I took my son to do baptisms for the dead this past week and learned of a new change. In the past, everyone had to wear white to perform baptisms and confirmations. Young men and women still wear white for the baptisms, but now wear their Sunday clothes for confirmations. The person who confirms must still be endowed and wear white. I’ve heard that this cuts down quite a bit on laundry since the whites worn by young men and women, even for just a few minutes and otherwise clean, no longer need to be processed. This makes a lot of sense, and I’ve always wondered why they didn’t implement this policy sooner. Any ideas?
My mom told me that when she was eight, she used to participate in baptisms for the dead. I don’t know when they changed it to twelve. Why do you think they increased the age?
It also strikes me as odd that priests have the authority to baptize, but in the temple only endowed men are allowed to baptize. Seemingly unendowed elders should be able to confirm, but once again, temple policy requires these elders to be endowed. Why do you think this policy exists?
Wheat & Tares 
In the Sydney temple we have alternated in process over the years. Youth were baptised then changed back into dry whites and then confirmed. A few years ago youth were confirmed first in whites to previously baptised persons and then baptised for different people. We have also done baptisms first in whites and then confirmed in Sunday dress. Recently we have been doing confirmations first in Sunday dress and then baptisms in whites.
A few weeks ago the youth did family names. They were baptised first and then immediately confirmed in a chair beside the font. I have never seen this don’t before but it did not seem inappropriate.
The best source for answers would be your temple president.
What makes white clothes necessary for some temple ordinancies and not for confirmation?
When I was youth, we used to do confirmations first (for people already baptized). Only the very first were baptized first, so that others had people to be confirmed for. This meant that most people needed only one set of white clothes.
My understanding is that before my time, they used to do confirmations right in the font after every baptism. The first time I did baptisms back in the early 70s, I remember that they had us wear what must have been an initiatory shield over our street clothes during confirmations. When I next participated in baptisms as an adult in the mid-80s, my memory is that proxies just wore street clothes for confirmations, and I think that has been my experience ever since. At the time, everyone had to be baptized for a group of people, change into street clothes, and then be confirmed for exactly the same people. I remember someone once doing family names who wanted two different family members to do the ordinances for the same person. The computer wouldn’t allow it.
Sometime, maybe a couple decades ago, they changed that so that a deceased person’s baptism didn’t have to be done before the confirmation, and the two ordinances could be done by different proxies. That way, you can get confirmations started without having to wait for the first proxy to get out of the font and change clothes. In that case, the confirmation proxies that haven’t yet done baptisms are wearing white, and the ones who have finished their baptisms are in street clothes. I don’t remember ever having to put on a second white jumpsuit for confirmations.
At least that’s my memory and experience.
Off topic
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When I was doing temple baptisms in the 1990s, we did confirmations in street clothes. The names had always been baptized first (by us or others). I only remember because it I thought it was annoying to have wet hair and smell like chlorine with the guys’ hands on my head. In the last 10 years, I was confirmed while wearing the white jumpsuit (the names had already been baptized). Then we got in the water for baptisms afterwards. When I was a youth, though, the place for confirmations was quite a bit down the hall from the place for baptisms. In the temples where I was confirmed in the jumpsuit, the confirmation area was adjoining the waiting room where we sat in the white jumpsuit (awaiting our turn to get baptized). It may be partially a convenience issue.
In the past the temple has allowed some groups of extracted names to get their ordinances done in whatever order was easiest. My understanding is that they’ve stopped that practice and are insisting on ordinances being done in the right order. (In the past they sometimes did sealings on extracted marriage records without worrying about completing any of the other ordinances. It’s kind of annoying to come across when doing family history work.)
I know that temple and family history stuff is considered a responsibility of the Melchizedek Priesthood (at the local level it is overseen by the High Priest Group Leader, not the bishop). I have a hard time seeing them allowing any unendowed individual officiate in a temple ordinance, even if it were just baptisms.
Interesting topic. In the late 70s-early 80s I remember being confirmed in my Sunday clothes after doing the baptisms. The Youth temple trips I have been involved in for the past 8 or so years have all been under the protocol of having kids do confirmations dressed in their dry whites followed by baptisms of other names. If they are doing family names, then they change from wet whites to dry whites and end up using two suits.
I think it would create a more meaningful and orderly experience if the youth could be confirmed for the same names for which they were baptized. I will look forward to seeing whether our temple follows what yours has done.
As to the requirement for endowment, we learned that the hard way when we had an unendowed Elder go to the temple with us and he was uninvited to participate in the baptizing and invited to participated in being baptized. I chalked up it to the fact that it was performing (rather than receiving) a temple ordinance, so endowment was necessary–though nobody ever explained that to me.
The endowment is necessary in order to perform vicarious ordinances. As ji, indicates, the Temple president would be the authoritative source on the gospel principle that underlies this policy.
A temple worker told me that he was in the laundry sorting clothes. A young woman came in to help, dressed in street clothes, which isn’t unusual. As she grabbed a towel to fold, one of the sisters said that it is a requirement that all volunteers in the laundry be endowed. I’m not sure why folding towels must be done by only endowed people. (Perhaps she might sneek a peek at the endowment clothes, which are now seen worldwide thanks to the LDS Newsroom.)
Seems kinda silly to me, but I’m pretty sure towel folding is not a priesthood ordinance.
I remember when I went and did baptisms over a decade ago that we got confirmed for people already baptized before we were baptized for other people. So they didn’t have the extra laundry then. So I think it is probably a temple by temple decission.
I wonder if they are making more effort to have the youth baptized for, then confirmed for, the same names. That would require that a participant go into the font first and then the confirmation room, which would require a change of clothes. My 14 year old daughter says that she was confirmed (in Sunday dress) for the same names she was baptized for – which would make sense if they are trying to cause participants to feel a greater sense of connection to the people whose work they are doing.
I’ve been to several temples last year, and unless my kids brought their own names, they were confirmed for different people than they were baptized for.