In just about 2 months the Oquire Mountain Temple will open. Since we live very close the new temple our stake has the opportunity to volunteer our time to assist in the open house of the temple. A few weeks ago I was asked to direct traffic as it was coming into the parking lot. They assigned me as the crew captain. I’m confident the title came as a random chance, but that didn’t stop me from flaunting my title. My team was assigned to the Special Needs/VIP section. This meant that we didn’t have ton of traffic coming in. Our team was split by 3 people headed up the entrance where the cars would come in. Their responsibility was to stop the cars to make sure they were coming in the right entrance.

The other team, which I was on, was made up of Bother Bishop and myself. Brother Bishop is one of the people in this ward I really respect, so this was a really nice chance to get to know him a bit better. The two of us spent 4 hours talking and directing traffic. The only cars that got to us, first had to make it past the entrance team. If they got past them then we knew that they could park in our area. The only thing to do then was to see if they were Special Needs (handicap) or if they were VIP’s. Special Needs was easy since they all had the handicap sign hanging in their window. The rest were VIP’s (except the one car that was Special Needs, but he didn’t have the sign up – I felt only a little sad that I directed him to the wrong spots, but he was well enough to get around). I’ve no idea who the VIP’s were, but they certainly carried a strong presence with them. When they spoke it was absolutely in authority, and they weren’t even moving mountains. Though I don’t know the name, one of the VIP’s simply told us that were were doing a great job. I’ve been told that I was doing a good job before, but it never felt as ‘meant’ as it did this time. Other than church leaders a VIP that made it through was David Archuleta. My entire relationship as of this moment with David was to point to where the parking spots were. On his way out I also pointed towards the exit.

Yesterday Natalie had the same opportunity to serve in the temple. She was assigned to be an usher to push people around the temple. Natalie’s experience is one that can best be described by her. Maybe I’ll convince her to get a blog. To sum this all up, the temple is incredible. I have another opportunity to work the parking lot again this coming August 22. This will be the weekend that they are dedicating the building. That should be a busy weekend. After that weekend this will be our temple, I only hope they have an early morning (5am) schedule planned.