The refurbishment of the deck continues. What I thought would take three
or four days at the most is now well over two weeks and it might not get
done before I have to leave for California next Monday morning! This has
turned out to be a substantial piece of work. I started staining the hot
tub today thinking it would take about an hour or so. Two hours later I
only had two side done and had to quit as it was getting too dark to
see. It’s quite tedious and the wood is really soaking up the stain.
I’ve still got quite a bit of sanding to do (tomorrow morning?) before I
can start the deck itself. I was hoping to start on the deck tomorrow
night after work, but the hot tub will need to get finished first. The
two sides I’ve finished are the easy part — the other two sides I have
to do through the railing on the deck and not get the railing stained.

We are in a major drought. Lots of clouds overhead but no moisture
falling to the ground. It’s currently 66 degrees with 44% humidity and
the barometer is rising. There are thunderstorms forecast for tomorrow
which would, of course, further delay getting the deck finished.

Today was a work-from-home day. Spent the morning in phone meetings. At
lunch Nina and I retrieved the camping trailer from its current storage
lot and transferred it to a new home out by Petersen AFB. The place
where it was raised their rates once again, now charging $67 a month.
The new place is about twenty-minutes further away, but charges $30 a
month for a pull-through slot. That is quite a bonus! The slot is a
straight shot from the entrance as well. Much easier to put the camper
away. We’ll use the camper over the 4th of July weekend when we go up to
Soda Springs for my class reunion.

There isn’t very much news! Looking ahead, I’ll be in California all of
next week. Leave Monday the 20th and return on Friday the 24th. That
Saturday I’m the substitute for the substitute shift coordinator at the
temple. Well leave on Sunday to go to Utah for the week, returning that
Friday. We’ll spend Monday and Tuesday in Orem and then go up to Soda
Springs for a couple of days. Dad had another stent put into his heart a
couple of weeks ago so we want to visit up there as often as possible.

My normal assignment at the temple is the shift trainer. My job is to
help folks get qualified to work at different assignments they can
receive. We have two new brothers on the shift so they keep me busy.
We’re also very short staffed, so there isn’t much of an opportunity for
brothers to work in the initiatory and learn that dialog. There are
quite a few assignments:

Patron Guide: This person sits in the lobby near clothing and provides
directions and assistance to patrons coming into the temple. We almost
never have enough staff to give this assignment to someone.

Locker Guide: This person rotates folks through the lockers so that we
don’t have too many people waiting for someone to get finished with
their locker. This is another position that we almost never staff. In
the Oakland Temple, the lockers are out in a common area with dressing
rooms along the walls. It’s a better system, I think.

Initiatory: There are three assignments working in the initiatory —
washing, annointing, and clothing. There is also an Initiatory
Coordinator who often also fills one of the three assignments as well.
We so short of staff that we only have the initiatory working when
someone comes for their own endowment or someone shows up with family
file work to be done. Then we really have to scramble to provide at
least two workers for the initiatory.

Name Issue: This person slices off proxy names if the patron doesn’t
have a family file name to do. He also scans the name into the computer
and stamps it. Quite often this position isn’t staffed and the New Name
person does both jobs.

New Name: This person performs the new name ceremony and directs the
patron into the chapel to wait for the endowment session to start.

Sealing Guide: This person assists a brother who is coming to the temple
to be sealed / married. The major task here is to get the brother
properly clothed and looking sharp for his bride.

Own Endowment Guide: This person assists a brother who is coming to the
temple for the first time to take out his own endowment. The assignment
takes about an hour and a half and consists of getting the brother to
the Recorder, then through the initiatory, and finally to the President
for instruction prior to going on an endowment session. This assignment
is very enjoyable and all the brothers look forward to this assignment.

Session Follower: When there are more than 12 brothers on the session,
or the session is an own-endowment session, then a brother follower is
assigned to be on the session. When there is a brother follower, then
that person conducts the prayer circle as well. We also use this
assignment as a way to train a brother to officiate a session.

Session Officiator: This person directs an endowment session. It starts
with opening the room fifteen minutes before the start of the session
and preparing it for the session. Quite often the officiator will work
New Name for a half-hour prior to opening up the session room. After the
session, the Officiator straightens up the room and closes the room.

Veil Presentor: This person works on the patron’s side of the veil and
assists the patron as needed. Some of the veil positions are for sisters
and will have a sister presentor. The others are for brothers and will
have a brother presentor.

Veil Receiver: This person works on the other side of the veil and
received the patron into the Celestial Room. The temple has four
endowment rooms, two on the north side and two on the south side. There
are 11 veil positions on the north side and another 11 on the south
side. Up to 11 presentors and receivers will be assigned to work on a
session. The actual number assigned depends on the number of patrons on
the session. Sometimes we really scramble to have enough people to work
on the veil when a session ends with a lot of patrons on the session.

Veil Assistant Coordinator: This person assists in staffing the
receivers on the veil and then supervises the operation on the back side
of the veil at the end of each session.

Veil Coordinator: This person staffs the presentors and manages the
front side of the veil. Quite often the two veil coordinators will
switch off the assignments.

Shift Trainer: Responsible for training the brethren on each of the
assigments and verifying that they can perform the assignments given to
them. Also conducts the weekly training session which is part of prayer
meeting at the beginning of each shift.

Shift Assistant Coordinator: This person is responsible for loading
endowment session, assigning the witness couples, and getting the
session ready to start. He also assists the Shift Coordinator and
substitutes when the coordinator can’t be there. The Assistant
Coordinator is responsible for closing up the back of the temple — all
the endowment rooms, sealing rooms, and Celestial Room.

Shift Coordinator: This person supervises the brethren and makes the
assignments for the shift. The job starts with making up the schedule of
assignments, preparing the agenda for the prayer meeting, and then
managing the work on the shift. It’s a very busy assignment and includes
a monthly meeting in the temple with the Temple Presidency.

We generally need about 25 brothers on our Saturday afternoon shift to
be able to handle all of the assignments. Right now we are staffed with
18 brothers and a few of them don’t show up on occasion.

Our first endowment session starts at 1:00 p.m. and a session is
scheduled for each half hour. The last session starts at 4:00 p.m. A
session takes about 90 minutes, so our first veil is also at 1:00 p.m.
The last veil is at 5:30 p.m. It is a very busy afternoon — but very
enjoyable. I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than working at
the temple on a Saturday afternoon.

This entry was transferred from an older journalling system to this program on 29 November 2002.