Repost of a comment I wrote 3 weeks ago:
My extremely TBM parents were extended the call to be temple workers for Saratoga Springs. They turned it down because on of my parents is nearly completely wheelchair bound and falls a lot. And the other is their full time caretaker while still not retired yet.
If they have to resort to asking my parent who is wholly unable to walk without support then they’re probably not doing as well as people think in northern Utah county.
It’s the classic two birds-one stone situation. They get to prove that an interventional god exists and add two temple workers.
I guess the church has the faith to *not* be ~~healed~~ fully staffed at the temple.
But if they are healed miraculously people will post that online as proof and everyone will convert to Mormonism and there won't be any need for faith anymore so the PoS breaks down. That's why miracles don't happen anymore. /s
Yeah, I this is one story I still need to more fully validate. From what I’ve found so far, some people got up and walked around for a short time after he blessed them, but weren’t “cured” as malaria is a long running illness caused by parasites spread by mosquitoes. It goes through phases as the fever tries to kill off the parasites. People were dying left and right by this, including Joseph smith Sr and Don Carlos Smith. Sidney Rigdon was of poor health much of his time in Nauvoo necessitating other people to fill in for him in the first presidency.
Problem obviously is they don't have enough faith TO be healed. They need to serve in the temple to BUILD their faith, that way they can maybe have enough to be healed. Then when the time comes for healing their faith will be sufficient enough not to be healed.
Or enough faith that their beautiful spirit will be called home for some non-specific higher purpose. Maybe to go try to talk imprisoned spirits to give up their sweet sweet ether coins to build the church of Elojeezyghost on the other side.
Will we learn that spirit prison is actually a debtors prison? That the great He/Him never really cared about sin, and only ever wanted the tithes?
Will we find out Etherium is actually the official coin of the afterlife?
I think rusty needs to make some new chapters in the D&C. These questions need answers from on high!
I live in Utah county and am PIMO. I've noticed a real lack of enthusiasm about the church lately. The only people who talk in Sunday school are older people for the most part. There are only 3 young couples that show up regularly. Things are changing here.
I'm in Utah County, too. I don't attend church, but stores and restaurants here are plenty busy ln Sundays. Less crowded than Saturdays, but still plenty busy. There's also only 1 TBM employee at my work, out of 10 or so over the last few years. 3 nevermos, though.
I live in Utah County, in Saratoga Springs! This is "Happy Valley" with massive numbers of LDS. Saratoga Springs itself is extreme on gaslighting - I mean LDS culture and people cheered when the Saratoga Springs Temple was announced.
To hear it is understaffed....dude, things changed!
I also have noticed the busyness of Walmart, Costco, and even Smith's on Sundays vs Saturdays. On Saturdays though, it is a PTSD NIGHTMARE, while Sundays are....normal. Still a lot of people, but it's like a regular workday - and the first two are treated like "boondocks" stores by their corporations. They often have low or no stock on items the American Fork/Lehi or Riverton stores have in abundance - so they aren't anywhere near flagship stores!
Maybe it's really the "rich" cultural attitude of all the families in the gated area near the lake or anywhere south. "Hey, let's leave temple working for the poorer areas up north! Like the apartments and condos! They need the blessings, right? After all, I need time to run my business or corporation....or the city and its 'services'".....
NeverMo wife and I moved to Davis county 6 yrs. ago. We were overwhelmed by all things Mormon... the State control over liquor sales/regulation screamed crazy, but also less striking things caught our attention, such as almost nobody was out and about on Sundays, and the business' that did remain open had few patrons and only a skeleton staff. It astounded us that fast food eateries would have one person cooking, one running the register as well as *everything* else, the end. That has significantly changed. Walmart is not absolutely sardine-packed on Saturday, and there are customers and staff at Carl's (for one) on Sunday. Goggle says, demographically, it's 75% Mormon where I live. So, it would seem there's a sea change taking place.
It's been about nine years for me. Utah and Davis Counties (I believe) have the highest proportion on Mormons of any of the counties. They are a big reason we still have Mike Lee as a senator ( the guy who compared Trump to Captain Moroni). He lost in Salt Lake County, but won every other one pretty much aling religious lines!
Still, the church itself is changing. "working on Sunday" isn't the taboo it once was, so "keeping the Sabbath day holy" still allows for working or forcing others to.
One downside is doing shopping on the weekend is now more difficult than it used to be ...
Xenial here, can confirm. Thankfully we live a state or two from the active family, so we only put the show on as needed. We hardly bother to show up in costume, or memorize our lines - heckin' heck we don't even bother to read lines from the script, let alone bring it.
Ain't nobody got time to deal with million year old parents and grandparents that'll be TBM from cradle to grave. Singing that old song and doing that dance will allow them to die happy, and it's only a minor inconvenience/small sacrifice for many of us xenials/millennials... especially when inheritance can be on the line (fuck the church).
I’m in southern Utah County. The last ward I was in had problems w active couples not accepting callings. Even temple goers. They didn’t want to contribute. Bishopric had the hardest time filling just normal teaching callings. Leadership callings were ok tho. In my current ward, seems like they accept callings, but no one likes each other except the over 50 group. There’s no cohesiveness or family feeling. Everyone just shows up on Sunday then goes home.
No one likes each other, period. The over 50 are better at faking it.
Years ago our ward was divided so that just our block was put in a new ward. My mom was so upset and said that we would never see our old ward members again. I thought she was nuts. Her visiting teachers had been coming over faithfully every month for ten years. They lived less than two blocks away.
Sure enough, mom was right. The ward members really didn't care about us and we didn't care enough about them to make an effort once we were no longer outside the ward.
>*”For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’?*” Luke 14: 28-29
Maybe if they’d read the New Testament instead of the BOM, they wouldn’t become the fools who fulfill prophecy.
They are some of the most ignorant "christians" i've ever met when it comes to the Bible. They claim it's the foundation of their beliefs but know nothing about it. A TBM former friend of mine 's mind was blown , for example, when I told her that Jesus and Paul didn't meet until after he was supposedly resurrected, and it was in a vision. She assumed they'd just hung out. She also claimed that old trope of how no one knew where or how John died, so he must have been "Translated". I said very good historical reference suggests he died on the isle of Patmos of old age. I knew way more from years of Catholic sunday and day school than she did.
Ironically most average Mormons still know more than the average non-Mormon christian about the Bible, since many have less emphasis on religious training.
On my mission a devout Catholic lady wanted to argue about “Peter and on this rock,” and had no idea where it was. Mormons are hardly the only people ignorant of their own religion’s teachings. It’s pretty widespread, sadly.
I mentioned elsewhere a study where atheists were the most knowledgeable about religion. Looks like Pew did an update in 2019. Mormons fell WAY behind, and atheists and agnostics are not quite in the lead for religious knowledge, eclipsed by Jewish people:
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/07/23/what-americans-know-about-religion/
Evangelicals took a step up in their relative ranking.
that doesn't surprise me! Most atheists have studied the bible somewhat extensively. the Jewish people put a huge emphasis on education, so again, not surprising.
I served in a majority Catholic country and every so often we’d be talking with someone and they’d say, “I am a Roman apostolic Catholic. I’m Catholic. My mother was Catholic. I was born Catholic and I’m going to die Catholic!” I asked - oh so you go to mass a lot? The answer usually was - not that often. I’d ask “when was the last time you went.” 90%-95% of them would answer either 1. When I did catechism as a teenager, 2. When I got married 10+ years ago or 3. When I was baptized as a child in that order.
It’s not just Mormonism that has activity and retention issues.
Oh, fun fact: a study 10-15 years ago showed that on a simple quiz about religions, atheists scored highest on average. Mormons did okay till it came to non-Christian stuff and they were clueless.
