Is it possible to have a bad day in the temple? I mean, without Satan there, shouldn't things always be on the up-and-up? I stand as a witness--it IS possible.
This past week was another intense one for me. My regular shift Thursday night, filling in for a friend on Friday night, and an afternoon office shift on Saturday. The traffic around Detroit has been horrible with some let's-get-everything-fixed-before-the-snow-falls mentality (#WinterIsComing), so it's also taking me longer to get to the temple each time which doesn't add to the experience. But in full disclosure, I know that all of these petty feelings are my own issue. Anyway, let's dig in, shall we?
Former Boyfriends
Johannah has left a trail of former (a. boys, b. friends, c. boyfriends) in the greater Metro Detroit area which now just left me crying at the end of seeing them.
Axel Lichtenberg has not returned to BYU. He wrote Hannah back in the Spring and apologized for ghosting her, compliments of depression. Not sure how true that is, considering she saw him holding hands with a girl at a dance just weeks after breaking things off with her. Axel now spends a great deal of his time at the temple, and sure enough, he walked in on Friday night when I was the greeter (I'm seriously NEVER assigned to be that). I just plastered the temple smile on my face....
Brian Peine. Several years ago, Brian would sit next to Hannah in some biology/chemistry class. He was super nice to her, walking her out of class and across campus every time. What we all would have given for him to just ask her out on ONE FREAKING DATE, but in true Peine form, they are too good for the Kennedys. I was working in the office on Saturday afternoon, preparing the list of patrons for the 3:00 session when I spotted his name. And of course, I looked across the grid to the female section and saw HIS WIFE. I purposely stayed out of the halls for the full 45 minutes after the session, hoping he would just leave, but when I finally ventured out to find the male coordinator (specifically waiting outside the male dressing room door), when there was basically nobody left in the temple, out walked Brian Peine. I was so hoping that he wouldn't recognize me, but it took him all of a nano-second to remember exactly who I was. And I remembered how we are taught to be professional/anonymous in the temple, especially when we answer the phones or see someone we might know. I put a smile on my face...but I think he could sense that all wasn't quite right in Dodge City.
When I called John afterwards, I just broke down crying. These stupid boys have denied my girlie the happiness of being married. They're losers.
Own Endowments
When people come for the own endowments, the temple is always in kind of crisis mode, because we seriously want it to be a perfect, spiritual experience for the newcomer. We review what needs to be done, and it's a great honor to be a host(ess) for that person. Sometimes, forgetting the anonymity part of it all, someone will see that their young woman from a previous Sunday School class is taking out her own endowments and will ask to be the follower during the endowment session (true story). When I came into the office on Saturday, I needed to record the family file cards along with the file card for any live endowments. Turns out, the girl who has just been called to Glo's mission, and whose mother I minister to didn't bother to tell me she was going through the temple, but I knew she was because her card was right there on the top of the stack. I mean, the family KNOWS I WORK IN THE TEMPLE! Evidently, they didn't want me there. So, in a spirit (for real) of just being really happy for Abigail Gibb, I walked into the celestial room, surprised them, and gave her a big hug. I didn't WANT to hug her mother, but she stood up and hugged me as well. And her father told me today at church how happy they were to see me yesterday. Uh huh, I could have made it an even nicer experience for you people IF YOU HAD JUST TOLD ME.
Working in the Office
I have some anxiety before I head into any office shift (1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday afternoons are my standard shifts). The training, or the lack thereof, causes all of us newbies a lot of stress. So we always hope to be paired with someone who is more experienced...except for the fact that those people are those stereotypical crabby women workers at the temple which means we'd prefer to be left to our own devices.
I walked in, and one of those experienced workers was there, getting ready to clock out. No sooner did I sit down than she told me to distribute the workers cards around the temple. Explanation: temple workers are allowed to bring FOUR cards on each shift with only one endowment allowed, the idea being that we can't be patrons ourselves, so we can let others help us with our works. It's kind of a temple "perk". The workers bring in their cards and drop them in little baskets that we office workers then give to the name issue people (for endowments), the baptistry, and initiatory booth along with sealings. It kind of kills me to see patrons come up to the veil with one of the tiny pink temple names because I know all of us workers would love to throw another name into the name issue booth.
