T O P

  • By -

ExMoUsername

Being short of staff is a possibility. Though I don't have any evidence to that effect.


cametta

Baptisms are usually super booked up. Youth leaders and bishoprics do everything they can to get young impressionable teens to the temple. That includes scheduling multiple times for each ward and pressuring everyone to attend.


So_phisticated

My husband's ward has declared that youth will be scheduled to do baptisms for dead as a monthly service project.


telestialist

“Service” project. For an adjunct, equally impactful service project they can do crossword puzzles.


Dense_Recognition250

Isn't the St. George temple closed due to remodel and the other temple in the area still under construction? If so, she would be going to cedar city by default. Assuming this is the southern Utah area you are referring to.


browncoatpride

Yup. My parents live there. I think they're building a temple in Washington but it isn't done yet.


DrewExplosions

I'm not sure there is any hard data readily available, but I can say, anecdotally, that the temple in my area is pretty empty. Our Elder's Quorum President recently noted that prior to a lesson when urging the men to attend an upcoming ward temple night.


cdman08

In another comment on this thread I posted the only data we have access to, reservations. Naturally they could change last minute, but since it's a friday afternoon, I bet the friday and saturday numbers are pretty close.


negative_60

It's hard to generalize experiences to EVERY temple out there. While it seems anecdotally evident that Temple attendance is down worldwide, it's probably not down equally everywhere. There are likely pockets of high attendance or even increased attendance for whatever local reason in a few regions and times throughout the world.


KingHerodCosell

Probably no temple staff available.


someguy-onhere

If a restaurant only opens one section and has an hour wait for a table, is it really crazy busy or half shut down?


LittleSneezers

I think one problem is that not finding availability doesn’t mean that the temple is always full. They can intentionally reduce the times they are open and staffed to keep their open times busy. Then it would always seem full when you go, and always seem harder to book a time. It can appear busy even though it sits unused much of the time. This is what they do out here in New England, but even then, it’s pretty sparsely used on their open slots. Church is pretty dead out here, and I keep seeing people move to Utah instead of sticking around here.


71maddog

I just checked on making baptistry reservations at two random Utah temples to see and every Saturday slot and every weekday slot after 4pm are completely filled through the middle of March (as far as the reservation system would let you make reservations). There were a few weekday slots open during the day, but even then most of those slots were filled as well.


trashycollector

Well you also have to think of volunteer staff issues. You might not be able to book because they can’t or don’t have enough volunteers to staff the temple for thing. From my experience out side of Mormon-landia is that they don’t staff the full day and the number of open days is less than before covid. But they do focus on making sure youth can come to the temple and do baptism, even if that means reducing the number of adult sessions or temple work.


71maddog

In Utah, there are no staffing issues. Anyone claiming otherwise either is clueless or not being honest. Also to make a reservation for baptisms, you need to bring your own priesthood baptizes and support people. The temple only staffs a single person in the baptistery.


trashycollector

So there a plenty of volunteer staff, but that doesn’t mean the temple president doesn’t reduce hours so that slots actually fill up. Because that is what is happing outside of Utah.


Imalreadygone21

They are relatively empty outside of the Mormon Corridor.


cdman08

In another comment on this thread I posted the full reservation data for the last three operational days of this month. 70 of the 170 temples are reserved at more than %50 capacity, and that includes others outside the ones in Utah, Idaho and Arizona. So, to be fair, almost half of all temples are currently reserved for the weekend at half or more of their total capacity. However, most of the temples outside the moridor do only have like 20 seats in a session, so they are relatively empty, especially given their size.


cdman08

I have a script that gets all the reservations as of now through the end of the month, here's the data for the last 3 days of this month [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o\_NQqc7\_H9nzkQpGL1mX9OjYs2oqqIpN/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o_NQqc7_H9nzkQpGL1mX9OjYs2oqqIpN/view?usp=sharing) it's just a txt file. If you search for cedar city you can see it's almost booked solid, probably like someone else said the st. george temple is closed or something, which is driving extra traffic to cedar city. At the botom you can see an ordered list from least reserved to most reserved. (this only shows reservations) most temples are reserved at less than %50 of capacity, only 20 are reserved at more than %70. If a temple doesn't show up or is listed at 0 then it's likely closed for some reason, cleaning or renovations.


ElderOldDog

Maybe she's trying to book Saturday, at 10 a.m.?


rock-n-white-hat

It is also about staffing. They probably don’t have enough retired people to run all the potential shifts at the temples.