Love is a temple

The big news from the world of Mormons this week was, of course, BYU's brief flirtation with a really stupid football uniform idea. But the second biggest story had to have been the debut of a new temple film during the endowment ceremony. When I hear the words "Mormon" and "film" I first think of Halestorm, but fortunately the makers of The Home Teachers and Church Ball had nothing to do with this.

Temples are the holiest places on Earth to Mormons, and they refrain from going into detail about what happens inside ("temples aren't secret, they're sacred," is how some like to say it). The endowment is one of several ordinances (along with baptisms, marriage sealings, and others) that are performed for both the living and the dead, and is the most time-consuming, due largely to the film that is shown--a session comprised of instruction, prayer, covenants, and blessings.

One of the most fulfilling ways in which I've provided service in the church is as a temple ordinance worker, in both the Manhattan and Jordan River Temples. The ordinances are the same, but pretty much all other details couldn't be more different between the two temples. Manhattan is small, one of only a few LDS Temples converted from an existing building (it occupies a few floors of a building across from Lincoln Center; a regular LDS meetinghouse takes up a few other floors). Comparatively few patrons can visit at any given time. Most of the volunteer ordinance workers are single adults in their 20s and 30s, plus full-time senior missionary couples.

Jordan River, on the other hand, was at one time the busiest temple in the church, as measured by number of ordinances performed. Two new temples have opened in south Salt Lake County in the last few years, so I don't know if it still holds that top spot or not. The vast majority of the workers are retirees, and by necessity each shift of ordinance workers has a tightly scheduled rotation of assignments.

Serving as an ordinance worker is one of the most unique callings in the church. You're called and set apart as with other positions, but you're not sustained in sacrament meeting, and even though there is an official call it's one you can actually (and are encouraged to) volunteer for. There are also unique restrictions to the calling, at least for the men: no facial hair allowed, and single men cannot serve as ordinance workers after turning 30, only as "veil workers" (still temple service, but in a much more limited capacity).

Some of my favorite memories from my days as an ordinance worker:

--Part of the film previously referred to depicts the creation of the world and the fall of Adam. The married couple who played Adam and Eve in one of the older versions lived in New York, and once attended an endowment session I officiated at the Manhattan Temple. It was kind of surreal.
--Some more traditional "celebrity" sightings...three-time Super Bowl champ Bart Oates was one of my fellow ordinance workers in Manhattan, and I saw Shawn Bradley several times when he was a patron at Jordan River.
--One of the other workers on my shift at Jordan River was my 4th grade teacher. My year in his class was his last before he retired, and I had only seen him once in the intervening years--when I was 19, and I went on "splits" with the full-time missionaries. We attended a baptism that my former teacher also attended. Nobody had remembered to fill the baptismal font in the meetinghouse, so we found a family who let us perform the baptism in their backyard swimming pool. Luckily it was June and not November.
--I got set up on a lot of blind dates while working at Jordan River, due to a number of the factors listed above: most of the other workers were old, and that's what old people do; we were in a place where eternal marriages are performed, so it was in the forefront of everyone's minds; and I was about to turn 30, and they didn't want to lose me as an ordinance worker. So I went on five blind dates over two months (more than half of the blind dates I've been on in my entire life), with a combination of female ordinance workers and friends and granddaughters of the workers on my shift. The only one I wanted to go on a second date with shot me down, but years later it landed me on Jimmy Fallon.
--Finally, if I hadn't worked at the temple, I wouldn't have had the suit needed to create my best Halloween costume ever.

To learn more about why Mormons build temples and what happens inside, this is a great place to start. This week's Sunday School lesson is about temples, focusing more specifically on vicarious work for the dead, so reading up on that would also be great.