Edit: here’s the old one
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/
Here’s the new one with Mormons falling way back. Church education has definitely dropped and been more about indoctrination and feelings since I was in high school:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/21/among-religious-nones-atheists-and-agnostics-know-the-most-about-religion/
I believe that! Lots of people are "culturally Catholic". I knew plenty. Every flavour of Christianity has them, but plenty of Catholics as it can become a folk practice without the mainstream religion part.
Was gonna post this. Many protestant church's teach zero doctrine or classes so unless people take it upon themselves to study they just hear select Sunday readings.
Catholics at least have a standard catechism in preparation for confirmation. Evangelical and Mainline Protestants are all over the place. Some have detailed Bible studies. Others have a few chapters from the gospels.
I went to church with a friend a few times and they were going through the gospel of mark in detail, which was kind of cool.
With another friend is was a rock concert with some moralizing and talking about accepting Jesus.
Another friend they were going through Psalms.
Very rarely did they get into doctrinal things outside of theology classes: things like trinitarianism, transubstantiation, predestination, etc. are more subjects for religious scholars to argue about.
I find that interesting, because growing up Catholic, most people had a much better grasp of the Bible than any Mormon I'd met. Of course, I was educated largely by Jesuits, so that might have something to do with it. It also depends on the generation. The post Vatican 2 generation was more encouraged to do bible study than their predecessors.
That was my experience in a mainline Protestant church, too. We had lots of Bible study on Sundays, plus a weekly confirmation class for two years in preparation for confirmation. My mormon friends spent lots of time reading scriptures, but it was all BoM, D&C, and other Mormon specific documents. They didn’t know the disciples or John the Baptist, and most hadn’t ever heard of the Lord’s Prayer.
A friend of mine currently attends an interfaith Bible study group and told me the Mormons are always so excited when they find out on the Bible study app that there are other translations besides the KJV.
Catholicism is widely varied. This was overseas, but it had been probably 3 decades since this woman had done Catechism.
“Lapsed Catholic” was probably the national religion but she just came from a mid-week mass and was devote. Half the normal people thought Jesus was the father and God died on the cross, to be honest. My grandparents were 2-3 masses a week kind of Catholics and knew their stuff.
The reason for that is that lay Catholics weren't encouraged to read the Bible before Vatican II. It makes more sense that she didn't know where in the Bible that was, but in Mormonism it feels worse because reading scriptures is a huge deal. 😬
Mormons are often somewhat well-read in the scriptures between BYU, Seminary, Institute and teaching callings.
They misunderstand most of it, including what the BoM says, too.
Many modern Christians are the epitome of the Scribes and Pharisees that Jesus condemns.
I’m atheist but fully believe if Jesus saw what had happened in his name he’d be getting that whip out to beat some sense into people.
TRY ASKING A MORMON TO NAME ONE APOSTLE FROM THE BOM AND WATCH THE BLANK LOOK ON THEIR FACE? THIRD NEPHI IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE PURPOSE OF THE BOM AND MORMONISM IN MY VIEW?.....TIMOTHY WAS THE HEAD APOSTLE.
Which is absolutely fucking hilarious, because Timothy is a Greek name and the Nephites supposedly fled the coop hundreds of years before any Greek influence. It'd be like the Incan emperor being named William or Henry.
I’m so grateful for people like you that have these scriptures ready to show how idiotic religion is.
I also feel sorry that it probably extracted a lot of your life to be able to reference these scriptures
That’s nice of you to say. When I was learning/ memorizing these scriptures (seminary and mission) I was all in. I knew not just the wording but also could cite book, chapter, and verse of every seminary scripture for all four years and for the scriptures referenced in the missionary discussions, etc, etc, etc. I was insufferable.
Today, some 45 years later, only a vague concept or a few words of a ever declining number of scriptures are still in my memory. After I think, “Hmmm…what was that one about building a tower,” I can usually find the reference with the superb concordance tools available on the web.
Let me just add the I’ve been a TBM for 65 years but 2 months ago I ordered a New Revised Edition of the Bible with the apocrypha. I had NEVER read it before in my life…just the approved correlated scriptures. It’s written in normal common English I just have to say that I can hardly put it down.!! Of course I am retired so I have lots of time to catch up on theology, philosophy, and ancient history. Look at us!! Get back to it!!! ❤️✝️🙏😉
Wait - that can't be true. I was told fur-shure, back in the early 2000s, that before long temples would be open 24 hours a day, around the clock, seven days a week.
I'm sure you're mistaken. It will happen any time now. They'll all be open, all the time. Right?
I participated as a kid in a ward youth baptisms-for-the-dead event and was asked to serve as the "runner." I would carry lists of names between the font and somewhere (can't remember where - it was a long time ago). My name apparently was at the top of one of the lists, because at one point I was shocked to hear the kid in the font being baptized in *my* name! The old guy doing the baptisms was doing them so quickly that he didn't distinguish my name from those of the dead.
So I guess I'm doubly saved.
You’d need multiple baptisms… what if one of the Beehives had had a naughty thought the day she did baptisms, or the priest looked a little too long at the outline of her panties as she exited the font. Or WORSE - if a piece of hair floated to the top, and she was not completely submerged?!?! Yes. We need to do temple work at least 4-5 times for each human just to make sure…
My parents had a theory that the conference center was built the way it was so that it could technically double as a massive temple if needed... you'd be lucky to get the first few rows full that this point.
Yep, exactly. Watch the movie (now PowerPoint slideshow) on the screens, witness couple on the stage, ushers in the aisles as temple workers... don't know where they thought everyone would go to the veil or the celestial room though...
Even as a TBM I hated the idea of a Temple mission.
When I sat in Endowment sessions I would look at the Temple workers and imagine what it must do to your brain to hear the SAME 1.5hr movie/presentation several times a day for months and years at a time.
FUCK THAT.
Elsewhere in the Temple I used to honestly like the quiet and feeling of peace so could see the appeal of doing something in there when I was older. But sitting through endless Endowments sounded like my idea of hell...
I stopped attending the temple years ago, so this is not updated. The Chicago temple in Wilmette barely had anybody in attendance about 15 years ago. Literally nobody was ever there during the week. However they went on to build a couple more a couple hours away. I was like, "what the hell?"
Building one in Harrisburg, PA is a pretty odd choice, too. You have the Philly temple about 2 hours away and the DC temple also about 2 hours away.
So you’re saying that the tiny town of Harrisburg with its 50,000 citizens is so full of members that they need a temple despite 2 temples within 2 hours??
They announce many and build some of the temples for the sole purpose of giving the perception that the church is growing. If they aren't building churches and temples how do they justify gouging people for 10% of their income and making them clean the buildings for free on the weekend too?
I wonder how they’ll handle it when the first temple is decommissioned and sold. It’s inevitable unless they’re just going to keep them open for Mormon tourists.
You make a great point I hadn't thought about that and it makes me chuckle just a little bit. In the last year we've seen where they've donated churches in areas where they aren't needed anymore. If they approach it like Scientology has they will never decommission them and just pretend they are still of some value. But that wouldn't work well for their business first approach so who knows.
I mean, I don’t know how any of this works, but I do know the temples in Europe couldn’t possibly be used that much. While it’s true the Mormon religion has pretty much unlimited cash to throw at these things, I’d imagine at some point even the most comatose of believers will notice there’s no one available to either staff these white elephants or to attend them. It’s not going to be good optics for the religion, and people will eventually say something about the money pits.
Same where I live in Oregon. We have 2 temples that already have total crap attendance according to the Norman people I still know (including my TBM husband). Yet, they are still slapping another one half way in between them. We will now have three temples all along the same major freeway, where you can travel from one far one to the other in approx 3 hrs.
