temple isn’t just physically imposing; it also looms large in my future life. When I marry, the ceremony will be within its walls. When I have a family, I will be sealed to them for all time inside. Without the rituals performed in the holy temple, I would be forever cut off from the Celestial Kingdom and from living alongside Heavenly Father for all eternity.

The closest I’ve ever come to getting inside the temple is walking through the grounds during Christmastime and admiring the millions of lights that decorate every spire and towering archway. Being
baptized for dead people will be my first chance to penetrate this most heavily guarded sanctum. I feel a delicious thrill of excitement.

But before I can explore the enticing secrets of the Salt Lake Temple, I have to obtain a “temple recommend” by passing an interview with Bishop Carlson. Because I’ve known Bishop Carlson since the days when the most complicated decision in my life was picking the color of my Trapper Keeper, I figure it won’t be a big deal. Bishop Carlson is a rotund grandpa of a man perfectly suited to play Santa every year at the ward Christmas party. He calls his wife, Louise, “Squeezy Weezy” and sometimes he falls asleep on the stand during Sacrament meeting. He once helped me catch, clean, and cook a trout at Girl’s Camp. I adore him.

No one ever talks about what it takes to get a temple recommend, so I’m not sure what to expect at my interview. I arrive at my appointment with Bishop Carlson a few days after Sister Armstrong’s announcement. His small office is stuffed with a desk the size of a raft, so I have to turn sideways to get to a chair. The walls are covered with framed prints of Joseph Smith and Jesus. I know these pictures well; every home—including my own—displays them prominently in living rooms and entrances. In the standard-issue portraits, both men radiate sainthood, with the same ruddy pink cheeks and piercing gazes that seem to look right into your soul. A photo of the Salt Lake Temple also adorns the scant wall space. I look at it longingly as I take my seat on the opposite side of the desk and primly fold my hands in my lap.

Bishop Carlson welcomes me into his office with a few minutes of small talk and looks at me with his kind, twinkling eyes. “I’m going to ask you some questions,” he says. “I need you to answer truthfully, okay?” I nod. He picks up a piece of paper, peers at it through his bifocals, and clears his throat.

“Are you sexually pure?” he asks, his voice suddenly businesslike.

I stare at the coarse brownish-green carpet, dumbfounded. Am I
what?
I don’t know what I expected him to ask me about, but this is
not
it. Bishop Carlson’s eyesight is bad, but is it so bad that he misses my pink eyeglasses, my too-short pants, my bony knees and elbows? Even if I wanted to be sexually impure, I doubt I could find someone who would be willing to help me out.

I manage to croak out a yes. He makes a note on a piece of paper, and I wonder if my answers are going in a file somewhere. He moves on to the next question.

“Have you ever used alcohol or drugs?”

I shake my head, no. I can’t bring myself to look at him, even though it occurs to me that he might take my lack of eye contact as a sign of guilt.

“Have you ever touched yourself? Have you ever smoked? Have you sinned?”

He recites his list of questions in a bored monotone. He probably asks these questions every day. No adult or teenager in the community is spared this indignity, I’m guessing. Does everyone else feel this embarrassed? Does anyone else think it’s weird to be asked to share such personal information? Does anyone tell the truth?

I sneak a quick glimpse at the photo of the temple, white and pure and tall enough to reach Heavenly Father, and remember why I am doing this. The temple better be worth it.

I take a deep breath; my eyes never leave the floor. “No,” I say, “I have never touched myself.” “No, I have never done drugs, I have never used alcohol.” “No,” I say, “I have never sinned.” This last statement is a lie, but I haven’t committed any of the Big Sins, like murder or premarital sex, so a no seems justified, even though lying is a sin itself. I sidestep this moral quandary and keep answering the
way I know I am supposed to, just to get Bishop Carlson past the sex questions. I’m sure that Heavenly Father understands my plight and won’t hold my dishonesty against me.

Soon we move on to more familiar territory, where my years of Sunday School and Sacrament memorization ensure I am well versed. When Bishop Carlson asks about church doctrine, I finally lift my head and look him directly in the eye. I’ve made these same statements in public many times: while bearing testimony in front of the ward, giving talks during Sacrament meetings, and taking part in testimony meetings during youth camp. This part is easy.

“Yes, the Church and the Book of Mormon are true,” I tell him. “Yes, Joseph Smith was the true prophet of Heavenly Father.” “Yes, my testimony is strong and, yes, I am a faithful believer.”

Bishop Carlson checks off the last item on his list. He pulls out a small card from his desk and signs it, then tucks it into a file folder on his desk.

