New year, new deacon

Amber's parents spent Christmas with the Leflers, then drove to our house for New Year's Eve. We took them to a party at the Larsen's house, but we bailed before midnight and celebrated the new year on the back patio with some poppers.

On Sunday they were able to help Amber with her primary lesson by dressing up as Zechariah and Elizabeth (which they repeated for our Come Follow Me lesson at home).

Grandma and Grandpa were in town because this is the year Damon turns 12, so he was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood and is now a deacon. He was able to pass the sacrament, and even went on his first temple trip on Saturday to do baptisms.

In typical Damon fashion, he was very excited about all of it.

Damon at the temple

Damon will be turning 12 next year, and the primary and youth programs had an event at the temple for all the kids transitioning out of primary. It was a cold, rainy day, so they couldn't walk around the temple grounds, but it was a nice program nonetheless.

Baptisms at the temple

On Saturday I got to accompany the girls to the temple to do baptisms. The temple just barely reopened and we had a date scheduled for June, but someone had room in their group so we went.

It was Carmen's first time, so it was unfortunate that we had issues with her recommend at the front desk. She had somehow gotten an old recommend without a barcode, so it took a while to get that sorted out. In the meantime, I went in to tell the others what was going on and sort out the names we had brought. Carmen got left alone and started getting anxious.

We got everything worked out, and she got in. Olivia and I were the witnesses, and I also helped to confirmations, and Carmen had a good experience doing baptisms.