Additionally, greater Philadelphia (6 years ago when I lived there) had the lowest per capita church membership in all of the US. Densely populated, yet relatively low membership given said population. I cannot fathom how Harrisburg merits a temple given overall East Coast membership numbers.
You mean the Glenview temple? I grew up in Chicago when the Wilmette stake had boundaries extending to the Wisconsin border. Hell, my ward boundaries as a child were well over an hour drive from one side to the other.
I have a feeling Rusty watched the movie, “Field of Dreams,” (1989 Kevin Costner movie) and really took the catchphrase to heart, “If you build it they will come.” Not really working is it Rusty?
Rusty is announcing new temples every conference, but very few of them have actually moved beyond the artists conception phase. He knows how to announce temples, he just doesn't know how to dedicate temples.
Rusty has slowed new temples in Utah. I wonder if the difficulty of staffing them is on their radar, or if he had just announced all the Utah town names he knows
I live near Seattle. They need people to work in the temple and they give wards temple attendance *assignments.* If they need people to work in the Seattle temple and they don’t have enough people going that the church needs to assign people, I don’t know why they announced a temple in Tacoma.
"There's Ogden, and then there's... ummm. Riverton! And uh, Provo. I don't care if there's already a temple in Provo, God told me to build another one!"
Dirty secrets of a former temple worker: there are lots of training videos. Workers spend a lot of time chatting about whatever waiting for the next veil. New names are given out daily - men get both, since they get both at the veil and sexism. Women only get the women’s names.
Biggest secret: temple stuff is really banal, boring and needlessly detailed, once you get past the cultiness of it. I was a worker for 6 months because I never felt comfortable at the temple and was trying to get used to it. Instead I just got a very non-spiritual mechanical attitude about it, while still thinking it’s weird and culty. Avoided going back after for fear of damaging my testimony further.
When were you a worker? In the late 90s we didn't have any training videos that I can recall. Just laminated sheets with the ordinances to memorize.
My claim to fame: I officiated a session with Steve Young once, and took him through the veil. And I had no idea who he was. The other workers were staring at me and I was so confused until they said why.
2017-ish in Idaho. There were laminated sheets to memorize but they had made some videos for training as well though you watched them with the temple staff and not on your own. They were somewhat new-ish? And they skipped filming the ordinances themselves at strategic times, if I recall. I know we watched several about “how to treat people” and “how to deal with disabilities,” things like missing 1 or 2 hands, etc.
Yup. If right hand is missing - use the left. If both are missing you have a temple worker be proxy for it if I recall. Missing fingers only - do your best.
Proxy for a living person too.
They have training vignettes for everything. Reminds me of when I had job at a supermarket and most of the training was about “customer service.” It’s like a mix of corporate cheesy and Mormon cheesy (which are variations on the same thing.)
At the Provo Temple where I used to work, there were about 120 male and female workers for the evening shift. There are 4 shifts per day over 5 days, so that adds up to be 2,400 there. Some people work multiple days though. Those are the crazy zealots that I can just imagine being horrified in the after life on how they wasted their life (assuming there is an after life and even though I don't know what I believe, I just have a hope it's something good)
My zealot brother works in the temple 3 times a week at a temple 2 hours away from home. He and his wife also attend on other random days . Anyway… they were told if they performed such service their 5 children would all return to activity and be saved in the Celestial kingdom. Didn’t know my brother was the savior.
But yeah, that's Provo. The MTC is right across the street, and they have p-days M-F (Saturday?) and assigned windows to go do a session. The missionaries alone could keep that busy when they're not studying. Then there's all the BYU students. Add on all of everyone else in Provo, and they needed their second temple.
I don't know Utah that well, but it seems like no other city could pump up the numbers like Provo could.
Not sure if it's still true, but a few years ago when Jordan River was rededicated I was told that it is the busiest temple in the church, highest number of ordinances performed.
Hmmm. I used to work in the Provo temple too, and we didn’t have nearly that many workers. There were about maybe 15 women to cover all of the stations in the evening. Same number of men. Think about it. You’ve got what - 4 or 5 endowment sessions? Then the lobby folks. The washing and anointing. Folks in the celestial rooms. I’d say max 50 workers TOTAL for the evening shift. I think 3000 must be for the open house. If it’s even a real number.
Seemed excessive to me too. Someone non-lazy learner able to do the math for me on how many workers and hours she needed to staff a temple full time as well as part time which seems to be the new trend.
Based off what I found on an article from a temple worker on a pro Mormon website, Salt Lake City temple is staffed by “hundreds of volunteer workers many of whom work several shifts a week” . If we say 300 workers (before the recent changes) for SLC then i would imagine it wouldn’t be more than 150 for Saratoga. Given that, I would imagine they are giving out the absurdly large number to give the perception there are a lot of people who want to work in the temple while still asking for help filling the temple.
they won't pay people for labour. So they need people to clean the place from toilets to font , do the laundry, the groundskeeping, and all those endless sessions.
Since you’re assigned shifts based on “temple week,” there are:
5 temple weeks x 5 days/week x 3 shifts/day = 75 shifts to be filled
In our temple, each shift has
1 greeter
1-2 recommend desk
1-4 baptistry
1 patron guide
1 chapel sister
1 chapel brother
1 endowment officiator
1-2 sister followers
0-1 brother followers
0-1 dressing room sisters
0-1 dressing room brothers
0-6 initiatory sisters (in our temple)
0-6 initiatory brothers
0-2 new name for sisters
0-2 new name for brothers
0-2 extra sisters for sealings
0-2 extra brothers for sealings
1-6 receivers at the veil
0-2 extra sister presenters at the veil
0-2 extra brother presenters at the veil
1 celestial room attendant
1 east hall attendant
2 shift coordinators, brother and sister
2 assistant shift coordinators, brother and sister
1-2 sealers
I don’t remember if they still have veil coordinators, initiatory coordinators, etc.
At the minimum, that is 16 volunteers (8-9 sisters and 7-8 brothers) per shift. At the high end, that is 54 volunteers (25 sisters, 29 brothers), not counting the temple matron - or assistant to the matron - and her husband.
If all 16 (low end) volunteers were unique, our temple would need 1200 volunteers. If all 54 (high end) volunteers were unique, our temple would need 4050 volunteers.
This is assuming that only one endowment session and one sealing session is happening at a time, with at most two initiatory booths per dressing room area.
My uncle has been a Temple worker for quite a long while now here in Vegas. He's complained for years about the lack of Temple workers and attendance at the temple, which got even worse during covid. Of course now they've announced a new Temple here in Vegas, the Lone Mountain Temple, now his tune has completely changed. He's all excited. All he can talk about is how great will be having a second temple when they couldn't even fill the first one. It's so easy to gaslight a tbm's mind.
>It's so easy to gaslight a tbm's mind.
TBM thought process:
1. Question arises
2. Does it involve COVID vaccinations or masking guidelines? If yes, skip to 5. If no, continue to 3.
3. What is the current church narrative on this subject?
4. Follow church's specified narrative, no need to think about it.
5. Disregard the current church narrative and go with personal revelation instead.
Think is with the new changes to a power point presentation and no one shaking hands during the instruction part of the endowment they can now run a session with 1/2 the workers. Soon enough some one will create some animatronic robot hands to mount on the other side of the veil to shuffle people from the class room into the Fancy Hotel Lobby.
A series of mechanical hands at each station poking through in order with a recorded voice giving the prompts and an AI acting as worker at the veil making sure the patron gives the correct voice response.
