Lance turned 8 on October 14th, but his baptism was not an immediate thing due to various circumstances.
The Klein Texas Stake does group baptisms for all of the children that have turned 8 the previous month. These usually occur on the first Saturday of the month following their 8th birthday. They are at 5:00PM that evening. If you take a quick look at the calendar, 3 November 2012, is one such date.
We had a little problem with this date for Lance, however. We had scheduled a Sealing for his older brother Andrew. This was kind of a big deal. We were trying to have his older brother sealed to us and we wanted the entire family in the temple with us. This required Lance to be baptized as his requirement for entrance was that he had to have all of the ordinances completed up to his age. Since he was already 8 years old, this required his baptismal ordinance to be completed. Since the Sealing was scheduled at 1:00PM, a 5:00PM Baptism was not going to work for us.
We jumped through a few hoops, but we managed to get everything arranged and Lance was baptized at 9:00AM on 3 November 2012 – today. It was a beautiful baptism. There were a lot of people in attendance including his Great-Grandparents Louis P. and Lorraine Hellewell. We flew them down for the Sealing and it was just a bonus that they got to see Lance baptized as well. It was a really special day for Grandpa because it was his 85th birthday and to celebrate he got to see his Great-Grandson Lance be baptized and his Great-Grandson Andrew be sealed to his parents. It really was a beautiful day.
Here are some pictures from today…
Lance Sansom with his father, Ben Sansom. He looks just as happy as can be to be getting baptized. He was tired of waiting. Waiting is not his strong suit, so to speak. He kept asking, “Is it my baptism yet?”
Pictures of Louis T. Hellewell, my father and Lance’s Grandfather.
I am not entirely sure why there were not more pictures of the Baptism except that it was just a whirlwind morning trying to get everything together before the Sealing that afternoon.
Andrew played his cello and made Grandma Lorraine Hellewell cry. It was nothing significant per say, it was just a children’s hymn out of the Children’s Songbook but she had never heard it before and the cello has a way of really touching people. Since she is a fairly new member still (only a few years), she would not know many of the Children’s songs. The music really is moving by itself and the cello is a beautiful instrument. Music welcomes the spirit.
The spirit was there with us this morning.
Lance was baptized and confirmed by his father, Ben Sansom.
There was a wonderful light lunch in the kitchen for family and a few friends that would be joining us at the temple for the Sealing. That was provided mostly by my dear friend, Linn Macie. I do love her so. She is just amazing when it comes to things like this. If you need help, she will be there. She made sandwiches and cookies for everyone to enjoy. How awesome is she? I will never forget her when she needs something like this.
Be the first to comment