We’ve got about seven or eight inches of snow outside and it’s supposed to snow the rest of the night. This is the first snow of any significance in almost two years. It is very beautiful outside. I think I’ll try to do some camera work tomorrow morning and see what develops. There will be no shortage of subjects, particularly if it’s at all bright or sunny. The drive back from the Denver Temple was slow tonight, with lots of traffic most of the way. The Interstate was fairly slick and slush covered most of the way. I’m quite happy to be home, in my sweats, and able to take it very easy for the rest of the night.

Thursday was a difficult day. It started with a visit to the dentist which was punctuated with three or four telephone calls while the hygenist was trying to clean my teeth. In fact, I didn’t even make it in the door before the phone calls started. The company I work for was doing a "small reorganization" which was resulting in more than two hundred people loosing their job. My department is responsible for turning off remote access, forwarding phones and e-mail, and doing other cleanup work in the aftermath. As I was in the chair going through all of this, the hygenist remarked that this time in her chair just might be the highlight of the day. Now that was a very distressing thought!

The Shift Coordinator for our Saturday afternoon shift at the temple is either working or out of town today and the next two or three weeks. That makes me the Acting Shift Coordinator. The job isn’t particularly difficult, just needs reasonable amount of experience working at the Temple. The job involves the following:

• Somewhere around Thursday having the temple fax me the ordinance schedules for Saturday along with any family file work planned. The ordinance schedule includes weddings, sealings, and own endowments, the time that these events are scheduled, and any other parameters surrounding the events. The family file schedule indicates those people bringing family file work into the temple for baptisms or initiatory ordinances.
• Thursday night calling all the irregular temple workers to determine if they’ll be at the Temple on Saturday afternoon. We have about fifteen ordinance workers who are at the temple every week and another twenty-five workers that are scheduled one or two Saturdays a month. Based on these phone calls, I then know pretty well who will be available on Saturday.
• On Friday I make up the preliminary schedule. We conduct seven endowment sessions on Saturday afternoon and each session needs one or two brethren assigned depending on whether or not an own endowment is planned for that session. We also conduct two initiatory sessions and four brethren are assigned to each session. The rest of the brethren act as Own Endowment or Sealing Guides, and as presenters or receivers at the veil.
• On Friday evening I send a copy of the schedule to the Veil Coordinator for my shift. From that he makes up the veil plans.
• On Saturday morning I have the Temple fax me the latest revisions to their schedules. From that I make up the final schedule, make enough photo copies for each of the brethren on the shift, and the head for the temple.
• The day at the temple starts with a prayer meeting at 12:05 p.m. in the chapel. This meeting needs an opening prayer and a person to give a short spiritual talk. On some Saturdays, I assign these activities. On other Saturdays, the Sister Coordinator assigns sister ordinance workers.
• Following the prayer meeting we have a short training meeting followed by a look at the schedule. I then hand out the work schedule to all the brothers present (after making changes for people who didn’t show up and for people who were there unexpectedly).
• The rest of the day is spent handling scheduling and other issues that occur during the shift. Today we had plenty of help and a very light patron load, so there weren’t many issues and none of any import.
• Finally, I close up the back end of the temple, turn off the lights, check the closets and ordinance rooms, and make sure that everyone has left the back part of the temple. Then it’s off to home.

By then, I’m plenty tired and my feet are very happy for me to be sitting in the car for the hour’s drive home. Bradica (the dog) is also very happy to see us when we finally arrive home, but mostly so she can get outside to do her business and then get something to eat.

So that’s my end of the week. A downer day on Thursday, cleanup from that on Friday, followed by a very pleasant afternoon in the Denver Temple. The day was capped by coming home to find more than seven inches of snow! Only bad part is, because of the snow I’ll have to be at Church at 7:15 a.m. to help shovel the sidewalks. Ugh.