Anyway, I'm happy to distribute them, and in all honesty, I never count them....but Sister Schwarz does. In fact, she stood right in front of me, mentally reprimanding those people who were trying to pull a fast one on her. "Brother Insch has THREE endowment names? Go look at the schedule and see if his wife is working, because if she's not, we're not allowing this female name." She then handed me his extra male name to return to the bins. I quietly asked her, "Sister Schwarz, we have a full session. Don't you think we can just let his extra name in the booth?"
You can probably imagine her answer.
And she's not the only one. I know gossiping is a sin, but believe-you-me, we newbies sure have some choice thoughts to share about all those bossy biddy bodies who even at their very old age, don't understand the spirit of the Law. And you better believe that I'm never going to let them know about Brother Cyrus Webber who literally submits 40+ names each afternoon shift. I mean, he's 90 pounds wet, can't hear to save his life, and has ears like an elephant. I'm gosh-darn-it going to put his names in to be done!
On the flip side--Working as an Ordinance Worker
We get a lot of training as ordinance workers. We see the same training videos over and over, and we are encouraged to pull out instruction cards during our breaks and study some more. There is a lot to learn--what to say, how to act, what to do. However, there are a lot of people who have been there a long time and who feel that they don't need to be trained anymore. It's unfortunate, but true.
One of the many things we are taught is that when we present patrons at the veil, it really is an experience between them and the Lord. We as workers are there to help if needed, but we need to do our best to never intrude on that crowning moment of the endowment session. The other day, I was going through as a patron, and when I got up to the veil, the worker was standing so much in front of the veil that I couldn't actually get to it when it was my turn. I looked at her and said, "Excuse me" so that she would move out of the way. And when I am veil director, I frequently see this happen, especially with the female workers. It's almost like the veil is split in half--half for the patron and half for the worker--when in reality, we should present them and then stand behind them.
So one of my dear friends, Sister Groen, was going through as a patron (we didn't have enough patrons to make up a session so she was pulled from the workers). I was presenting at the veil, and she was sent to me. I did my little bit, and then knowing her and her experience, I just stepped back until I needed to step up at the end. This is very typical for me, unless someone comes up and openly expresses that they need help, or if they turn to me to know what to say next. I still stand behind them, but I whisper in their ear. Sister Groen went through the veil, and I finished presenting with another patron. When I walked out of the endowment room, Sister Groen was coming out of the celestial room, and she broke down in tears in front of me. I just waited for her to explain (she's very vocal and loud in the temple so I knew to just listen). She said that she couldn't have asked for a better person to present her at the veil. Between my smile (I am very humbled that a shift doesn't pass without someone commenting on my countenance or my smile) which she said was so loving, and my standing back when she was at the veil, she had been allowed to have a super spiritual experience at the veil with the Lord. She then told me that it wouldn't have happened if it hadn't have been me.
What a blessing in my life. I'm so thankful that I get to help people in the temple. I seriously love it.
And one other experience I want to share.
There is a couple out in Utah. He is Caucasian (last name of Snyder), but his wife is Chinese. At some point, she came into possession of the family Bible which in Chinese culture, is one of the most prized possessions. She has since submitted tens of thousands of her family's Chinese names--the earliest one I've seen was yesterday, 1120 A.D. She had originally submitted them to the Utah temples, but they are so backed up with patrons that the names weren't getting done. So in a stroke of luck, she gave them to the Detroit temple. So we have spent months attempting to get all of the work done from baptisms through initiatories.
We frequently need names in the initiatory booth. I guess this is a problem throughout the church. People get youth to do the baptisms, and initiatories are easy to complete because it only takes a few minutes per name. However, the bottle neck comes with endowments, but I guess we are sending on the endowments to another temple.
Anyway, one of my friends told me the other day about a sacred experience she had while doing one of those names in initiatories, and I'm humbled to have had one too. Many of the names are "Ma Shi" which translated is "wife or concubine of Ma". There are hundreds of these same names, because the women weren't recorded with their own names. It's very sweet to think that those women are having their own little individual moment in the temple. But the other day, we were doing a whole batch of the names, and with one of them came a vision into my mind. I could see all these Asian women standing together, and there was one (I assume the one we were doing the work for at the moment), and she was smiling. In fact, all of them were rejoicing together that her work was being done. I knew something very beautiful and very sacred was happening at that exact moment.
