My tbm parents say one of these upcoming Thursday nights, it's their wards turn to go clean the twin falls temple. So in order for my tbm parents to do this, my tbm mom has to rush and get tbm dad at work at 5pm. Get changed, drive almost a hour sway to twin. Do a temple session and then clean the temple. I rather doubt the morg will reimburse them for the gas driving there.
When did the morg make the members start cleaning the temples for? What's it s
Real purpose? Have any morg GAs done this or just the sheeple??!

LDS, Inc. is losing money. Their membership is shrinking, taking tithing dollars with them. They lost a lot of money in the 2008 real estate crash. Their megamall in SLC is costing them a fortune.

They are cost cutting and hitting members hard in the process. Ward budgets are spartan. The chapel janitors are gone, and now apparently they can't even clean temples. They are expecting more and more from fewer and fewer members and giving less and less in return. It is a formula for rapid obsolescence.

The church isn't losing money. They may be having problems with cash flow, but that's about it. I'll wager there is a big conflict at the highest level between the finance people, who understand the ongoing liablities of buildings, and the "religious" leadership who wants to build monuments. I'm sure the pharoahs had the same issues.

Bottom line, though is they are easily still in the black just from dividends of the companies they hold and the interest in their accounts.

Since they hide their books, unlike normal churches, this is all speculative.

I have a hard time believing they are cost-cutting so much at the expense of their members without feeling a financial squeeze. They are driving more people out the door with their penny-pinching, which in turn is costing them tithing dollars.

Do the member/janitors wear their temple whites when cleaning the temple? Curious...

No, they are usually told to wear regular clothes, jeans etc.

When I was on a temple cleaning crew, we wore WHITE cleaning clothes: I wore white jeans, a white shirt, white socks and white slippers.

Really? I've never cleaned the temple, but I have several family members who have and they said that they wore regular clothes. It would certainly be an expense for the average member to buy a special white cleaning wardrobe so they could be a volunteer janitor. Maybe it depends on the temple president?

It's been going on for at least four years that I know of (OKC Temple).

This has been happening for a long while. I lived in Ephraim 10 years ago and they used to pass around the sign-up sheet in PH/RS for volunteers to clean the Manti Temple every few months.

Cleaning the temples isn't something new. But I am convinced that Obamacare, along with being penny pinchers is causing them to make significant changes. My FIL has been a temple recorder (paid position) for the past 30 years. He was recently encouraged to retire and chose to do so at the end of the month. My inlaws have always been poor and I'm just sad that the church is encouraging poor people to retire early. They want to leave on a mission soon but the stress of finances is always at the front of their minds. Retiring five years early shouldn't be something you'd even consider unless you have the funds to do so and let me tell you they don't have it. Inlaws are the type that anything that comes from the church has "come from the Lord" and that makes me sad.

That's so sad about your FIL!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 06:12PM by Susan I/S.

So, the groups that are to clean the chapels are falling down on their job. People leave town, don't get a replacement.....etc....my TBM hubby is in the bishopric....therefore feels totally responsible to go down and do the cleaning....I just ask.....why doesn't the damn church just hire the cleaning crews back....just sayin'

A good reason NOT to have a TR! Without a TR they can't make or even allow you to clean the temple.

+1

I cleaned the Ogden temple 10 years ago, and it was a normal thing then. A few times a year they'd send the members in, hand out assignments, and they'd clean house. It is actually one of the few pleasant temple experiences I've had. And I just had a necrodunk pass, but they had us cleaning everything but the celestial and endowment rooms. It was really nice to do some easy work while exploring the temple a little bit, we got to see a lot of areas you wouldn't normally have access to.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2013 08:54PM by Frightened Inmate #2.

I used to clean the temple at least four times a year, as far back as 2001 or so.


This is one of the southern McHinckley temples.

I knew of someone who volunteered to do work in the Portland temple and had to scrub pots and pans. This was an older gentlemen who had health issues that I thought he really shouldn't have been doing his type of work.

They shouldn't have replaced the paid building janitors with free church labor. The man that cleaned the chapel and mowed the grass when I was growing up really needed the job to support his family. They were pretty poor.

It's been years but I would much MUCH rather clean temple toilets than sit through a godawful endowment session. I'm serious. I guess I like my crap a little more realistic. :-)