Apparently they have been told to be nicer when talking to "temple guests" at the temples. The temple now has an "assigned" worker who is directed to thank members for attending upon exiting the temple. Of course this is in direct contrast to my experiences where they couldn't wait to run off members- I was waiting (sitting) in the men's dressing room after doing a session and two workers came by to tell me exit outside. -I'm waiting for my Pop, I told them. -No, you can wait for him outside.

Also, my mom told me that she and some other older ladies carpooled to do some temple sealings. When they were through, all of them were invited by temple workers to relax and enjoy SITTING inside the Celestial Room. I asked her several times if she had done an endowment session and she assures that she did not.

I do believe that the church has been notified that temple workers have been quite gruff in the past (and I always thought that there might be nice people volunteering but the church has directives- Don't let people sit where they want. And keep people moving).

It's almost like they read RfM and we are a focus group! We've complained about that many times here.

Sometimes the people who are most excited to work in the temple are bossy oldsters. They don't have jobs anymore to push people around. ;-)

As I previously mentioned, my mom went to the temple with another 3-4 sisters for sealings. She did not have any names or work to submit but one of the sisters did. The paperwork/form was in order, but another temple worker came over to the "family submission" desk to ask a question about the names prepared for marriage sealings.

-And how do you know these people?

My mom, being a huge genealogy fanatic (she taught the class in her ward for years until the bishop wouldn't cover the cost of family group sheets) was blown away by the question.

Maybe this is a benign question, but I think the church is beyond paranoid about progressive members sealing Bob and Lee for time and eternity (Lee could be a male or female). I don't have to mention how much the church hates SSM.

Time to introduce Carol Goop-

Carol was a fictitious member of the Goop family. My dad was proud of his membership in this swanky toy train club. He bought a family membership which included himself, my mom, myself and this fake Carol person. Part of his yearly dues included attendance to a "convention". He would receive a giant folder with nametags. If you wished to attend the convention, you had to wear your nametag.

If I brought a friend who wanted to see the trains running on displays, then my friend was Carol. My grandmother who sometimes came to visit was Carol. My cousin became Carol. Yeah, he should have paid 50 bucks for all these extra people. He did this mostly when he wasn't active in the church.

AND. Would it kill them to get a few more chairs for that room?

It's not like they can't afford them.

I really wanted to sit after my endowments as I was stunned.

My first time through the temple, I was escorted by my goofball dad and bishop nice. We were the last ones through the veil. My dad was hard of hearing and I think they gave up on what he said back. I wasn't hearing what they were saying either because it sounded like Three Stooges dialogue. A worker told me that I had better learn the handshakes and passwords because they never were going to assist me on my next visit to the temple. Just a lot of scare tactics which cemented my miserable experience.

Here was this room with chairs and all three of us sat there in our silly costumes. I think I was asked what I thought about the grandeur of the celestial room. Before I had the chance to say anything two workers approached where we had just sat down.

-Brethren, you will need to exit the room immediately. Please stand up and return to the dressing rooms.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2023 12:59PM by messygoop.

19 years I had impressed on me the beauty of the temple, the endowment experience. The Holiness. I was finally there, too bewildered by the time I got to the Celestial Room to even begin to process what had happened. Marrow in the what? Why? Why was everybody talking like "Dick and Jane"? And what's with the upside down pentagrams and why was Lucifer running the show?

Not in the CK room ten seconds, sit down, and I get a tap on the shoulder giving me the bum's rush. I don't remember what the old lady said but translated into real language it would be, "Hit the road, Jack!"

Oh, okay!!

And all these years, after being tossed out of the CK room on my ear, I thought the bitchy matron was simply a racist...

Haha. I was as Nordic blonde as you get. They weren't showing any favortism---overtly. Although I suspect instead of "Hit the road Jack" she said to you, " Vamos, Pedro".

More like " Vamos, Pedo," I would have thought.

That generation- the old ladies bought white furniture with gold embroidery for their living rooms and left the vinyl covers on so the fabric would never get touched.... then they assigned these ladies as Celestial Room Guards

Haha. I remember a few of those. Even with the plastic I was afraid to sit on it unless they insisted. And the plastic made one sweat.

Imagine having to tell the temple workers to be nice to people in the temple. You'd think it was a given.

You are right. It should be given.

I was never a temple worker. I couldn't stand being there and would have felt nauseous if required to be there for hours.

I can only imagine that there's a church handbook which outlines their duties. I wonder how many times it uses the word SACRED? Lol

Here's what I think it says: Keep people quiet. Do not allow members to gather in place for a prolonged time. Escort members whenever walking from one room to another. Monitor, monitor, monitor!!! Employ reverence in all your actions and thoughts. Remind members to ask their stake president about any questions. When in doubt, seek another temple worker to handle a potential crisis.

Yeah, I think they finally figured out that they need to stop acting like they have a permanent stick up their butt.

The decision to remove that ten foot wall around Temple Square is part of that. It dawned on them that the ten foot wall was not exactly welcoming. I’m sure they saw it as separating the temple from the lone and dreary world, a place of solitude and sanctuary, but that’s not how it was coming across to visitors.

It only took them, what, 140 years more or less to figure that out.