Being "Shhhhhhhhh"ed
Okay. As I was beginning to tell this story to Hannah yesterday (now that she's a temple worker, she can definitely sympathize and even share with me her OWN stories, both beautiful and bad), I started it out with this. You know Hannah, there aren't many sounds that bother me.
She quickly interrupted me and said, "A clicking pen. A bouncing leg. Daddy picking his nails. A squeaky apple peel on teeth...." Point taken, but still, I'm not sensitive to loud noises, or nails on a chalkboard....
One thing I do NOT like though is people who "sssshhhhh" other people. When I was Primary chorister, the kids and I were frequently rowdy which I wanted because it frees them up to really sing. They don't feel so inhibited. However, substitute teachers or Primary presidency members would frequently "ssshhhh" the kids. Every time, without fail, I will ask them not to do that right in front of the kids. I hate it. I think it is one of the most condescending and contradictory noises people can make. I mean, oftentimes the "ssshhh" is louder than the noise that's being made. It's like parents who tell their kids not to hit but spank their kids (yes, I spanked my kids, but I never told them to not hit).
Well, let me tell you--there's one step worse than adults "sssshhhhh"ing kids. It's adults "ssshhhhh"ing other adults.
We have prayer meeting before every shift. Because this was my third prayer meeting that week, I gave President Lund a big old smile when he walked in. He had told me the night before that when he saw me for the second time, he knew he needed to switch up his spiritual thought. Well, this was the THIRD time, and he even gave me a shout out from the front of the room, talking about how I was keeping him on his toes for the spiritual thought. Right after his thought, he dismissed the office workers, and Sister Massey and I walked out.
----Sister Massey
I have to interject another subject line here. Sister Massey started working in the office just weeks before I did, and yet someone thinks that she and I are competent enough to run the entire office by ourselves every other week (yes, she has some choice words about this as well). Sister Massey is probably mid-50s, and she is seriously sweet. However, a couple of years ago, she suffered a "traumatic brain injury" which I would never have known without working with her.
Sister Massey had to go through a couple of years of therapy to even learn how to think and work again. She's totally normal, but she becomes very tunnel-vision in everything she does in the temple. I can be buzzing around the office, taking care of a million different things, and she'll sit at the computer for a good two hours just double-checking that the patrons names for next week have been entered in the computer. It's something that needs to be done, but not when we have a line at the office counter.
Or, when it's chaos unleashed in the office, she'll pick that moment to have the matron train her on how to enter a "live" sealing in the computer. If she wasn't so dear to me, I would have serious problems with her. However, having worked with another dear woman who can't walk because of polio, I at least appreciate that Sister Massey can move.
However, Sister Massey CANNOT hear. Really, she's not much older than I am, but if I'm not looking directly at her and raising my voice, she'll miss what I say. In fact, she sometimes gets mad at me in the office because she thinks I said something that I didn't.
So back to the story.....
Sister Massey and I were walking out of prayer meeting, and I asked her how she was. There was nobody else around, so I could speak in a normal tone of voice which allows her to hear me. Plus, I was happy because President Lund had given me that funny shout out. We got about ten feet, rounded the corner to the office, and she told me that she had just been sealed to her deceased parents the night before! I had seen her there (when I was temple-glaring at Axel), but I had figured she'd just done a session.
Nope, she was sealed to her parents! Well, my reaction was appropriate--I was so happy for her, and I told her that.
And just as I walked past the greeter (a surly woman who works at the Bishop's Storehouse as well, and who has never done anything but stare at me), she let out the biggest "ssssssshhhhh" on the planet. I mean, no joke, if martians live on Mars, they heard her.
In that split second, I knew I had one of two options. Slink away like a beaten dog, or stand up to her. I know my children think they know what I would do...and they would unfortunately be right. I stopped in my tracks, turned back to her, and said, "Oh c'mon, don't do that. That's just not nice."
She then told me in no joking terms "You are being too loud."
"Really? There's nobody here."
She then motioned around the corner that there was one man, sitting in the foyer.
"I really don't think he'll mind that Sister Massey was telling me that she was sealed to her parents last night."
"Yes he will. You were being too loud."
At this point, I was determined to make MY point which I know is not temple appropriate at all, but back me into a corner, and I'm going to lash out.
I reached out to her arms and said, "Let's think about the patron and worker experience. It doesn't pay to be nasty."
At this point, she was backing down, only to get me to leave her alone and shut up. So she gave me the meanest, "Whatever. Go away."