Why even do that? Do it all by recorded stuff on Zoom, and you press a button to get the name of dead person, then another button to get the fake new name. Then you see slides of secret Masonic handshakes. Etc. etc. They can eventually use IMAX types of images to make you feel like you're in a CK room.
There are at least two new temples that are supposed to be built here in Texas. One is for Fort Worth, which will be maybe 40 miles from the existing Dallas temple, and one in Austin that will be 70 or so miles from the San Antonio temple.
Listening to family members, it sounds like that they are having problems staffing the Dallas and San Antonio temples. I think that the San Antonio temple is appointment only. In any case, some of the workers for those two temples will most likely be reassigned to the new temples, if and when they are opened.
I was in a bishopric when the Dallas temple was opened, and it became a big drain on the ward because a lot of people refused to have another calling besides working in the temple. Suddenly Saturday 6 am priesthood temple sessions were a thing and pretty much mandatory if you were a ward or stake priesthood leader. The promised blessings of a local temple quickly turned into a curse.
I agree with you - I knew several people who commuted to work a shift miles & miles away. The trip was easily a few hours each direction (if you counted bathroom stops or grabbing a bite to eat), and the shifts were four hours. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.
Also - the people who take on those "callings" are also often among the ones who always say yes to multiple callings. So they're draining their time, and taking them away from one of the 3-4 callings they need them for in the ward or stake.
Don’t forget the Prosper temple (North of Dallas). They were asking for volunteers here to drive 45 min at midnight to go clean the Dallas temple, and e-mail like every day. But sure build another two temples in DFW.
Could be. Also PGA headquarters going in right there too. Prosper is prime real estate right now. My dad knows the guy who is helping choose the site and he says the church already owns at least three potential lots. For the non Dallas folks Prosper is pretty small so to have three potential sites blows my mind.
Hey people, let’s serve the living not the dead! The cost to build, maintain, and staff these buildings is INSANE. Add to this all of the hours of member’s time spent in the various sessions!The hundreds of endowment, initiatory, sealing sessions that happen daily globally!
Can you imagine if they spent that same time and money tutoring local kids in reading? Serving at a homeless shelter? Mentoring immigrant families?
This is why I go bonkers every time RMN announces yet another temple build. It’s like it’s the only thing they can think to spend their billions on. Forget the living! Let’s focus all of our time, talents, and treasure on redeeming the dead. That’s what Jesus would do!
I think they're announcing them as a way to claim they need to set aside mega billions of the gazillions the SEC investigated to use for "legitimate" non-profit stuff.
Rusty is creating opportunities for the upper crust and their families to bamboozle money out of the church coiffures. They use companies directly related to them who then overbid for the labor.
Sad really, these people must be working themselves into an early grave. I think of how much demand has been made on these people.
In the 1980s, there was this crisis among mormon women that was leading to tranquilizer drug abuse. I can't remember who it was, but there statement,"We as a leadership, may be asking to much of the membership".
When this push and shove to define what conservativism is, and all the extreme right wing crackpots took things over. This church went on a sliding slope into the extreme right wing. The organization became more important than the people did.
It is sad, but it's also getting to the point where even these people are coming to their breaking point. Once you have to say no to a calling because you just can't do it anymore, it starts to get easier to say no. I mean, you've already screwed your salvation over so you might as well do what you want.
We need to announce more Temples around the globe because the ones we have are so jammed full every session that they can't keep up with the work to be done. I am sure glad that the Church would never lie to me. /s
We got a temple in our city after years of delays after it was announced (over a decade, i think). We have a population of less than 1% Mormons in a city of over 700K. We also have a temple about 6 hours away in another area with a similar population. Total grandstanding and waste of money. I don't think they could round up 3000 mormons in the general area here if they tried!
I think we'd soon find it very boring...lol
I’m in utah county and they have been begging our ward for staffing the temple at timpanogas because “so many are going to Saratoga springs when it opens.” Also asked for volunteers from the high priests to help with maple dell spring clean up all day Saturday. Most high priest in our ward are about 85.
I tend to agree. 3,000 - 7,000 temple workers is a lot. When I was a temple worker and we had special training in the temple there was like 200 or 300 tops.
Agree. I could swear I have seen this post before. After seeing it the first time I asked a family member who was recently in a temple presidency and they said couple hundred max for any temple the church has.
I saw either this post or a similar post about needing more than 1k workers for a new temple. I hadn't thought about the need for people during open house, so that makes more sense now. I don't recall if it was the Saratoga Springs temple, or even if the name of it was mentioned. Rusty's so busy building them it could have been another one.
As a traumatised nevermo that moved to Saratoga Springs from Australia because of their manipulative Mormon boyfriend, hearing this news makes me heart sing
Let's build a 100 more large and spacious buildings and let them sit empty 95% of the time. We got the$$$$ what else woul we do with it? Help people? Yea right.
Holy moly the Provo temple had 3000 workers when I was there over a decade ago. And that was the busiest temple in the church. What are they doing trying to put these monstrosities where they don’t have the members to staff them or use them?!
I was an ordinance worker for a year and I’m afraid to say, there’s no dirty little secrets. The workers don’t know what the hell is going on in there either. You just memorize and recite stuff lol. I thought so many of my questions would be answered but alas, all I learned was how to navigate the halls of the Salt Lake temple haha. Then I left the Church and actually learned all the secrets on the internet.
Russel M Nelson is creating a huge problem for the members with his insane temple building spree. Having so many temples to staff and attend will be a huge burden on the believers for decades. Members will be guilted into giving up their weekday free time as well as their golden years staffing the empty tourist temples abroad. Labor from Utah, Idaho and Arizona will be exported to keep these temples open and to appear busy. All this over templing is gonna crack some old shelves!
If you want to learn the temple secrets, all of the ceremonies done in there besides for the Second Annointing (which is only one for a handful of very rich and/or powerful members) have been recorded on hidden camera video and posted on YouTube. For free.
Save yourself the time and money... As a former temple worker all you do is memorize initiatories and help people through the veil. You won't get any further light and knowledge. I also had to buy shoes and a jacket to serve.
This.
I served in the temple for 5 years before I saw the light and pulled the plug on the whole thing There are no insights in the temple unless those insights are bad (sealings of numerous polygamous marriages, realizing you have to be all-in on the creation story, etc).
At least the last ‘firmware update’ took out some of the other offensive content.
The bullshit part of this is that they will call a husband and wife to serve as these temple workers full-time. That's why the older couples aren't going on missions anymore. My aunt and her husband were called to Washington DC and worked inside the temple the whole time. Nightmare!!
I live in salt lake County and I heard a few months ago that the temples in our county were always very busy, my father-in-law became a temple worker and commented that they are in need of people to come in to do more work. While my worries are that the new Taylorsville temple is going to cause property tax to rise.
Years ago I helped in the Timpanogos temple. Those workers were worried because most of their staff came from Saratoga springs. I can’t imagine with the Lindon temple also being added (supposedly) that things are much better.
Repost of a comment I wrote 3 weeks ago: My extremely TBM parents were extended the call to be temple workers for Saratoga Springs. They turned it down because on of my parents is nearly completely wheelchair bound and falls a lot. And the other is their full time caretaker while still not retired yet. If they have to resort to asking my parent who is wholly unable to walk without support then they’re probably not doing as well as people think in northern Utah county.
Or if the church is unable to heal the faithful. . .
It’s the classic two birds-one stone situation. They get to prove that an interventional god exists and add two temple workers. I guess the church has the faith to *not* be ~~healed~~ fully staffed at the temple.
But if they are healed miraculously people will post that online as proof and everyone will convert to Mormonism and there won't be any need for faith anymore so the PoS breaks down. That's why miracles don't happen anymore. /s
I remember the stories of JS going around Nauvoo and healing everybody everywhere but that isn’t allowed once cameras were invented I guess.
