June 23, 2013

On Brighton Pier

Temple WORK

(Letter from Niel/Dad)

After one week of temple service, we have decided that temple WORK is the best way to describe what we are going through. We were on the “early” shift this week, 9am-3pm and by the end of the shift, we were both tired. Once they discovered we had previous endowment worker experience, and were able to do the work, we were assigned to every part of the temple except the baptistery. One day I was on my new knee so long that my knee and ankle swelled up like a football. (maybe not quite that big) But I was sore and tired.

My temple trainer is Bro Kelly. He has not been a trainer long, but is very experienced and determined that I do things the London Temple Way. For example, I thought I would save some time and wear my dark suit along with white socks and white tie to report to the temple. Notta. We must change our clothes once in the temple. Of course I agreed to that right away. There were other “issues” that needed correcting in terms of procedure. Bro Kelly has said to me more than once, “you’re a big guy ehh” (aren’t you) He is about 5’3”. I love the guy and he is very easy to take direction from.

I had couple of experiences this week while doing the work that I won’t be able to include here. One that I can include related to a little English man in his 80’s that spent nearly the entire week doing work for his ancestors. I had been with him at different areas of the temple. As I stood by him and helped him in the area where the temple ceremony concludes, tears came to my eyes as I saw this feeble man with Parkinson's Disease faithfully serving in the House of the Lord. At his age, he could have very well been at home acting his age. Instead, he was concerned that other deceased members of his family share in the blessings of the gospel that he knew to be true.

I’ve seen tears shed as temple work was completed for deceased family members. Something tells me there will be some wonderful rewards for these dedicated church members that forget themselves and do temple work.

Tonight we said goodbye to two couples who have finished their temple missions. One English couple from Devonshire, last name of Essoms and the other couple from Hooper, Utah named Fowers. Brother Essom is a sealer and I have not worked with him much. This mission concludes Elder and Sister Fowers third mission, one to Armenia, then Florida and then the London Temple. I just can’t even imagine that kind of dedication in terms of missionary service. I’ll go ahead and do my best to complete number one.

We called Rulon and Marylou tonight in Aberdeen, Scotland. They were in a meeting at 9:30 at night. Carolee and I looked at each other and commented that missionary work requires dedication.

We miss you all and hope that you are doing well. Did I say we miss you??? Yes we do.

Love, mom and dad

Dear family and friends:
(Letter from Carolee/Mom)

We really are enjoying this mission. They were gearing us up for the shifts on Saturday, saying that there would 3-4 stakes and a couple of wards coming to do work all day. One of the wards brought young people to do baptisms too. Well, you’d think the sky was going to cave in and after it was all said and done (at 5:00 pm, mind you) I felt like I had done a shift on a normal day at the Provo Temple. However, the day did go fast. They are determined to hold a session on the hour during the day on the week days and for a lot of the sessions there may only be four or five patrons. So, we put on temple clothes and go in to the session and help. Some workers changes clothes it seems five or six times a day. I have been helping in the Initiatory quite a lot. It gets hot and muggy in there. Thank goodness I have my trusty fan. I was worried that they wouldn’t let me use it in the temple because it is wooden and not white, but so far so good.

There are several things that we have had to learn about here. I’ve been trying to keep a record of them as they occur during the day. They do not have knee-hi socks here, they are called “pop socks” because, when asked, you just pop them on. There are also no parking lots, they are called car parks. I have looked and looked for my beloved bleach for my towels and have found out that they do not have bleach here, but use a form of Oxi-clean. Yesterday I had rhubarb yogurt. Go figure. No one knows what a cent is because they are called p’s and a penny is called a copper (if you can find one). There is no tax on food etc. so the price of everything is exactly what is says on the price tag or label.

We are still trying to work our phone situation out. It may take a little more time though. We went down to Brighton today with the Littlefields. It was a fun trip, did a lot of walking and sight-seeing.