Sometime before five o'clock Friday morning, Karel knocked quietly on the door of Dan's third floor apartment.
He came to the door immediately and greeted Karel quietly. "Hey." He was grinning.
Karel grinned back and responded as quietly. "Ready?"
Dan nodded. "Let's go pick up Kristie and Bobbie." Leaving the apartment, he locked the door behind him, and the two descended to the parking lot below. Both were dressed in their good Sunday suits and carried their temple clothes in clean brown satchels.
They talked quietly as they walked.
"Sure is nice of your aunt and uncle." Karel commented.
"And it's probably not a coincidence." Dan grinned. "Aunt Judith often times things like this just right without having any way to know."
"Nice that she cares so much for you."
"For the whole family. Once, she just happened to call with answers to some serious questions my dad was struggling with. Dad says she may have saved the family that time."
When they arrived at the women's apartment, they didn't even have to knock. Bobbie and Kristie heard their footsteps and were out the door before the men got to the porch. The women were also in Sunday best, carrying largish shoulder bags of a subdued pattern and color.
As they turned their steps toward the temple, Kristie echoed Karel's words. "Your aunt sure is nice to let us do the work for her husband's ancestors, Dan."
"Aunt Judith and Uncle Gary say they're happy to have us help them."
Bobbie said, "But do tell them thanks for us."
And Kristie said, "Yes, tell them thanks. I've done proxy baptisms and endowments before, but this will be my first time as proxy for the initial ordinances and the sealings." She was excited.
On the way to the temple, some of their friends from the study group joined them.
At the entrance, they presented the list of names that Dan's aunt and uncle had sent. Aunt Judith had already made the necessary arrangements through the Genealogical Society and the temple, and they were able to spend the entire morning doing proxy work for two of the families in Uncle Gary's ancestral lines.
While they waited to perform sealings for the marriages, Kristie wondered out loud, "Do we kiss after the sealings?"
Karel's eyebrows raised. "I wonder if that's appropriate?"
Bobbie shot him a look that he read to say, "Don't be a wet blanket."
The temple president had just come in, and overheard them. "It depends," he said with a smile. "But you are representing the departed, so only the best of feelings should exist between you, and you should be focusing on them and their feelings, not on your own."
Kristie pressed her question. "Maybe they'd want us to kiss, since they can't."
The ordinance worker chuckled and said, "Well, it isn't like they can actually feel the kiss through your lips. I think they will be quite happy just to have you stand in proxy for them."
Bobbie looked a little put out. Dan was not willing to commit himself to any point of view.
Karel surprised himself. "Do proxies ever kiss after a sealing?"
"When we have a couple who are married to each other doing work for one or the other's ancestors, they sometimes kiss as an expression of the joy of serving their ancestors. There would be no problem with that, of course. Still, I should make it clear that such things would not be part of the actual ordinance."
On their way back down the hill, Kristie apologized for bringing up kissing. Karel was walking next to her and gave her a hug. Then the whole group stopped for a group hug.
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[Previous versions of this part are backed up here: http://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2017/02/backup-soc500-03-02-first-temple-visit.html.]
[This chapter is original to the second draft. It would come in this part of the first draft: http://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/05/economics-101-novel-ch05-first-semester.html.]
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