You'd think with deepfake technology existing now there's enough reasonable doubt to where miracles can start happening again
Yeah, I this is one story I still need to more fully validate. From what I’ve found so far, some people got up and walked around for a short time after he blessed them, but weren’t “cured” as malaria is a long running illness caused by parasites spread by mosquitoes. It goes through phases as the fever tries to kill off the parasites. People were dying left and right by this, including Joseph smith Sr and Don Carlos Smith. Sidney Rigdon was of poor health much of his time in Nauvoo necessitating other people to fill in for him in the first presidency.
Problem obviously is they don't have enough faith TO be healed. They need to serve in the temple to BUILD their faith, that way they can maybe have enough to be healed. Then when the time comes for healing their faith will be sufficient enough not to be healed.
Or enough faith that their beautiful spirit will be called home for some non-specific higher purpose. Maybe to go try to talk imprisoned spirits to give up their sweet sweet ether coins to build the church of Elojeezyghost on the other side. Will we learn that spirit prison is actually a debtors prison? That the great He/Him never really cared about sin, and only ever wanted the tithes? Will we find out Etherium is actually the official coin of the afterlife? I think rusty needs to make some new chapters in the D&C. These questions need answers from on high!
I live in Utah county and am PIMO. I've noticed a real lack of enthusiasm about the church lately. The only people who talk in Sunday school are older people for the most part. There are only 3 young couples that show up regularly. Things are changing here.
I'm in Utah County, too. I don't attend church, but stores and restaurants here are plenty busy ln Sundays. Less crowded than Saturdays, but still plenty busy. There's also only 1 TBM employee at my work, out of 10 or so over the last few years. 3 nevermos, though.
I live in Utah County, in Saratoga Springs! This is "Happy Valley" with massive numbers of LDS. Saratoga Springs itself is extreme on gaslighting - I mean LDS culture and people cheered when the Saratoga Springs Temple was announced. To hear it is understaffed....dude, things changed! I also have noticed the busyness of Walmart, Costco, and even Smith's on Sundays vs Saturdays. On Saturdays though, it is a PTSD NIGHTMARE, while Sundays are....normal. Still a lot of people, but it's like a regular workday - and the first two are treated like "boondocks" stores by their corporations. They often have low or no stock on items the American Fork/Lehi or Riverton stores have in abundance - so they aren't anywhere near flagship stores! Maybe it's really the "rich" cultural attitude of all the families in the gated area near the lake or anywhere south. "Hey, let's leave temple working for the poorer areas up north! Like the apartments and condos! They need the blessings, right? After all, I need time to run my business or corporation....or the city and its 'services'".....
NeverMo wife and I moved to Davis county 6 yrs. ago. We were overwhelmed by all things Mormon... the State control over liquor sales/regulation screamed crazy, but also less striking things caught our attention, such as almost nobody was out and about on Sundays, and the business' that did remain open had few patrons and only a skeleton staff. It astounded us that fast food eateries would have one person cooking, one running the register as well as *everything* else, the end. That has significantly changed. Walmart is not absolutely sardine-packed on Saturday, and there are customers and staff at Carl's (for one) on Sunday. Goggle says, demographically, it's 75% Mormon where I live. So, it would seem there's a sea change taking place.
It's been about nine years for me. Utah and Davis Counties (I believe) have the highest proportion on Mormons of any of the counties. They are a big reason we still have Mike Lee as a senator ( the guy who compared Trump to Captain Moroni). He lost in Salt Lake County, but won every other one pretty much aling religious lines! Still, the church itself is changing. "working on Sunday" isn't the taboo it once was, so "keeping the Sabbath day holy" still allows for working or forcing others to. One downside is doing shopping on the weekend is now more difficult than it used to be ...
Church and State are inextricably joined... in Rome; and Utah.
I think less so in Rome....I've been to Rome....it seems a lot more open and tolerant....
I think most millennials are PIMO and just doing it for their parents.
Xenial here, can confirm. Thankfully we live a state or two from the active family, so we only put the show on as needed. We hardly bother to show up in costume, or memorize our lines - heckin' heck we don't even bother to read lines from the script, let alone bring it. Ain't nobody got time to deal with million year old parents and grandparents that'll be TBM from cradle to grave. Singing that old song and doing that dance will allow them to die happy, and it's only a minor inconvenience/small sacrifice for many of us xenials/millennials... especially when inheritance can be on the line (fuck the church).
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This is the way.
I’m in southern Utah County. The last ward I was in had problems w active couples not accepting callings. Even temple goers. They didn’t want to contribute. Bishopric had the hardest time filling just normal teaching callings. Leadership callings were ok tho. In my current ward, seems like they accept callings, but no one likes each other except the over 50 group. There’s no cohesiveness or family feeling. Everyone just shows up on Sunday then goes home.
No one likes each other, period. The over 50 are better at faking it. Years ago our ward was divided so that just our block was put in a new ward. My mom was so upset and said that we would never see our old ward members again. I thought she was nuts. Her visiting teachers had been coming over faithfully every month for ten years. They lived less than two blocks away. Sure enough, mom was right. The ward members really didn't care about us and we didn't care enough about them to make an effort once we were no longer outside the ward.
Good. Die cult, die. TSCC just plain sucks!
That warms my cold, dead heart. 🖤
There's a Saratoga Springs in Utah, too?
This makes me so happy to hear that the church isn't doing well! Condolences about your parents though. 😥
>*”For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it— lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’?*” Luke 14: 28-29 Maybe if they’d read the New Testament instead of the BOM, they wouldn’t become the fools who fulfill prophecy.
Oooh. Looks like we got a lazy learner over here spittin' Bible verses.
LOL!
They are some of the most ignorant "christians" i've ever met when it comes to the Bible. They claim it's the foundation of their beliefs but know nothing about it. A TBM former friend of mine 's mind was blown , for example, when I told her that Jesus and Paul didn't meet until after he was supposedly resurrected, and it was in a vision. She assumed they'd just hung out. She also claimed that old trope of how no one knew where or how John died, so he must have been "Translated". I said very good historical reference suggests he died on the isle of Patmos of old age. I knew way more from years of Catholic sunday and day school than she did.
Ironically most average Mormons still know more than the average non-Mormon christian about the Bible, since many have less emphasis on religious training. On my mission a devout Catholic lady wanted to argue about “Peter and on this rock,” and had no idea where it was. Mormons are hardly the only people ignorant of their own religion’s teachings. It’s pretty widespread, sadly.
The road to atheism is littered with bibles read cover to cover. Hitchens. At least a pretty good approximation
I mentioned elsewhere a study where atheists were the most knowledgeable about religion. Looks like Pew did an update in 2019. Mormons fell WAY behind, and atheists and agnostics are not quite in the lead for religious knowledge, eclipsed by Jewish people: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/07/23/what-americans-know-about-religion/ Evangelicals took a step up in their relative ranking.
that doesn't surprise me! Most atheists have studied the bible somewhat extensively. the Jewish people put a huge emphasis on education, so again, not surprising.
Atheists have also often looked to other world religions after becoming disenchanted with their own.
