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Cambridge Stake High Council |
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| As sealers in the Boston Temple, we worked shifts of four to six hours in our four sealing rooms, performing ordinances for the living by appointment and welcoming whoever came for proxy sessions, whenever they came during the hours when the Temple was open, as sufficient patrons were on hand to do the work. As the only sealer residing within easy walking distance, I tended to draw assignments at low-traffic hours and so was usually the only one on duty, when I was there. |
| It was time-consuming work, not physically difficult but often spiritually draining, and I assumed, without ever being told, that my ward and stake leadership looked upon my sealing functions as full-time church service. So it came as something of a surprise when Lloyd Baird, still my stake president, invited me into the Relief Society Room in the Belmont Chapel and called me to serve concurrently on his High Council. This was the occasion I’ve mentioned elsewhere, when he laid on me the compliment I treasure most, referring to me as “a Cambridge character.” |
 Lloyd Baird |
 John Hoffmire |
The Boston-area Church had continued to grow, through the years that I’d been allowed to focus on family life and the functions of the One True Ward. The Boston Stake had divided in two, and Arlington was now setting the pace for the new Cambridge Stake. We never seemed to be able to keep up with the need for new meetinghouses, with two Belmont Wards sharing with us the Belmont Chapel on the Arlington line, at the foot of Temple Hill. The Cambridge Chapel was overcrowded as ever, as the new Stake administration followed the lead of the Williams and Romney presidencies in forming new special-purpose congregations, here and there. |
| I was assigned to represent the Stake Presidency to one of the Longfellow Park Wards, serving young single professionals under the leadership of old friend Bishop John Hoffmire. John was a dynamo, seeming to spend full time in his Church calling and promoting fellowship among the single folks with a mostly-unacknowledged goal of encouraging marriage and household-formation among them. |
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