Temple Moments: A lost child
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One warm Sunday in the spring of 1993, I found myself dozing a bit during Sacrament meeting. I don't know whether I was dozing or awake when I felt impressed to think of a little girl of about 8, a little girl who seemed sad.
I asked myself, "What little girl have we missed in doing ordinance work?" I thought about it quite a bit. I asked my daughter, but she couldn't think of anyone. I felt the most likely one would be my Uncle Eddie's daughter, but she was only 7 when she died, according to her death certificate. I looked at the death certificate again and again, thinking I had missed something. Surely the family member who gave the information would have been accurate.
However, I concluded that this was the girl I had been impressed to help.
Edwina's death certificate listed the place of her burial, so I went to the cemetery. A caretaker took me to the gravesite, and when I saw the marker, I just had to stare. It said her birth date was 1927, not 1928 as her death certificate stated. Suddenly everything made sense. Edwina was 8 years old, going on 9, when she died. She had not had her work done for her.
After hiring a researcher to clarify her birth information, I gathered all the information together and prepared a TempleReady diskette with the ordinance information. My daughter asked if I was also planning to do the baptisms too. I said no. She said, "Send it to me and I'll do it."
Right then I suddenly decided I wanted to do all the ordinances myself, even though I was 86 at the time.
In August 1993, I completed the temple ordinances for Edwina and several of her relatives in the Los Angeles California Temple. It was a good feeling.
— Arvilla "Mickey" Parker, San Bernardino 2nd Ward, San Bernardino California Stake