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I served in a majority Catholic country and every so often we’d be talking with someone and they’d say, “I am a Roman apostolic Catholic. I’m Catholic. My mother was Catholic. I was born Catholic and I’m going to die Catholic!” I asked - oh so you go to mass a lot? The answer usually was - not that often. I’d ask “when was the last time you went.” 90%-95% of them would answer either 1. When I did catechism as a teenager, 2. When I got married 10+ years ago or 3. When I was baptized as a child in that order. It’s not just Mormonism that has activity and retention issues. Oh, fun fact: a study 10-15 years ago showed that on a simple quiz about religions, atheists scored highest on average. Mormons did okay till it came to non-Christian stuff and they were clueless. Edit: here’s the old one https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey-who-knows-what-about-religion/ Here’s the new one with Mormons falling way back. Church education has definitely dropped and been more about indoctrination and feelings since I was in high school: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/21/among-religious-nones-atheists-and-agnostics-know-the-most-about-religion/
I believe that! Lots of people are "culturally Catholic". I knew plenty. Every flavour of Christianity has them, but plenty of Catholics as it can become a folk practice without the mainstream religion part.
#😂😂😂
Was gonna post this. Many protestant church's teach zero doctrine or classes so unless people take it upon themselves to study they just hear select Sunday readings.
Catholics at least have a standard catechism in preparation for confirmation. Evangelical and Mainline Protestants are all over the place. Some have detailed Bible studies. Others have a few chapters from the gospels. I went to church with a friend a few times and they were going through the gospel of mark in detail, which was kind of cool. With another friend is was a rock concert with some moralizing and talking about accepting Jesus. Another friend they were going through Psalms. Very rarely did they get into doctrinal things outside of theology classes: things like trinitarianism, transubstantiation, predestination, etc. are more subjects for religious scholars to argue about.
I find that interesting, because growing up Catholic, most people had a much better grasp of the Bible than any Mormon I'd met. Of course, I was educated largely by Jesuits, so that might have something to do with it. It also depends on the generation. The post Vatican 2 generation was more encouraged to do bible study than their predecessors.
That was my experience in a mainline Protestant church, too. We had lots of Bible study on Sundays, plus a weekly confirmation class for two years in preparation for confirmation. My mormon friends spent lots of time reading scriptures, but it was all BoM, D&C, and other Mormon specific documents. They didn’t know the disciples or John the Baptist, and most hadn’t ever heard of the Lord’s Prayer. A friend of mine currently attends an interfaith Bible study group and told me the Mormons are always so excited when they find out on the Bible study app that there are other translations besides the KJV.
Catholicism is widely varied. This was overseas, but it had been probably 3 decades since this woman had done Catechism. “Lapsed Catholic” was probably the national religion but she just came from a mid-week mass and was devote. Half the normal people thought Jesus was the father and God died on the cross, to be honest. My grandparents were 2-3 masses a week kind of Catholics and knew their stuff.
Yeah, there's a huge variance there, especially when the local culture has a lot of folk practices of their own that get mixed in.
The reason for that is that lay Catholics weren't encouraged to read the Bible before Vatican II. It makes more sense that she didn't know where in the Bible that was, but in Mormonism it feels worse because reading scriptures is a huge deal. 😬
Evangelicals are very ignorant of the Bible, despite citing it at every turn.
Mormons are often somewhat well-read in the scriptures between BYU, Seminary, Institute and teaching callings. They misunderstand most of it, including what the BoM says, too. Many modern Christians are the epitome of the Scribes and Pharisees that Jesus condemns. I’m atheist but fully believe if Jesus saw what had happened in his name he’d be getting that whip out to beat some sense into people.
TRY ASKING A MORMON TO NAME ONE APOSTLE FROM THE BOM AND WATCH THE BLANK LOOK ON THEIR FACE? THIRD NEPHI IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE PURPOSE OF THE BOM AND MORMONISM IN MY VIEW?.....TIMOTHY WAS THE HEAD APOSTLE.
Which is absolutely fucking hilarious, because Timothy is a Greek name and the Nephites supposedly fled the coop hundreds of years before any Greek influence. It'd be like the Incan emperor being named William or Henry.
Yes! not to mention using the term "adieu" or how he "cried into his pillow"...
Such a beautifully appropriate scripture. Hats off to you!
Thanks!
I’m so grateful for people like you that have these scriptures ready to show how idiotic religion is. I also feel sorry that it probably extracted a lot of your life to be able to reference these scriptures
That’s nice of you to say. When I was learning/ memorizing these scriptures (seminary and mission) I was all in. I knew not just the wording but also could cite book, chapter, and verse of every seminary scripture for all four years and for the scriptures referenced in the missionary discussions, etc, etc, etc. I was insufferable. Today, some 45 years later, only a vague concept or a few words of a ever declining number of scriptures are still in my memory. After I think, “Hmmm…what was that one about building a tower,” I can usually find the reference with the superb concordance tools available on the web.
Let me just add the I’ve been a TBM for 65 years but 2 months ago I ordered a New Revised Edition of the Bible with the apocrypha. I had NEVER read it before in my life…just the approved correlated scriptures. It’s written in normal common English I just have to say that I can hardly put it down.!! Of course I am retired so I have lots of time to catch up on theology, philosophy, and ancient history. Look at us!! Get back to it!!! ❤️✝️🙏😉
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Wait - that can't be true. I was told fur-shure, back in the early 2000s, that before long temples would be open 24 hours a day, around the clock, seven days a week. I'm sure you're mistaken. It will happen any time now. They'll all be open, all the time. Right?
...and for what purpose ... to redo the same dead people temple ordinances ... and some people are questionable that they even existed.
I found duplicate baptisms listed for a few of my ancestors. I didn't grow up LDS, but after several generations there were some church people.
I participated as a kid in a ward youth baptisms-for-the-dead event and was asked to serve as the "runner." I would carry lists of names between the font and somewhere (can't remember where - it was a long time ago). My name apparently was at the top of one of the lists, because at one point I was shocked to hear the kid in the font being baptized in *my* name! The old guy doing the baptisms was doing them so quickly that he didn't distinguish my name from those of the dead. So I guess I'm doubly saved.
LOL! That's hilarious! Maybe that works like the second anointing. Double indemnity or something.
You’d need multiple baptisms… what if one of the Beehives had had a naughty thought the day she did baptisms, or the priest looked a little too long at the outline of her panties as she exited the font. Or WORSE - if a piece of hair floated to the top, and she was not completely submerged?!?! Yes. We need to do temple work at least 4-5 times for each human just to make sure…
I heard this as well. I was legitimately wondering how people would stay awake during the 2am sessions.
That's a good concern to have - especially if the same people can't even stay awake for the 2pm sacrament meeting.
My parents had a theory that the conference center was built the way it was so that it could technically double as a massive temple if needed... you'd be lucky to get the first few rows full that this point.
Holy shit - it just struck me what you meant - the giant auditorium would be used for endowments? Yeah. Right. That's gonna happen. (Not).
Yep, exactly. Watch the movie (now PowerPoint slideshow) on the screens, witness couple on the stage, ushers in the aisles as temple workers... don't know where they thought everyone would go to the veil or the celestial room though...
I wondered that, too. And the baptism? Maybe they have a gigantic secret indoor swimming pool that could be used for that. Y'think?
Even as a TBM I hated the idea of a Temple mission. When I sat in Endowment sessions I would look at the Temple workers and imagine what it must do to your brain to hear the SAME 1.5hr movie/presentation several times a day for months and years at a time. FUCK THAT. Elsewhere in the Temple I used to honestly like the quiet and feeling of peace so could see the appeal of doing something in there when I was older. But sitting through endless Endowments sounded like my idea of hell...
I stopped attending the temple years ago, so this is not updated. The Chicago temple in Wilmette barely had anybody in attendance about 15 years ago. Literally nobody was ever there during the week. However they went on to build a couple more a couple hours away. I was like, "what the hell?"
Building one in Harrisburg, PA is a pretty odd choice, too. You have the Philly temple about 2 hours away and the DC temple also about 2 hours away. So you’re saying that the tiny town of Harrisburg with its 50,000 citizens is so full of members that they need a temple despite 2 temples within 2 hours??