I walked away, but I stupidly didn't just let sleeping dogs lay, but had to get the last word in. I turned around as I walked in the office and said in full voice, "Well now you've ruined my feelings about this entire shift. Thanks for starting me out like this."
Yep. I did it people, and I'm not proud of it. But this is why it's important to not be the world's police force. If she had known that Sister Massey is near deaf, if she had known that Sister Massey was telling me about one of the happiest experiences of her life, if she had realized that it's okay to be a bit louder.... all of this would have been avoided. And I checked myself: when I wonder if I overreact to something, I always ask myself if I would do what the offending person did, and I can tell you with full certainty, that I would NEVER EVER "ssssshhhh" another human being, especially in the temple.
Being Supported
This sister is an exception to the rule. On the flip side, Brother Nelson, one of the Saturday coordinators who loves to tease me, stopped me when I walking by the recommend desk. He said to me, "Sister Kennedy, is it true that your husband doesn't have a job right now?" Because I was flying solo in the office, I couldn't spend a lot of time explaining our situation to him, but for as joking and jovial as he usually is, he became gravely serious and worried as I gave him the spiel about our lives. When I told him that we are living on the equity from the sale of our house, he looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "That's no way to live." He then said, "If we lived closer, we'd have you over for lunch and dinner everyday to save you money." I do believe that was the most earnest, thoughtful offer we've had over the past year. Again, temple friends are the dearest.
Migraine and illness
Granted, I went to the temple on Saturday feeling a little under the weather, but Sister Lund had been warding off a cough for the two previous nights. Well Saturday afternoon, her cold was in full bloom, and because our temple is so tiny, the matron has no office, and so she sits at the computer with us office workers. And coughs. And there are no windows in that tiny room. And I know I will be sick in 48 hours or less. However, some ding dong had agreed to let a ward have open baptistry hours until 9 p.m. Saturday night. So when I was supposed to leave, I couldn't abandon Sister Lund. I mean, she's 75, and she gets weak at the end of any shift, but add a bad cold? So I sat and kept recording all those baptisms for another hour after my shift ended.
I came home with a migraine.
But you know what? I'm subbing on Tuesday night, I'm working Thursday night, and I'm back on Saturday morning. You're never lost when you're working in the temple ;-)
This past week was another intense one for me. My regular shift Thursday night, filling in for a friend on Friday night, and an afternoon office shift on Saturday. The traffic around Detroit has been horrible with some let's-get-everything-fixed-before-the-snow-falls mentality (#WinterIsComing), so it's also taking me longer to get to the temple each time which doesn't add to the experience. But in full disclosure, I know that all of these petty feelings are my own issue. Anyway, let's dig in, shall we?
Former Boyfriends
Johannah has left a trail of former (a. boys, b. friends, c. boyfriends) in the greater Metro Detroit area which now just left me crying at the end of seeing them.
Axel Lichtenberg has not returned to BYU. He wrote Hannah back in the Spring and apologized for ghosting her, compliments of depression. Not sure how true that is, considering she saw him holding hands with a girl at a dance just weeks after breaking things off with her. Axel now spends a great deal of his time at the temple, and sure enough, he walked in on Friday night when I was the greeter (I'm seriously NEVER assigned to be that). I just plastered the temple smile on my face....
Brian Peine. Several years ago, Brian would sit next to Hannah in some biology/chemistry class. He was super nice to her, walking her out of class and across campus every time. What we all would have given for him to just ask her out on ONE FREAKING DATE, but in true Peine form, they are too good for the Kennedys. I was working in the office on Saturday afternoon, preparing the list of patrons for the 3:00 session when I spotted his name. And of course, I looked across the grid to the female section and saw HIS WIFE. I purposely stayed out of the halls for the full 45 minutes after the session, hoping he would just leave, but when I finally ventured out to find the male coordinator (specifically waiting outside the male dressing room door), when there was basically nobody left in the temple, out walked Brian Peine. I was so hoping that he wouldn't recognize me, but it took him all of a nano-second to remember exactly who I was. And I remembered how we are taught to be professional/anonymous in the temple, especially when we answer the phones or see someone we might know. I put a smile on my face...but I think he could sense that all wasn't quite right in Dodge City.
When I called John afterwards, I just broke down crying. These stupid boys have denied my girlie the happiness of being married. They're losers.