Brother Of Jerry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, I think they finally figured out that they
> need to stop acting like they have a permanent
> stick up their butt.
>
> The decision to remove that ten foot wall around
> Temple Square is part of that. It dawned on them
> that the ten foot wall was not exactly welcoming.
> I’m sure they saw it as separating the temple
> from the lone and dreary world, a place of
> solitude and sanctuary, but that’s not how it
> was coming across to visitors.
>
> It only took them, what, 140 years more or less to
> figure that out.

Kind of like the overused "Us Against Them" thinking, that has caught them on their heels again and again, and again.

I don't remember having any bad experiences in the temple. Not from workers, anyway.

I went with my cousins and one of the gals brought a friend of hers. When we were sitting down, things were getting started and my cousin sitting next to me wanting to talk-whisper introducing me to her friend sitting on her other side. I politely asked her to wait, pointing towards the front because things were literally getting started, they were giving the preliminary directions and all. I must have offended my cousin because as the lights dimmed for the start of the first movie, she talks across me to my other cousin, saying that she thinks she needs to leave because "she's just not feeling the spirit now."

She ended up not and everything was fine. And honestly, she's a sweet gal and all but ever since then, I've kinda low-key despised her. I saw it as manipulative and childish(she was around my same age, so, late 20's at the time). Now that the temple no longer means anything to me, I still see her as a red flag because it literally didn't matter what I wanted in that moment. We could have been in an actual movie theater and her wanting to introduce me as opening credits are rolling in, you know? Why don't you shush yeah? I'm not here ta talk!

Anyway, aside from my first time going through and having to shelve my realization that this is a cult, my whole family is in a cult and I'm going to get married in a cult, etc. Aside from that and my passive aggressive cousin, I never had any negative experiences in the temple. I sorta wish I had because not having any kind of allowed the illusion of a sacred ritual to persist. If any of the attendants had been pushy, snotty, rude, or predatory, I hope it would have knocked loose that piece f the puzzle of "how were they able to get into this sacred place with that contentious/evil spirit? I wonder..is there really nothing keeping this place pure? Is there no immediate consequences of unclean things and people entering this place?" I imagine that is why they have twisted the nips of the attendants now, because potentially it was knocking that puzzle piece loose for a lot of people to be treated unkindly or unfairly in the supposedly "most holy and pure place on Earth."

When the Oquirrh Mountain Temple was in its open house phase having just been completed, our ward was assigned for volunteers to help with the open house.

So I figured, why the heck not. This way I get to see the inside from a different perspective. So I was assigned to running the elevator for those who had difficulty with stairs.

So for 8 hours I would take people up and down between floors, make sure wheel chairs and strollers fit inside, and helped anyone else who had difficulty. Each trip I would ask people how they were doing, have a short chat, joke a few times, and in general just be a good host. I did not follow that pious routine, and only answered temple or church related questions unless asked, and in some cases differed them to another source. I would not answer any question that I knew was different in fact versus what the church taught.

So nearing the end of that 8 hours, I had a group of non-members and they were laughing with me as I made a joke about something. As the door opened, there was a sister standing there with a look of disgust on her face. So as this group got off the elevator, she commenced to chastise me about my lack of respect, and taking away from the spirit the temple, and that I was offending God. The group gave her a look all of their own, and then I reminded her that the temple had not been dedicated yet. Man that really pissed her off.

Yep, the super pious righteous just cannot climb off that horse. The "be nicer" clause is going to be ignored by many.

But I don't have to worry, because I have no intention of ever stepping into a Temple ever again.

The one power that old women in the church actually have is the power to be judgmental, and it is a power they will fight tooth and nail to retain.

Younger women have more options - in particular, they can just walk away. For elderly women, that option is no longer available to them, or at least is enormously difficult to exercise for various reasons, personal and cultural.

But judgmental - they can still do that, and it makes them feel righteous and powerful.

You nailed it!!

The temple is a building. It doesn’t have a spirit. Maybe the temples are haunted. Another reason to not go. You might get possessed messing with the dead like they do.

I am fairly certain that my computer problems with work have caused me to keep getting messed up with my sign in on RfM.

Susan, if there is something you need to let me know about, I think my e-mail address is available to you.

This is my lovely super special name that God picked just for me. Lucy. I've thought about changing my name over to Lucy on here as it is. It is a joke in our family. Even my daughter makes jokes about it.

The girl who cuts my hair works at the temple. She is about 35 or so. I told her about the old ladies and how they treated us and she said they have been told to be NICE at all times. She said they had many complaints about those old ladies.

Well, I'm the one who never even got to get near a seating place in the CR. I was always messing up like my sash wasn't tied in a perfect bow or my robe was inside out. I was always the last one into the CR, but then that was a whole 4 times.

I always thought if I could just sit in the CR for a while and think about my situation in life that I'd find some peace about it or answers. Well, so much for that. I was able to sit in the foyer my last time at the temple for about 45 minutes and I never went back. I had only agreed to go back to the temple as my husband wanted me to see the new changes in 1990. I've told it before--they pulled me aside to do sealings and that was bizarre beyond belief.

Even my Dad, who I can't imagine in that hat, told me not long before he died how bizarre the temple was. He told me many things that he found problematic with the church once he knew I was never going back, but that was only because I was the most devout in the whole family.

Email me at ExMoLight@gmail.com

So the temple now has a Walmart greeter. Wow! That will motivate people to go more often. The church is going to learn they built a bunch of temples nobody really wants.

Sounds like a Sr. Mission call to me.