Serving in the temple

Last Thursday, our P-day, we were supposed to go to Springfield, Illinois to view museums, memorials, etc.  But we didn’t.  We didn’t feel good about leaving our shift early on Wednesday so we could get there at a reasonable hour.  We feel that other opportunities will make themselves available later on and we should really try to be in the temple when we ought to be – after all, that is why we were called to be here in the first place.

Of the five shifts that we are on each week, each shift coordinator tried to rotate us such that each gets an opportunity to officiate on a session about once a month on their shift.  This last week, we were asked to officiate three times, all on different shifts.  We probably won’t get the opportunity to officiate again for several weeks.  But we did enjoy this week.  The session we officiated on Saturday was filled and several had to be bumped when seats could not be made available for all that wanted to attend.  That was the third session that day to overflow!  I wish we could get a few of those that come on Saturdays to come in on a different day of the week.  The other days really suffer for lack of attendance.

We are the shift coordinators for the Wednesday afternoon shift.  We are starting to get the hang of what we are doing, but we are still novices with the challenges of it all.  Each week we create a new line assignment sheet that we hope will meet the needs of the patrons that come, based on the forecast (a list of the reservations made by patrons that want to attend that day).  For example, we only assign workers to the baptistery when we know patrons will be coming to do baptisms.  We also need to consider the ordinance worker’s individual needs and skills.  Some workers only come once or twice a month.  Illness, health issues, absences, and individual schedules (which change daily) all play into the challenge.  As some ordinance workers are also sealers, we need to be careful to always have one of them semi-available.   Currently we spend several hours a week creating the sheet for the upcoming Wednesday. 

Even after the sheet is distributed, we will then make adjustments as needed as patrons arrive that were not on the forecast [Although reservations are suggested, they are not required so we often get surprises].  Because attendance is generally down during this time of the year, we assign as many of the workers that we can to go as patrons on endowment sessions during the shift.  When doing this, we end up being really thinly spread -- and then we only hope we can still cover all the bases.  There may be times when a sealing session isn't scheduled but our workers are in initiatory instead (or the other way around).  Then, if patrons come to do sealings when we have no session scheduled for them, we can close down an initiatory booth and bring those workers up to be the sealer and witnesses for a sealing session. Or we may ask some workers to cover two (or more) bases so other workers can be made free.  It gets to be a bit of a game we play, but we do enjoy the challenge of it all.  We feel the help of the Holy Spirit directing us in this work, for which we are ever so grateful.