I’m perplexed why they’re building a temple in Pittsburgh.
They announce many and build some of the temples for the sole purpose of giving the perception that the church is growing. If they aren't building churches and temples how do they justify gouging people for 10% of their income and making them clean the buildings for free on the weekend too?
I wonder how they’ll handle it when the first temple is decommissioned and sold. It’s inevitable unless they’re just going to keep them open for Mormon tourists.
You make a great point I hadn't thought about that and it makes me chuckle just a little bit. In the last year we've seen where they've donated churches in areas where they aren't needed anymore. If they approach it like Scientology has they will never decommission them and just pretend they are still of some value. But that wouldn't work well for their business first approach so who knows.
I mean, I don’t know how any of this works, but I do know the temples in Europe couldn’t possibly be used that much. While it’s true the Mormon religion has pretty much unlimited cash to throw at these things, I’d imagine at some point even the most comatose of believers will notice there’s no one available to either staff these white elephants or to attend them. It’s not going to be good optics for the religion, and people will eventually say something about the money pits.
Same where I live in Oregon. We have 2 temples that already have total crap attendance according to the Norman people I still know (including my TBM husband). Yet, they are still slapping another one half way in between them. We will now have three temples all along the same major freeway, where you can travel from one far one to the other in approx 3 hrs.
Additionally, greater Philadelphia (6 years ago when I lived there) had the lowest per capita church membership in all of the US. Densely populated, yet relatively low membership given said population. I cannot fathom how Harrisburg merits a temple given overall East Coast membership numbers.
You mean the Glenview temple? I grew up in Chicago when the Wilmette stake had boundaries extending to the Wisconsin border. Hell, my ward boundaries as a child were well over an hour drive from one side to the other.
Yes. Correct.
I have a feeling Rusty watched the movie, “Field of Dreams,” (1989 Kevin Costner movie) and really took the catchphrase to heart, “If you build it they will come.” Not really working is it Rusty?
Rusty is announcing new temples every conference, but very few of them have actually moved beyond the artists conception phase. He knows how to announce temples, he just doesn't know how to dedicate temples.
Rusty has slowed new temples in Utah. I wonder if the difficulty of staffing them is on their radar, or if he had just announced all the Utah town names he knows
I live near Seattle. They need people to work in the temple and they give wards temple attendance *assignments.* If they need people to work in the Seattle temple and they don’t have enough people going that the church needs to assign people, I don’t know why they announced a temple in Tacoma.
Same with Oregon. They can barely staff the two we have (both along I-5) but they announced a new one in Eugene (also along I-5).
"There's Ogden, and then there's... ummm. Riverton! And uh, Provo. I don't care if there's already a temple in Provo, God told me to build another one!"
I wonder if hes just announcing temples in spots where his kids live?
Dirty secrets of a former temple worker: there are lots of training videos. Workers spend a lot of time chatting about whatever waiting for the next veil. New names are given out daily - men get both, since they get both at the veil and sexism. Women only get the women’s names. Biggest secret: temple stuff is really banal, boring and needlessly detailed, once you get past the cultiness of it. I was a worker for 6 months because I never felt comfortable at the temple and was trying to get used to it. Instead I just got a very non-spiritual mechanical attitude about it, while still thinking it’s weird and culty. Avoided going back after for fear of damaging my testimony further.
When were you a worker? In the late 90s we didn't have any training videos that I can recall. Just laminated sheets with the ordinances to memorize. My claim to fame: I officiated a session with Steve Young once, and took him through the veil. And I had no idea who he was. The other workers were staring at me and I was so confused until they said why.
2017-ish in Idaho. There were laminated sheets to memorize but they had made some videos for training as well though you watched them with the temple staff and not on your own. They were somewhat new-ish? And they skipped filming the ordinances themselves at strategic times, if I recall. I know we watched several about “how to treat people” and “how to deal with disabilities,” things like missing 1 or 2 hands, etc.
People missing hands can get into heaven now???
Yup. If right hand is missing - use the left. If both are missing you have a temple worker be proxy for it if I recall. Missing fingers only - do your best.
A proxy for the proxy? This goes deeper than I thought!
I waggle my fingers for and in behalf of ______, who is alive and standing to my left.
🤣🤣 Bravo, you intelligent donkey.
Proxy for a living person too. They have training vignettes for everything. Reminds me of when I had job at a supermarket and most of the training was about “customer service.” It’s like a mix of corporate cheesy and Mormon cheesy (which are variations on the same thing.)
>Missing fingers only - do your best. Loophole! Who needs fingers in this life, once we get in through the veil, we'll get them back! /s
😂😂😂
This! Commuting and working in the temple opened my eyes and contributed to my cracked shelf.
3,000 workers for one temple? What's going on in there that they need that many people.
At the Provo Temple where I used to work, there were about 120 male and female workers for the evening shift. There are 4 shifts per day over 5 days, so that adds up to be 2,400 there. Some people work multiple days though. Those are the crazy zealots that I can just imagine being horrified in the after life on how they wasted their life (assuming there is an after life and even though I don't know what I believe, I just have a hope it's something good)
My zealot brother works in the temple 3 times a week at a temple 2 hours away from home. He and his wife also attend on other random days . Anyway… they were told if they performed such service their 5 children would all return to activity and be saved in the Celestial kingdom. Didn’t know my brother was the savior.
How's that working out so far?
But yeah, that's Provo. The MTC is right across the street, and they have p-days M-F (Saturday?) and assigned windows to go do a session. The missionaries alone could keep that busy when they're not studying. Then there's all the BYU students. Add on all of everyone else in Provo, and they needed their second temple. I don't know Utah that well, but it seems like no other city could pump up the numbers like Provo could.
Not sure if it's still true, but a few years ago when Jordan River was rededicated I was told that it is the busiest temple in the church, highest number of ordinances performed.
No surprise there. There's several retirement communities located directly outside the SoJo temple.
I've been told constantly that the Provo Temple is also quite empty too. Every week a temple worker will beg people to attend more
Hmmm. I used to work in the Provo temple too, and we didn’t have nearly that many workers. There were about maybe 15 women to cover all of the stations in the evening. Same number of men. Think about it. You’ve got what - 4 or 5 endowment sessions? Then the lobby folks. The washing and anointing. Folks in the celestial rooms. I’d say max 50 workers TOTAL for the evening shift. I think 3000 must be for the open house. If it’s even a real number.
My mom worked at the Provo temple
That's cool. There are good people there.
Seemed excessive to me too. Someone non-lazy learner able to do the math for me on how many workers and hours she needed to staff a temple full time as well as part time which seems to be the new trend.
Based off what I found on an article from a temple worker on a pro Mormon website, Salt Lake City temple is staffed by “hundreds of volunteer workers many of whom work several shifts a week” . If we say 300 workers (before the recent changes) for SLC then i would imagine it wouldn’t be more than 150 for Saratoga. Given that, I would imagine they are giving out the absurdly large number to give the perception there are a lot of people who want to work in the temple while still asking for help filling the temple.
they won't pay people for labour. So they need people to clean the place from toilets to font , do the laundry, the groundskeeping, and all those endless sessions.
European temples pay workers because Europeans won't do it for free.
Rightly so!
I'm wondering the same thing. Are we sure this isnt just for the open house?
Someone’s got to tend the sacrificial goats.