Own Endowments
When people come for the own endowments, the temple is always in kind of crisis mode, because we seriously want it to be a perfect, spiritual experience for the newcomer. We review what needs to be done, and it's a great honor to be a host(ess) for that person. Sometimes, forgetting the anonymity part of it all, someone will see that their young woman from a previous Sunday School class is taking out her own endowments and will ask to be the follower during the endowment session (true story). When I came into the office on Saturday, I needed to record the family file cards along with the file card for any live endowments. Turns out, the girl who has just been called to Glo's mission, and whose mother I minister to didn't bother to tell me she was going through the temple, but I knew she was because her card was right there on the top of the stack. I mean, the family KNOWS I WORK IN THE TEMPLE! Evidently, they didn't want me there. So, in a spirit (for real) of just being really happy for Abigail Gibb, I walked into the celestial room, surprised them, and gave her a big hug. I didn't WANT to hug her mother, but she stood up and hugged me as well. And her father told me today at church how happy they were to see me yesterday. Uh huh, I could have made it an even nicer experience for you people IF YOU HAD JUST TOLD ME.
Working in the Office
I have some anxiety before I head into any office shift (1st, 3rd, and 5th Saturday afternoons are my standard shifts). The training, or the lack thereof, causes all of us newbies a lot of stress. So we always hope to be paired with someone who is more experienced...except for the fact that those people are those stereotypical crabby women workers at the temple which means we'd prefer to be left to our own devices.
I walked in, and one of those experienced workers was there, getting ready to clock out. No sooner did I sit down than she told me to distribute the workers cards around the temple. Explanation: temple workers are allowed to bring FOUR cards on each shift with only one endowment allowed, the idea being that we can't be patrons ourselves, so we can let others help us with our works. It's kind of a temple "perk". The workers bring in their cards and drop them in little baskets that we office workers then give to the name issue people (for endowments), the baptistry, and initiatory booth along with sealings. It kind of kills me to see patrons come up to the veil with one of the tiny pink temple names because I know all of us workers would love to throw another name into the name issue booth.
Anyway, I'm happy to distribute them, and in all honesty, I never count them....but Sister Schwarz does. In fact, she stood right in front of me, mentally reprimanding those people who were trying to pull a fast one on her. "Brother Insch has THREE endowment names? Go look at the schedule and see if his wife is working, because if she's not, we're not allowing this female name." She then handed me his extra male name to return to the bins. I quietly asked her, "Sister Schwarz, we have a full session. Don't you think we can just let his extra name in the booth?"
You can probably imagine her answer.
And she's not the only one. I know gossiping is a sin, but believe-you-me, we newbies sure have some choice thoughts to share about all those bossy biddy bodies who even at their very old age, don't understand the spirit of the Law. And you better believe that I'm never going to let them know about Brother Cyrus Webber who literally submits 40+ names each afternoon shift. I mean, he's 90 pounds wet, can't hear to save his life, and has ears like an elephant. I'm gosh-darn-it going to put his names in to be done!
On the flip side--Working as an Ordinance Worker
We get a lot of training as ordinance workers. We see the same training videos over and over, and we are encouraged to pull out instruction cards during our breaks and study some more. There is a lot to learn--what to say, how to act, what to do. However, there are a lot of people who have been there a long time and who feel that they don't need to be trained anymore. It's unfortunate, but true.
One of the many things we are taught is that when we present patrons at the veil, it really is an experience between them and the Lord. We as workers are there to help if needed, but we need to do our best to never intrude on that crowning moment of the endowment session. The other day, I was going through as a patron, and when I got up to the veil, the worker was standing so much in front of the veil that I couldn't actually get to it when it was my turn. I looked at her and said, "Excuse me" so that she would move out of the way. And when I am veil director, I frequently see this happen, especially with the female workers. It's almost like the veil is split in half--half for the patron and half for the worker--when in reality, we should present them and then stand behind them.
So one of my dear friends, Sister Groen, was going through as a patron (we didn't have enough patrons to make up a session so she was pulled from the workers). I was presenting at the veil, and she was sent to me. I did my little bit, and then knowing her and her experience, I just stepped back until I needed to step up at the end. This is very typical for me, unless someone comes up and openly expresses that they need help, or if they turn to me to know what to say next. I still stand behind them, but I whisper in their ear. Sister Groen went through the veil, and I finished presenting with another patron. When I walked out of the endowment room, Sister Groen was coming out of the celestial room, and she broke down in tears in front of me. I just waited for her to explain (she's very vocal and loud in the temple so I knew to just listen). She said that she couldn't have asked for a better person to present her at the veil. Between my smile (I am very humbled that a shift doesn't pass without someone commenting on my countenance or my smile) which she said was so loving, and my standing back when she was at the veil, she had been allowed to have a super spiritual experience at the veil with the Lord. She then told me that it wouldn't have happened if it hadn't have been me.
