No matter who you are SARS-CoV-2 (Noval Coronavirus) and its associated stay-at-home orders have affected you. Graduation ceremonies have been canceled. Weddings have been postponed. On-site classes have shifted to virtual learning. Religious services are being streamed into homes. Family vacations have been rescheduled. Birthday parties have turned into parades down the street. Everyone is making adjustments in every aspect of their lives; and even though we already homeschool we’re no different. This is the story of our quarantine LDS baptism.
baptism in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Our family are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church in shorthand). In our religion we believe in baptism by immersion as Christ was baptized in the River Jordan. We also believe that baptism can occur when a child reaches eight years old–the age of accountability.
We had been planning our daughter’s baptism for a year and she was so excited. She had planned who would give a talk, who would give the prayers, and what songs would be sung. Our daughter even knew what refreshments we’d have. I’d already designed the paper programs for her baptism and ordered a custom watercolor like I had for our son. Most importantly, we had talked with her extensively about the choice that she was making and what it meant. We were prepared. Then the global pandemic hit and our church put a hold on in-person meetings from March 12, indefinitely.
lds baptism during quarantine
To be honest I didn’t think it would affect our plans. After all, her baptism wouldn’t be for another two months. Surely things would be radically different by then and mostly (if not completely) back to normal. As more time passed I thought that this shelter-in-place and quarantine insanity would end soon. Before we knew it we’d be able to start up regular church services again. Boy was I wrong.
We got a call at the end of April that changed everything. We were told at that time that we could continue with her baptism on the date planned. However only four people would be allowed in attendance–and that was including her and her father, who would be performing the ordinance. Anyone else wanting to watch (siblings, extended family, friends) could “attend” via Zoom. Quite honestly, I was furious. It made no sense to me whatsoever. We had ten people living in our household that we had been in quarantine with. And even our state was saying to congregate in groups no bigger than ten. I told Mike there was no way our daughter was getting baptized if our immediate family couldn’t even be there. We would have to postpone.
baptism ordinance at the church building
We spoke with our daughter at length and she was understandably upset. She had been so looking forward to this day. Worst of all, we couldn’t even give her a time frame of when she might be able to be baptized if we postponed. Luckily, we eventually were given permission to hold her baptism with our household (the ten of us) in attendance. After confirming with our daughter that she wanted to go ahead with our original date of May 23 even though her friends and cousins couldn’t be there we forged ahead. Our family that was coming from out of town would Zoom in from our house. We’d send the link to family in other states who hadn’t been able to travel.
Typically a baptism in our church would consist of an opening song and prayer, a short talk or two, maybe a musical number or short video presentation, the baptism itself, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost as a companion in your life (called a confirmation), and a closing song and prayer. However, with just our family in attendance for this quarantine LDS baptism we were told to basically keep it as bare bones as possible. Just the opening prayer, baptism ordinance, and closing prayer. We were given permission to have the confirmation back at our house with the rest of our family that was here.
quarantine lds baptism reception
Although the ordinance of baptism is the most important thing, I wanted to be sure it was as special of a day as her brother’s had been. It’s common (although definitely not required) to have some refreshments at the church building after the baptism. I thought that this would be a good opportunity to include a few friends and members of our congregation. Our daughter is such a social little girl. I had to figure out some way for her friends and fellow congregations members to celebrate with her. I’d heard of lots of people holding drive-by birthdays and baby showers, maybe I could do something like that!
I did some online searches, figuring that someone else had already done something like this for a baptism. However, I couldn’t find anything. I was on my own to figure out how a drive-up baptism reception would look. We wanted to be respectful and keep it small so she told me a handful of friends and ward members she wanted to invite.
We sent out a few baptism announcements and included inserts to invite people to her reception at our home. I also texted and emailed a few people to let them know she’d love to see them there! This was tough for us because we would have loved to invite everyone, but as I said–we were trying to keep it low-key.
special touches for a special day
I made my go-to balloon garland decoration because it’s an easy way to get big bang for your buck. As per her request we had a cookie bar. Rather than plates I had little takeout boxes. So if anyone wanted to take some to go we could pack them up and they wouldn’t have to leave their car! And although normally I wouldn’t have any type of favor for the get together after a baptism (it’s not a party after all), I decided to have little jars of jam since it went with the baptism talk that I wrote and printed up on the baptism programs. I did this since we hadn’t had a talk at the baptism itself.
We also had a sign-in table like we had for her big brother. A few fresh flowers finished up the decor and that was it! A simple but beautiful reception for a very special day. People pulled up throughout the hour and it was so nice to interact with people we hadn’t seen for two months! It was a really neat experience and I know that she felt loved and special. It will be something that she’ll always remember for sure.
Did you have a special celebration during Shelter-in-Place? What did you do?
Have you known anyone else to do a quarantine LDS baptism reception? How did they do it?
