2000—A Sealer

…previous Church assignment: Ward Teacher Development Coordinator

Saturday, September 30, 2000. The Temple Open House ended a week ago, and we’re excited about the dedication, scheduled for the next morning. We learn later that Church President Gordon Bitner Hinckley (my esteemed third cousin once removed, by the way) had arrived for the occasion and had found the workmen still busy mounting the front door. They were embarrassed that it wasn’t quite done; he, characteristically, was nice about it.

Lloyd Baird

I was alone at Timbaloo: Valerie was in Washington, generating memories associated with Zannah’s arrival in Pacific Northwest mortality and with that year’s big earthquake, up in those parts. I’d spent the morning working in the garden, and I was filthy. Trailing garden-crumbs, I came in to use the indoor facility (for which my dear partner never tires of expressing her gratitude), and as I passed the wall-phone in the kitchen, it rang.

“Hello, Brother Anderson?” The familiar voice of Lloyd Baird, old friend and yokefellow in Church leadership, and then currently our Cambridge Stake President. I was instantly alert: Lloyd hadn’t called me “Brother Anderson” in thirty years. Something was going on. “Yes?” “President Hinckley would like to speak with you.” The sound effect was my jaw rolling around the kitchen floor. “Well, put him on!” “No, no, you have to come down here. And you have shaved, haven’t you?”

I had, about a month earlier, so as to be presentable to show Temple visitors around.

Gordon B Hinckley

Early that evening, I met at the Temple with fourteen of my oldest friends and fellow-laborers in Latter-day Saint Pioneer New England, and President Hinckley and Acting President Boyd K Packer of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles conferred the sealing power on us, authorizing us to serve as sealers assigned to the new Temple.