What a blessing in my life. I'm so thankful that I get to help people in the temple. I seriously love it.
And one other experience I want to share.
There is a couple out in Utah. He is Caucasian (last name of Snyder), but his wife is Chinese. At some point, she came into possession of the family Bible which in Chinese culture, is one of the most prized possessions. She has since submitted tens of thousands of her family's Chinese names--the earliest one I've seen was yesterday, 1120 A.D. She had originally submitted them to the Utah temples, but they are so backed up with patrons that the names weren't getting done. So in a stroke of luck, she gave them to the Detroit temple. So we have spent months attempting to get all of the work done from baptisms through initiatories.
We frequently need names in the initiatory booth. I guess this is a problem throughout the church. People get youth to do the baptisms, and initiatories are easy to complete because it only takes a few minutes per name. However, the bottle neck comes with endowments, but I guess we are sending on the endowments to another temple.
Anyway, one of my friends told me the other day about a sacred experience she had while doing one of those names in initiatories, and I'm humbled to have had one too. Many of the names are "Ma Shi" which translated is "wife or concubine of Ma". There are hundreds of these same names, because the women weren't recorded with their own names. It's very sweet to think that those women are having their own little individual moment in the temple. But the other day, we were doing a whole batch of the names, and with one of them came a vision into my mind. I could see all these Asian women standing together, and there was one (I assume the one we were doing the work for at the moment), and she was smiling. In fact, all of them were rejoicing together that her work was being done. I knew something very beautiful and very sacred was happening at that exact moment.
Being "Shhhhhhhhh"ed
Okay. As I was beginning to tell this story to Hannah yesterday (now that she's a temple worker, she can definitely sympathize and even share with me her OWN stories, both beautiful and bad), I started it out with this. You know Hannah, there aren't many sounds that bother me.
She quickly interrupted me and said, "A clicking pen. A bouncing leg. Daddy picking his nails. A squeaky apple peel on teeth...." Point taken, but still, I'm not sensitive to loud noises, or nails on a chalkboard....
One thing I do NOT like though is people who "sssshhhhh" other people. When I was Primary chorister, the kids and I were frequently rowdy which I wanted because it frees them up to really sing. They don't feel so inhibited. However, substitute teachers or Primary presidency members would frequently "ssshhhh" the kids. Every time, without fail, I will ask them not to do that right in front of the kids. I hate it. I think it is one of the most condescending and contradictory noises people can make. I mean, oftentimes the "ssshhh" is louder than the noise that's being made. It's like parents who tell their kids not to hit but spank their kids (yes, I spanked my kids, but I never told them to not hit).
Well, let me tell you--there's one step worse than adults "sssshhhhh"ing kids. It's adults "ssshhhhh"ing other adults.
We have prayer meeting before every shift. Because this was my third prayer meeting that week, I gave President Lund a big old smile when he walked in. He had told me the night before that when he saw me for the second time, he knew he needed to switch up his spiritual thought. Well, this was the THIRD time, and he even gave me a shout out from the front of the room, talking about how I was keeping him on his toes for the spiritual thought. Right after his thought, he dismissed the office workers, and Sister Massey and I walked out.
----Sister Massey
I have to interject another subject line here. Sister Massey started working in the office just weeks before I did, and yet someone thinks that she and I are competent enough to run the entire office by ourselves every other week (yes, she has some choice words about this as well). Sister Massey is probably mid-50s, and she is seriously sweet. However, a couple of years ago, she suffered a "traumatic brain injury" which I would never have known without working with her.
Sister Massey had to go through a couple of years of therapy to even learn how to think and work again. She's totally normal, but she becomes very tunnel-vision in everything she does in the temple. I can be buzzing around the office, taking care of a million different things, and she'll sit at the computer for a good two hours just double-checking that the patrons names for next week have been entered in the computer. It's something that needs to be done, but not when we have a line at the office counter.
