Oquirrh Mountain Temple

I hope you won’t think less of me but I really dislike service. I’ve served hard time at the cannery, D.I., church orchard, bishop’s storehouse and Temple Square. I’ve painted, weeded, cleaned, set up chairs, taken down chairs, babysat kids during enrichment night and cleaned up after ward parties. I’ve moved more furniture for more old ladies than I care to count. I’ve done all these things and more.  And you know what? I’ve hated every minute of it.

I know, I know. I’m supposed to like service, or at least be able to find joy in it. I can’t. There’s something hard wired within me to despise all forms of work, no matter how noble or necessary. You can’t just slap the ‘service’ label on plain, dirty old work and expect me to all of a sudden be OK with it. It’s still work no matter what you call it. A turd by any other name…

Having said all that, I can’t believe what I’m about to write: If you haven’t had a chance to clean the temple I highly recommend you do it! Of all the service I’ve ever done in my life this is BY FAR the most rewarding and enjoyable.  Last week was my third time doing it and I’m thinking of volunteering to do it again.

For those of you that have never done it let me give you a quick rundown. You show up at your local temple at 9:30 PM and they let you in the back door. Then you head down to the baptistry and wait in the chapel. Once all the fellow volunteers arrive you are given some white scrubs to change into. These are your work clothes. Then the full time workers give out the cleaning assignments (sometimes you get to volunteer for specific assignments. 2 out of the 3 times I’ve been able to volunteer for what I wanted).

As far as I’ve been able to gather the following assignments can be given out: bathroom duty, cleaning the font (!), vacuuming, dusting, cleaning the art, polishing the drinking fountains and door knobs, trash duty (my personal favorite), mopping, moving furniture, cleaning the crystals on the chandelier in the celestial room, and so on. Sometimes you find yourself doing several things in one night. Last time I went I ended up polishing furniture, vacuuming carpet and mopping.

After all the cleaning is done (usually around 11:45 PM) the workers allow you 15 to 20 minutes to wander around the temple by yourself. If a door isn’t locked you are free to go there. Want to see the oxen at the bottom of the font up close? You can do that. Care to see how the laundry works? That can be arranged. Want to spend 20 minutes in the celestial room, uninterrupted? No problem.  Anxious to sit and ponder in the sealing rooms? You bet. This ‘free’ time is really worth the price of admission. Last week I chose to spend time in the Terrestrial room. I was the only person in there. To be able to pray and meditate in solitude in the temple was incredible.

You may be thinking that all this sounds like a lot of work for very little payoff. You couldn’t be more wrong. There is a big difference between being in the temple during working hours and being in the temple for cleaning. When you are in the temple during business hours it is very controlled and structured. It’s nice, to be sure, but you are on a tight schedule.  In contrast, when you are cleaning the temple it doesn’t seem as structured. You do have a job to accomplish but you are free to do it however you want. You can go at your own pace and in whatever order you like. More importantly, you can see much of the temple that you otherwise wouldn’t on a regular visit.

So that’s my plug for cleaning the temple. Don’t worry, I’m not getting paid by the church to write this. This is all of my own free will. I just wanted my fellow saints to know that there is a wonderful service opportunity available if you want to take it. Which reminds me, before I left the temple last time I asked the worker if I could volunteer to clean even if my stake didn’t have the assignment. She assured me anyone could volunteer, as long as they had a current recommend. And here’s the kicker: she said you could show up at ANY temple on any given night* at 9:30 PM and they’ll let you help clean. How cool is that?

*You may want to call ahead to make sure they are cleaning on whatever night you want to go. The worker said that some Saturdays they don’t clean and on Mondays they clean during the day.