The Tie That Binds

Well, that just happened. On Friday night Mary and I became the first missionaries in known history (along with the awesome sister missionaries–Soeur Suter and Soeur Wixom) to get a standing ovation at a baptism. But perhaps I should start at the beginning, and add a little context.

When we first arrived here in Quebec City, we attended a meeting with the District Presidency where we were asked to work with the Young Single Adults. The week before we arrived here in Québec, a remarkable young man named Louis had been baptized. When we attended our first Friday night Institute class, we met Stanley, an outgoing young man who was taking the missionary discussions and waiting until his 18th birthday to be baptized. We also started helping the zone leaders teach an amazing young woman named Marjhory, who began attending institute with us.

Stanley was baptized on November 17. I had the privilege of baptizing Marjhory a week later, on November 24. On December 8, Mary and I drove Louis, Stanley and Marjhory to Montréal. We met the Stake Patriarch at the Stake Center in Longeuil, where Stanley received his patriarchal blessing. We then walked across the parking lot to the Montréal Temple so Louis, Stanley and Marjhory could perform proxy baptisms. It was Louis’ second time in the temple, and Stanley and Marjhory’s first experience.

After we were finished, we made the long drive back to Montréal in order to be there for the baptism of Alain, a young man that Mary and I had taught with the sister missionaries. As part of the baptismal service, four of the sister missionaries here in Québec performed a musical number, singing “When I am Baptized.” I don’t tend to get too emotional, but as I sat there next to Alain while they sang, I felt the Spirit stronger than I have ever felt it before. I got a very small glimpse, I think, of what the day of Pentecost must have been like. It also got me thinking about shared experience and the things that connect us.

After his baptism, to conclude the baptismal service, Alain bore a brief testimony. At the end of his testimony, he asked us and the sister missionaries who taught him to stand. Because he wasn’t completely clear (and because he was speaking in English to a mostly French audience), everyone who was attending the baptism also stood. Then he asked everyone to give us a round of applause. Which I had obviously never witnessed at a baptism, but which (if I am being completely honest), TOTALLY rocked. So, yeah, standing ovations at a baptism are now a thing. People in a congregation in Utah would have been fainting and asking each other, “Can you do that?” But up here in the mission field, it’s just another day in our wonderful life.

On Sunday, I confirmed Alain a member of the Church. Afterwards, everything that had happened that weekend–and the events leading up to it–reminded me of good ole John Fawcett. You see, John Fawcett was the pastor of a small, impoverished Baptist congregation in Yorkshire, England in the 1700s. After seven years, he received–and accepted–an offer to become the pastor of a much larger and more influential congregation in London, with a correspondingly larger salary. On the day he and his family were to move, many of his congregants arrived to help him load his wagon. Soon, everyone was in tears. Fawcett’s wife broke down and told him that she could not bear to leave. Realizing that he felt the same way, Fawcett unpacked the wagon. He stayed with that congregation and its paltry salary for 54 years, despite many opportunities to better his financial circumstances and reach a much larger audience. And based on that experience, he penned the lyrics to his best known hymn, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.”

Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in Christian love;
the fellowship of kindred minds
is like to that above.

Before our Father’s throne
we pour our ardent prayers;
our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
our comforts and our cares.

We share our mutual woes,
our mutual burdens bear;
and often for each other flows
the sympathizing tear.

When we asunder part,
it gives us inward pain;
but we shall still be joined in heart,
and hope to meet again.

This glorious hope revives 
our courage by the way; 
while each in expectation lives 
and waits to see the day. 

From sorrow, toil, and pain, 
and sin, we shall be free; 
and perfect love and friendship reign 
through all eternity.

When later in life King George III offered Fawcett any benefit he could confer, Fawcett responded, “I have lived among my own people, enjoying their love. God has blessed my labors among them, and I need nothing which even a king could supply.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

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