Or, when it's chaos unleashed in the office, she'll pick that moment to have the matron train her on how to enter a "live" sealing in the computer. If she wasn't so dear to me, I would have serious problems with her. However, having worked with another dear woman who can't walk because of polio, I at least appreciate that Sister Massey can move.
However, Sister Massey CANNOT hear. Really, she's not much older than I am, but if I'm not looking directly at her and raising my voice, she'll miss what I say. In fact, she sometimes gets mad at me in the office because she thinks I said something that I didn't.
So back to the story.....
Sister Massey and I were walking out of prayer meeting, and I asked her how she was. There was nobody else around, so I could speak in a normal tone of voice which allows her to hear me. Plus, I was happy because President Lund had given me that funny shout out. We got about ten feet, rounded the corner to the office, and she told me that she had just been sealed to her deceased parents the night before! I had seen her there (when I was temple-glaring at Axel), but I had figured she'd just done a session.
Nope, she was sealed to her parents! Well, my reaction was appropriate--I was so happy for her, and I told her that.
And just as I walked past the greeter (a surly woman who works at the Bishop's Storehouse as well, and who has never done anything but stare at me), she let out the biggest "ssssssshhhhh" on the planet. I mean, no joke, if martians live on Mars, they heard her.
In that split second, I knew I had one of two options. Slink away like a beaten dog, or stand up to her. I know my children think they know what I would do...and they would unfortunately be right. I stopped in my tracks, turned back to her, and said, "Oh c'mon, don't do that. That's just not nice."
She then told me in no joking terms "You are being too loud."
"Really? There's nobody here."
She then motioned around the corner that there was one man, sitting in the foyer.
"I really don't think he'll mind that Sister Massey was telling me that she was sealed to her parents last night."
"Yes he will. You were being too loud."
At this point, I was determined to make MY point which I know is not temple appropriate at all, but back me into a corner, and I'm going to lash out.
I reached out to her arms and said, "Let's think about the patron and worker experience. It doesn't pay to be nasty."
At this point, she was backing down, only to get me to leave her alone and shut up. So she gave me the meanest, "Whatever. Go away."
I walked away, but I stupidly didn't just let sleeping dogs lay, but had to get the last word in. I turned around as I walked in the office and said in full voice, "Well now you've ruined my feelings about this entire shift. Thanks for starting me out like this."
Yep. I did it people, and I'm not proud of it. But this is why it's important to not be the world's police force. If she had known that Sister Massey is near deaf, if she had known that Sister Massey was telling me about one of the happiest experiences of her life, if she had realized that it's okay to be a bit louder.... all of this would have been avoided. And I checked myself: when I wonder if I overreact to something, I always ask myself if I would do what the offending person did, and I can tell you with full certainty, that I would NEVER EVER "ssssshhhh" another human being, especially in the temple.
Being Supported
This sister is an exception to the rule. On the flip side, Brother Nelson, one of the Saturday coordinators who loves to tease me, stopped me when I walking by the recommend desk. He said to me, "Sister Kennedy, is it true that your husband doesn't have a job right now?" Because I was flying solo in the office, I couldn't spend a lot of time explaining our situation to him, but for as joking and jovial as he usually is, he became gravely serious and worried as I gave him the spiel about our lives. When I told him that we are living on the equity from the sale of our house, he looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "That's no way to live." He then said, "If we lived closer, we'd have you over for lunch and dinner everyday to save you money." I do believe that was the most earnest, thoughtful offer we've had over the past year. Again, temple friends are the dearest.
Migraine and illness
Granted, I went to the temple on Saturday feeling a little under the weather, but Sister Lund had been warding off a cough for the two previous nights. Well Saturday afternoon, her cold was in full bloom, and because our temple is so tiny, the matron has no office, and so she sits at the computer with us office workers. And coughs. And there are no windows in that tiny room. And I know I will be sick in 48 hours or less. However, some ding dong had agreed to let a ward have open baptistry hours until 9 p.m. Saturday night. So when I was supposed to leave, I couldn't abandon Sister Lund. I mean, she's 75, and she gets weak at the end of any shift, but add a bad cold? So I sat and kept recording all those baptisms for another hour after my shift ended.
I came home with a migraine.
But you know what? I'm subbing on Tuesday night, I'm working Thursday night, and I'm back on Saturday morning. You're never lost when you're working in the temple ;-)
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