Anybody know if becoming a temple sealer is a calling? Just heard of a distant relative becoming a temple sealer. Said it wasn’t a calling but had a special family ceremony in the temple. Was all very special and very sacred so details couldn’t be completely shared.

is "called to be a temple sealer". That's what I always heard when I was in the LSD Church.

Maybe he was just asked to do some silicone caulking around the base of the baptismal font and in the restrooms. That would be a different kind of "temple sealing" work and probably would not require a formal calling.

Trust Wally Prince for a good laugh! My laugh for the night!

has more real-world value than the hocus pocus that goes on in the "sealing rooms." ;o)

Who Sealt it Dealt it.

They can do it in the Temple
But it was called on the phone

ALL 'positions' in Mormonism are 'called' "volunteer, by calling".
You agree to do the work [and more] you are called to do.
You do it for free, or tscc might perk you up a bit, and 'save' you.
His little ceremony was because he was already high enough.

M@t

I know of someone who was once in the Oakland Temple Presidency who was previously "a temple sealer."

He, his wife and I spoke in private some years ago in the parking lot of a silicon valley stake center after a stake meeting.

He had just been "set apart" as a temple sealer. He explained the process to becoming a temple sealer.

First someone had to request that he be considered. Then his name was submitted to a special department in SLC. He was then sent a letter and was asked to fill out the questionnaire. He said the questions WERE NOT general in nature but were very, VERY detailed and invasive into one's personal life. He said it was uncomfortable to even read such questions. Evidently, he has to be asked about everything and anything for his "worthiness" status.

Upon completion he said his name is reviewed by the FIRST PRESIDENCY. And actually, there are high up COB workers who are tasked to look at the results of the questions and answers and then make 'recommendations' if they should be considered and approved by the FP.

Also, I was told that your confidential membership record is reviewed and that there is a section where any questionable conduct or disciplinary results (which are kept from the members personal inquiry) are kept.

If you pass the review process then your name is forwarded to the FIRST PRESIDENCY, where they have the final 'revelation' if you are or are not worthy.

Once approved, you receive a letter stating a meeting place to gather to and you are given a blessing.

He said that it was the temple president that gave him the blessing and that he simply said, "I BESTOW on you the sealing power." That was it, he was bestowed with POWER.

Now this is NOT the second anointing. The second anointing is administered by one of the Q15 and includes the sealing power, but also assures your exaltation to the highest degree of the Mormon Celestial Kingdom where you are anointed to a Godhood (for the men) and have a ritual where your feet are washed (called cleansed from the sins of this generation) and all your sins are wiped away for good.

So, this is NOT a calling. It's akin to being made an Elder or High Priest in the Priesthood which remains with you until it is taken away from you (such as excommunication).

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The OP states it was a "special family ceremony" and that calls into question just who is defined as 'family' by that response. If family was the wife only it could have been just the bestowing of the sealing power or the second anointing. If others from the family who are temple recommend holders were then present, it probably was not the second anointing since that ceremony is held in utmost secret and kept from the membership at large.

My previous stake president climbed the ladder after he was a SP and became a MP and Temple President. He told me that he thought he knew everything there was to know about the temple when he was SP, but that there is more. What he was saying to me was "I didn't know the second anointing existed when I was a SP." But he was given the SA to be a temple president.

My SP friend said that all temple presidents can be temple sealers in any temple in the world. Each temple has a maximum of temple sealers for that temple, and they serve only at that temple. But all current and past temple presidents can be a temple sealer in any temple and their participation is not limited by the quota of sealers per temple.

Hope this makes sense. And I hope I got it right. It's all so secretive. (sarcasm)

Quote: "So, this is NOT a calling. It's akin to being made an Elder or High Priest in the Priesthood which remains with you until it is taken away from you (such as excommunication)."

AFAIK, the word "calling" is used loosely in the LSD Church and applies to offices in the priesthood, as well as Webelos leaders, clerks, etc. I may have missed it along the way, but I've never been aware of any precise definition of "calling" that would make it inappropriate to use when referring to the minting of a new temple sealer.

I've frequently heard calling used in reference to the position of temple sealer. It was standard Mormon lingo when I was frolicking in the Land of Moron.

Jeffrey Holland:

"On behalf of my Brethren in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, may I be the first to welcome Elders Dieter Uchtdorf and David Bednar to their new callings."

