2023-2

 Our week to open the temple.  The Taylor's are out of town and Sister Harris is ill so I am on call to help with any Own Endowments who come on the PM shift.  Our Wednesday went as usual, opened the temple at 3:30AM and got home about 4PM.  On Thursday, we served on the AM and MID shifts, did some initiatory, the 2:30 session and Lon then did the 4:00 session.  I had a young lady come to the temple for the first time, (an own endowment) so I gave her instructions and we headed for home about 5:30.  It was a very long day.  We came home and got ready for Friday AM shift.  When we finished at 2PM on Friday, we went out to dinner then came home.  We are very tired and have one more day of early mornings.  Saturday was a very busy day in the temple, and we came home for a 2-hour nap.  We did it!  10 to 12 hour days all week, but we are still alive.😜.  

 Sunday morning, the 5th, we only had Sacrament Meeting because the heat is out on one side of the church.  We had Presidency meeting at the temple at 3PM in preparation for our Shift Coordinators meeting at 4PM.  This first meeting went well.  Then we added a couple from each shift at 5PM to prepare them and the shift coordinators to officiate on their respective shifts for the new endowment presentation.  They were all so surprised and excited to be able to participate in this historic temple event.  We had about 70 people in attendance.  We spent about 6 hours in the temple training these who were chosen to participate.  It was a great experience.  Everyone is so excited for Tuesday to come.  They were swarn to secrecy.

February 7th, 2023 is a historic day for temples.  This morning, all over the world, the new endowment presentation began.  We are so thankful for ongoing revelation from our Heavenly Father.  The new adjustments are so beautiful and the spirit in the temple was fantastic.  We changed our schedule as a presidency for this week.  We closed on Tuesday, but had to be there by 12:30 so the Taylor's could officiate the 1:00 session.  We were off on Wednesday and enjoyed attending a sealing session and the 1:00 session.  We opened on Thursday and officiated the 1:00 session.  Each day the attendance in the temple is mushrooming as word spreads about the changes.  We closed on Friday, arriving at 12:30 and didn't get home till 11PM.  We are now having a session at 8:15PM on Friday's because we know that we will need extra sessions because the temple is filled all day long, at least for a while.  We'll evaluate this new session as time goes on to see if we continue with it or not.  We closed again on Saturday. We missed our Stake Conference but will be able to watch it on Zoom tomorrow.

Lon had a special Saturday in the temple.  He had a young man come to the temple for the first time, called an own endowment, and his escort (helper) happened to be Elder Lentz, 

Elder Lentz served in Santiago, Chile for about 6 weeks before the Pandemic arrived.  He finished his mission here in the Pocatello Idaho Mission and served in Filer where he baptized the young man that came to the temple today.  I guess he had a beard today and Lon almost didn't recognize him.  I was busy elsewhere and didn't even see him.  The church really makes the world a small place.  It was a choice experience for Lon.

 On Monday morning, the 13, we had a TLC Meeting at the temple with Brother Simmons at 3:45.  This is our "checkup" to see if our first 6 months have gone well.  Brother Simmons is the Area Manager for the Temple Department.  We finished our meeting around 5:45 and headed to The Elevation Restaurant for dinner together.  Kjel even brought Kitti to eat with us.  It was a fun evening.  It started snowing while we were there.  The Taylor's drove home to Burley in a blizzard.

We opened on Tuesday while President Harris met with Brother Simmons then at 10:30 our TLC met again till 12:30. We had lunch at the temple together and we got home around 4.  We were off the rest of the week, so we enjoyed doing sealings and initiatory and sessions Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  

It was too cold to go fishing or golfing, so Lon went to Producers and golfed on their golf simulator. 

The temple is full to overflowing each day.  It's such a wonderful problem to have!!  The patrons are beginning to realize that they had better have an appointment or they probably won't get into a session.  The worst problem we have is the dressing rooms.  We just don't have enough lockers for this number of patrons.  The sad reality is that this will end when the curiosity ends, and we will go back to normal.  

We had dinner with George and Kim on the 19th.  It's the first time in a month that we have had the time to spend together.  Taco soup and good company.  What a great Sunday.

We finally got back to our regular schedule, so we opened the week of the 21st.  We are loving having the temple filled each day.  It's lots of work and we are exhausted at the end of our shift.

We took supper over to Merle Zysett on Monday the 27th, then went out to Kurt and Linda's for our supper.  It was so nice of them to have us over.  Kip and his daughter, Riya, joined us.  Ethan and Tawnya were not feeling well.  

February ended on Tuesday with presidency meeting and closing the temple that evening.  I think we can honestly say that we spent February serving in the temple full time.  We are feeling tired, 12 hour days will do that to old people😜, but we have loved each and every day.  We were blessed with snow on and off this month.  The mountains, where we really need the snow to fill our reservoir's, have been getting dumped on.  The roads have not been bad however.  It's been a good month.