“See you at the temple,” he says, smiling. I grin, relieved that I have proven my worthiness.

N
ORMALLY
, I
LIKE NOTHING
better than to spend my Saturday mornings burrowed between the sheets, but on the Saturday of temple work, I fly out of bed the second my alarm clock starts shrieking. In the next thirty minutes, I shower, eat, and put on my prettiest church dress, a long yellow one with mauve poppies. I check my makeup and sling a backpack filled with toiletries and clean underwear over my shoulder and walk to church.

When I get to the meetinghouse, a group of teenagers is standing around on the lawn near the parking lot, waiting for the youth leaders to arrive in their minivans. I join my best friend,
Andrea, on the lawn, and we regard each other with sleepy nods and yawns. The minivans arrive and we climb in, claiming the backseat for ourselves.

A half hour later, our convoy pulls into downtown Salt Lake City. We park a few blocks away and walk through the dewy spring morning to Temple Square. By this time we are wide awake. Our jokes and laughter echo down the empty streets at this early-morning hour.

The temple grounds are nearly vacant. The only signs of human life are the attractive lady missionaries, who serve as ambassadors to the small armies of camera-wielding tourists who will stop by the visitor’s center later in the day. We bypass the visitor’s center as our leaders guide us into a small building at the base of the temple. A thrill quivers in my chest as we enter; this building is for members only.

We cram inside the lobby of the building and are greeted by a group of temple workers dressed entirely in white. White dresses for the women, white ties and shirtsleeves for the men, white hair on every head that has it. An army of old, white-haired temple elves. A Young Men’s leader hands a stack of temple recommends to an older man behind a desk. Andrea and I stand in the back whispering while we wait for the adults to finish their business. A temple worker finally gestures us to follow him.

We march through a labyrinth of hallways that smells dank and moist, like the locker room at school. The sound of fluorescent lights buzzes overhead as we pass temple workers driving golf carts. They all greet us with the same cheerful smiles. Through endless tunnels we walk for so long that I wonder if we are lost. Finally we climb a short staircase and pass through a set of heavy wooden doors into a beige waiting room, furnished with outdated furniture
and filled with church-issued literature and Books of Mormon. I feel a pang of disappointment; I expected more from the temple.

We move on to a room filled with rows of tall shelves piled high with stacks of neatly folded white cloth. Each of us takes a turn at the counter, telling the temple workers our size. They disappear into the shelves and come back with armloads of more white cloth. Our next stop is the locker room, where we change out of our Sunday best and into our temple wear.

The first garment I put on is a jumper that is meant to serve as underwear. I’d rather wear my own—how could my simple cotton briefs from JCPenney do any harm? But I follow the instructions I’ve been given and put on the jumper. It billows like a sail and the crotch hangs down well below my knees. I have no idea how many women have worn this over the years, and I’m sure I don’t really want to know.

The next item of clothing in my stack is a white jumpsuit made out of stiff canvas; it reminds me of something you’d wear to work with toxic chemicals or at a nuclear power plant. I pull it on over my saggy old-lady underwear and zip it up the front. When I let go, the neck of the hazmat suit droops and exposes my nonexistent breasts. I am mortified. I bunch up the collar of the suit in one hand and grab my backpack with the other, then shuffle dejectedly through the locker room. On the way out, I catch a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror. A wretched girl stares balefully back at me. She doesn’t look like someone about to take part in one of the most sacred rituals of her religion; she looks like she’s going to a costume party dressed as a deflated Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Another temple elf steers me into a cavernous room where wafts of chlorine and dense warm humidity greet me. Still clenching the neck of my suit, I find a seat with the girls at the end of a marble bench
along the right wall. The boys sit on the other side of the room. With a furtive glance I note that everyone else looks just as ridiculous as I do. I lean back against the wall and take in my surroundings.

I am sitting in the most opulent room I’ve ever been in. My feet rest on slabs of cool white marble shot through with streaks of gray. The wide staircase that leads up to the massive baptismal font is constructed from chunks of the same marble. The font is a giant bowl at least twenty feet around, carved with grapes and ivy leaves. It rises from the floor on the backs of twelve shiny, golden bulls, each one as high as my shoulders. I feel like I have walked into the pages of my Roman history textbook, leaving Salt Lake City and the twentieth century far behind.

At my own baptism I was submerged in a narrow hot tub tucked behind a divider in a classroom at the meeting house. As I gaze at the gleaming bulls and rub the smooth cool marble with my feet, my baptism feels shoddy in comparison. Then again, at least I
wanted
to become a member of the Mormon Church. I can’t say the same for the dead people on whose behalf I await my turn to baptize.