If being an Apostle is a calling, I can't see how a temple sealer would need a different word than "calling" to describe the appointment.

Maybe they're telling temple sealers that it's not a calling just to make them feel special about the intrusive vetting process.

"It's not a calling. It's a special priesthood power that only a few elect people can have. That oughta do it. Be proud of your new power! Now straighten your temple necktie and go in there and do your sealing hocus pocus. Everyone's depending on you to seal them up with power and authority."

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> go in there and
> do your sealing hocus pocus. Everyone's depending
> on you to seal them up with power and authority."

Temple sealing may be the one calling with actual "power and authority." People go in but (for better or worse) come out married.

Wow. The neat stuff you learn here at RFM.

There was a weirdo that used to bring his own helium tanks to inflate balloons at the ward Halloween party. He said that he had been set apart to blow up balloons.

but D&C 132:7 says only ONE MAN on earth has the sealing power at any time, not a whole bunch of "sealers"

oh, you notice that ?

It quite plainly states: "there is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred".

But every temple has multiple people who purportedly have and exercise that very power and those very keys.

Well, then, that is quite confusing.

Then...in verse 8, it says:

"8. Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and NOT A HOUSE OF CONFUSION."

That just makes it even more confusing, especially when you consider the fact that the Book of Mormon clearly condemns plural marriage, allowing only for the possibility that God would command it in a pinch to "raise up seed."

But then Joseph Smith's practice of it apparently was aimed at only seedless boinking and his plural boinking produced no seed.

...And these are the things that led to my own First Vision:

"For as I pondered these things, I found myself in deep spiritual and intellectual turmoil, as the confusion began building. The cognitive dissonance was turning into a migraine. My world was spinning around and I was disoriented in a dizzy dervish-like dance of discombobulation due to discerning a difficult and diabolical doctrinal disorder and disarray....

"But, exerting all my powers to call upon some benevolent power to deliver me out of the power of this confounding confoundment and confusing confusion which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction— I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until glowing words could be discerned that were above the brightness of the other stuff that was above the brightness of the sun, and the words said: 'Do not be confused for everything that Joseph Smith ever said or wrote is 100% pure horsesh*t!!!' (And, yes, this amazing sign that appeared in the heavens was punctuated with three exclamation marks.)

"And as soon as I read the sign in heaven, the realization that everything produced by or derived from the works of Joseph Smith is horsesh*t came upon me like a rush of healing waters, and the confusion fell away from me, the migraine subsided and the devilish beat of the dervish-like dance of discombobulation in the doctrinal disco inside my head ceased its infernal throbbing. Order, coherence and plain understanding had been restored."

LOL (snort)

Seriously, though, HOW does a temple sealer get his legal authority to marry people? Is he like a Justice of the Peace, or a court judge? Anyone who wants to, can apply online, and get an official permit to marry people. I know that Mormon couples sign the wedding license, with signed witnesses, in the little office in the hallway. Is that where it's made "official"?

My wife-beater temple ex-husband stalled in signing the documents that the cult required, for me to be married in the temple to my second husband. (Yes, the Mormon cult needed the permission and the judgment that I was virtuous--from the man who almost killed me, and had a history of violent assaults on his sister, neighbors, and pets, for his whole life. Go figure.) We had the wedding planned, and the temple room reserved, and my uncle, who was an officiator in the Salt Lake temple, got special permission to marry us in the L.A. temple.

My fiancee was being deployed soon, and when we received no reply from the monster-thug, my uncle married us at home, in a living room full of family and friends and children. What a nice wedding ceremony!

England and some other European countries don't accept a Mormon temple marriage as "legal," and couples must first be married by an authorized marriage official, certified by the government.

What makes a marriage legal? The paper work, obviously. My question is, is it also NECESSARY to have mumbo-jumbo words or personally composed "vows" recited by the couple? In the temple ceremony, no real marriage vows are made by the couple to to "love" or "cherish" or be faithful to each other. Read the script. The only promises made are to the cult. This doesn't make sense to me. ??

MWK:

some states require that officiants be licensed.

others???

I'm guessing you have to be a boy, first and foremost.

Wow this was very interesting, thanks.

It seems like the cult uses ANY excuse to ask intrusive questions!

If you are only married in the Temple, does it still have to be ended by divorce or annulment in the real US Legal world?

Just wondering....