Thursday morning was spent in getting unpacked and settled in. That afternoon President Tenorio gave us a tour of the temple and we met some of the temple workers.
Friday morning I found out that my father had passed on. We had to be at the temple by 8am to prepare for the first session at 9:30am. We were set apart as temple workers by President Tenorio. The temple is open during the week on Tuesday thru Friday with sessions at 9:30 am, 5:30pm and 7:30pm, and are closed in the middle of the day from about 1pm to 3:30pm. The attendance is very light and sometimes they need to have the temple workers fill in when they don't have the four males and four females required to do a session. This is what happen Friday morning. They asked me to be a patron on the session. I was doing OK, emotionally, until I entered the Celestial room and then I broke down. It took me a while to get my emotions under control. The sweet temple workers were kind and comforted me when I told them what was wrong.
The baptistry has very little attendance on weekdays. Usually they have one sister who comes faithfully and is baptized for about 1,000 to 1,500 female names. Friday Lynn said that she went through three ordinance workers.
We went home for lunch, rested and returned in the afternoon to help until the end of the evening. They really put Lynn to work. I think they need him a lot more than they need me, especially because he already speaks Spanish. They will be able to use me a lot more as I learn more.
An hour before the first session of each shift starts with a short devotional and training meeting for the workers. It's at this time that we get our assignments for that shift.
Saturday is a very different day. There are eight sessions starting at 7am, with the last session at 4:20. The stakes in the temple district are assigned a Saturday to attend the temple and they come by bus loads. There were at least eight buses this Saturday. They come early in the morning and spend all day, using the stake center next door as their “home” for the day. It's where their children are taken care of while the parents do a session. The instruction room can only hold about 46 people (or 50 if they push is and add a few chairs). When they show their recommends at the recommend desk they are given little cards to tell them the session they are on. When one fills up they get one for the next one available, sometimes having to wait several hours until they can attend. They then turn the cards in as they enter the session. My duties on Saturday were to see that the patrons got the cards.
The baptistry was very busy on Saturday with the many youth groups that come with their stakes. While I was helping at the recommend desk a very special thing happened. They had a large group of Primary children that were all dressed in white who President Tenorio met spoke to just outside the temple doors. They then all sang “I Am A Child of God” and then, hold hands, two-by-two, they walked very reverently into the temple, around the back of the partition behind the recommend desk and then back out the temple doors. We all felt such a sweet spirit.
One funny incident happened close to the beginning of the day, before the youth groups started to arrive while I was welcoming patrons. The dressings rooms for the baptistry are just to the left as you enter the temple, right next to each other. A brother came up to me, a bit excited. He finally got me to understand that he had left his clothes in the ladies dressing room. Evidently, he had gone in there, changed, put his clothes into a locker and then realized after he came out that he had been in the wrong locker room. I helped him get his clothes and he kept saying, “I'm sorry” over and over. He was very embarrassed.
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