The House of the Lord...

Living in a temple district with a smaller temple has certain advantages that living near a larger temple (i.e. Washington, DC) didn't have. Each ward in the Louisville Temple District is assigned several times a year to come to the Louisville Temple to help clean for 2 hours on a Tuesday afternoon. In Washington DC we attended the temple as patrons and even served as temple ordinance workers. But the cleaning of the Temple was a paid position. Since living in Kentucky Claude and I have been out-of-town each time our ward was assigned to provide 4 people to help clean the temple. This year the first 2 days this assignment fell to the Georgetown Ward (our home ward) was in May. Claude, being the high priest group leader, it fell his lot to get together 4 people for each of these 2 times to serve in cleaning our Louisville Temple. I was so happy at the first of the year because I would be in town and available for this assignment. THEN...I was assigned surgery and recuperation so I figured my cleaning days would have to wait until 2010. The 2nd date for this month filled up with volunteers quickly but yesterday's chance did not fill up for whatever reason. Dave Rennick, a counselor in our stake presidency and dear friend, said he would love to go. Claude could go. That left a need for 2 people. Claude called Dave and asked him just how strenuous the work could be. Dave said the last time he helped with the cleaning he was dusting pictures all day. Dave is over 6 feet talk. So Claude asked Papa and I to go and help. Papa had helped last year. We figured this body could now hold up a duster at minimum. If I had to quit or they didn't have anything I could do, then I would head to the car and work on my crocheting. So yesterday afternoon Claude, Papa and I drove to the Louisville Temple to help clean. I always love looking at things familiar with a new perspective. I think that is why we enjoy little children so much. They give us a truly fresh perspective on what we have already been through. We were each given a white jump suit and white socks to wear as we cleaned. I found this jumpsuit totally comfortable. I might get me one for home!! Then we sat in the waiting/kitchen area until time to start. Bro. Schumacher is responsible for the cleaning of the temple and directs the efforts each Tuesday. Pres. Hettinger, the temple president, spoke to us for a minute before we began. He told us that he had called Salt Lake City for clarification and then shared with us what he was asking for clarification about. With the 'New Family Search' going into the temples, it is really speeding up the time it takes to get family file names through the temple. It is anticipated that within 90 days of the time a name gets to the temple, ALL the work for that name should be completed. If it is not, the name will be returned to Salt Lake and then forwarded to a temple that can get the work completed within the next 90 days. This means that in 6 months from the time a name is submitted through the 'New Family Search' it should be completed and we would track its progress through 'New Family Search'. Pres. Hettinger said it has been a source of great concern with the 'New Family Search' that the smaller temple has had to ask families to only bring in 10 names at a time so everyone has a fair chance at getting through their family file names. With this new computerized process we are being asked to submit those hundreds of names to Salt Lake for others to help us with. We are encouraged to keep a few for us to do as individuals but to open the others up for the temple to use as temple files names. Then the members will being doing all this family file work as temple file names for others. What a day and age we live in. Dave Rennick had warned Bro. Schumacher about my surgery and when I signed in Bro. Schumacher told me he was aware and would assign me according to my abilities and to tell him if I needed to rest. The temple is a place where everyone is sooooo thoughtful and considerate and where what you bring is always acceptable and very much appreciated. I was given my feather-like duster and sent on an errancd to dust pictures. I was even shown how to do it before going off to dust. I determined I would follow the advice I learned years ago that when you get in a maze and need to find your way out, put out one arm and keep touching the wall on that side and eventually you will find your way out. I chose my left side and made my way through the entire temple that way. May I tell you that the pictures on the women's dressing room side are different from the pictures on the men's dressing room side. I knew that pictures are carefully selected for the rooms in our temples and church buildings. So I tried to look at them and where they were located and see if I could learn from that experience. By the recommend desk there is a painting of Mary holding the baby Jesus as they took him to the temple when 8 days old. I looked at that picture and thought how when we enter the temple we are all like little children, ready to learn and grow with each temple experience. As we enter, we are rededicating ourselves to living a covenant life and preparing ourselves to be trained in how to live so as to return our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ prepared to live with them as they live. I suggest to each of you temple recommend holders that as you visit the temple next, note the pictures and see if you don't find at least one of them that makes your temple visit more uplifting. My other favorite is in the hallway by the entrance to the women's dressing room. It is of the Savior at the tomb and Mary has just recognized that he is the Savior. Dusting pictures was a treasured experience. My 2nd assignment was to take wet wipes and clean all the telephones and receivers throughout the temple. I'm sure this is done regularly but with the flu virus going around today it had added significance. My 3rd assignment was to dust the inside backs of the chairs in the endowment room. I must confess, this would not have been on any cleaning list I can think up and I'm really, really good at making lists. My 4th assignment was to clean the top of the recommend desk, the tops of the 2 tables in the kitchen area, the counter in the kitchenette, and the top of the desk in the confirmation room in the baptistry. My 5th assignment was to dust the tops of the tables in the celestial room. Now, here I came across a little black bug. How he got there I'll never know but I scooped him up in the cleaning rag I was given and folded him inside of it till we were finished and then carried him out. I was very amused he was in the celestial room and he was not dressed in white. My mind is a little quirky that way. My final assignment was just amusing to me. There is a set of french doors from the lobby area into the baptistry. It has little glass window panes all over each door and the side panels so you can stand in the lobby and watch what is happening in the baptistry. There were some finger prints on the glass panes of these doors. So Papa and I were given responsibility for cleaning it. Ahhh, the flood of memories that brought back. When we lived in Denver years and years ago and my kids were little, one of the things I found helpful when they were having sibling rivalry was to place one on each side of a window and have them clean it. Eventually the frowns turned to grins and they would end up happy with each other again. Now here I stood, Windex and paper towels in hand, on the opposite side of a door from my 81 year old father, cleaning the windows in the House of the Lord. Yes, I smiled. As we were finishing up our work, our stake patriarch was dusting the silk flower arrangements throughout. He thought he was done but then he asked to all of us standing there turning in our cleaning supplies, "Are there flowers in the men's room?" He wanted to be sure he hadn't missed anything. Pres. Hettinger said, "I don't think so." Bro Schumacher said, "I don't think so." Me, the only female there and a stake Relief Society president said, "If there are, they will have been placed there by the Relief Society. I don't think we have done that." This led to a hearty chuckle by all the priesthood. I am truly grateful I was able to do this work. I am grateful there was a little time to sit between assignments. I am grateful that what I could bring to do service was acceptable and truly appreciated no matter how small. I am grateful that now, as I go to the temple, I'll see it with a broadened vision of the care and service needed to maintain this building so that when I enter the cares of the world can be placed in perspective as I relax and feel the Spirit inside that most peaceful place on the earth, the House of the Lord.