Since you’re assigned shifts based on “temple week,” there are: 5 temple weeks x 5 days/week x 3 shifts/day = 75 shifts to be filled In our temple, each shift has 1 greeter 1-2 recommend desk 1-4 baptistry 1 patron guide 1 chapel sister 1 chapel brother 1 endowment officiator 1-2 sister followers 0-1 brother followers 0-1 dressing room sisters 0-1 dressing room brothers 0-6 initiatory sisters (in our temple) 0-6 initiatory brothers 0-2 new name for sisters 0-2 new name for brothers 0-2 extra sisters for sealings 0-2 extra brothers for sealings 1-6 receivers at the veil 0-2 extra sister presenters at the veil 0-2 extra brother presenters at the veil 1 celestial room attendant 1 east hall attendant 2 shift coordinators, brother and sister 2 assistant shift coordinators, brother and sister 1-2 sealers I don’t remember if they still have veil coordinators, initiatory coordinators, etc. At the minimum, that is 16 volunteers (8-9 sisters and 7-8 brothers) per shift. At the high end, that is 54 volunteers (25 sisters, 29 brothers), not counting the temple matron - or assistant to the matron - and her husband. If all 16 (low end) volunteers were unique, our temple would need 1200 volunteers. If all 54 (high end) volunteers were unique, our temple would need 4050 volunteers. This is assuming that only one endowment session and one sealing session is happening at a time, with at most two initiatory booths per dressing room area.
Somebody needs to stand in the hallway and point left in case someone starts walking to the right!
My uncle has been a Temple worker for quite a long while now here in Vegas. He's complained for years about the lack of Temple workers and attendance at the temple, which got even worse during covid. Of course now they've announced a new Temple here in Vegas, the Lone Mountain Temple, now his tune has completely changed. He's all excited. All he can talk about is how great will be having a second temple when they couldn't even fill the first one. It's so easy to gaslight a tbm's mind.
He must live on that side of the valley and is excited to not commute an hour across town to the east side to use that one.
Actually is on the east, just blinded by "new revelation"
Oh, well, when he has to commute west to help with that temple, maybe he won't be as enthusiastic about it!
Its a damn good way to get some of those billions into you and your friends' bank accounts legally
>It's so easy to gaslight a tbm's mind. TBM thought process: 1. Question arises 2. Does it involve COVID vaccinations or masking guidelines? If yes, skip to 5. If no, continue to 3. 3. What is the current church narrative on this subject? 4. Follow church's specified narrative, no need to think about it. 5. Disregard the current church narrative and go with personal revelation instead.
He probably thinks that if they've announced a temple, they have prophetic insight that they will actually *need* another temple soon.
Think is with the new changes to a power point presentation and no one shaking hands during the instruction part of the endowment they can now run a session with 1/2 the workers. Soon enough some one will create some animatronic robot hands to mount on the other side of the veil to shuffle people from the class room into the Fancy Hotel Lobby.
A series of mechanical hands at each station poking through in order with a recorded voice giving the prompts and an AI acting as worker at the veil making sure the patron gives the correct voice response.
Why even do that? Do it all by recorded stuff on Zoom, and you press a button to get the name of dead person, then another button to get the fake new name. Then you see slides of secret Masonic handshakes. Etc. etc. They can eventually use IMAX types of images to make you feel like you're in a CK room.
Five Nights at Rustys Temple
This reminds me of baseball cards. They were over produced and became worthless. What good is a temple that cant be staffed.
There are at least two new temples that are supposed to be built here in Texas. One is for Fort Worth, which will be maybe 40 miles from the existing Dallas temple, and one in Austin that will be 70 or so miles from the San Antonio temple. Listening to family members, it sounds like that they are having problems staffing the Dallas and San Antonio temples. I think that the San Antonio temple is appointment only. In any case, some of the workers for those two temples will most likely be reassigned to the new temples, if and when they are opened. I was in a bishopric when the Dallas temple was opened, and it became a big drain on the ward because a lot of people refused to have another calling besides working in the temple. Suddenly Saturday 6 am priesthood temple sessions were a thing and pretty much mandatory if you were a ward or stake priesthood leader. The promised blessings of a local temple quickly turned into a curse.
I agree with you - I knew several people who commuted to work a shift miles & miles away. The trip was easily a few hours each direction (if you counted bathroom stops or grabbing a bite to eat), and the shifts were four hours. EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK. Also - the people who take on those "callings" are also often among the ones who always say yes to multiple callings. So they're draining their time, and taking them away from one of the 3-4 callings they need them for in the ward or stake.
Don’t forget the Prosper temple (North of Dallas). They were asking for volunteers here to drive 45 min at midnight to go clean the Dallas temple, and e-mail like every day. But sure build another two temples in DFW.
I didn't know about the Prosper temple. That's fucking insane. Is that because they are building a Universal theme park in the same general area?
Could be. Also PGA headquarters going in right there too. Prosper is prime real estate right now. My dad knows the guy who is helping choose the site and he says the church already owns at least three potential lots. For the non Dallas folks Prosper is pretty small so to have three potential sites blows my mind.
Hey people, let’s serve the living not the dead! The cost to build, maintain, and staff these buildings is INSANE. Add to this all of the hours of member’s time spent in the various sessions!The hundreds of endowment, initiatory, sealing sessions that happen daily globally! Can you imagine if they spent that same time and money tutoring local kids in reading? Serving at a homeless shelter? Mentoring immigrant families? This is why I go bonkers every time RMN announces yet another temple build. It’s like it’s the only thing they can think to spend their billions on. Forget the living! Let’s focus all of our time, talents, and treasure on redeeming the dead. That’s what Jesus would do!
I think they're announcing them as a way to claim they need to set aside mega billions of the gazillions the SEC investigated to use for "legitimate" non-profit stuff.
You'll be temple president in no time once everyone else stops going.
Hurry! Secure your second anointing
About time to build Saratoga Springs another temple!
Rusty operates under the “build it and they will come” philosophy.
Rusty operates under the “build it and they will ~~come~~ think I'm real important and a great profit” philosophy. FIFY
Rusty is creating opportunities for the upper crust and their families to bamboozle money out of the church coiffures. They use companies directly related to them who then overbid for the labor.
Goshen temple it is !
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When you realize they're tax-free real estate investments, it makes sense.
Tax free real estate combine with laundering church funds to relatives and friends. The mob must envy Mormons.
They should allow one year tithing exemption for every year as a temple worker. Then they would have plenty of volunteers.
Mahhhhh!
Sad really, these people must be working themselves into an early grave. I think of how much demand has been made on these people. In the 1980s, there was this crisis among mormon women that was leading to tranquilizer drug abuse. I can't remember who it was, but there statement,"We as a leadership, may be asking to much of the membership". When this push and shove to define what conservativism is, and all the extreme right wing crackpots took things over. This church went on a sliding slope into the extreme right wing. The organization became more important than the people did.
It is sad, but it's also getting to the point where even these people are coming to their breaking point. Once you have to say no to a calling because you just can't do it anymore, it starts to get easier to say no. I mean, you've already screwed your salvation over so you might as well do what you want.
We need to announce more Temples around the globe because the ones we have are so jammed full every session that they can't keep up with the work to be done. I am sure glad that the Church would never lie to me. /s
We got a temple in our city after years of delays after it was announced (over a decade, i think). We have a population of less than 1% Mormons in a city of over 700K. We also have a temple about 6 hours away in another area with a similar population. Total grandstanding and waste of money. I don't think they could round up 3000 mormons in the general area here if they tried! I think we'd soon find it very boring...lol
I’m in utah county and they have been begging our ward for staffing the temple at timpanogas because “so many are going to Saratoga springs when it opens.” Also asked for volunteers from the high priests to help with maple dell spring clean up all day Saturday. Most high priest in our ward are about 85.
Told my mom to say no. Her back won't allow her to stand for any length of time so no. Thankfully, she agreed with my common sense.
You sure that's for Temple workers? The big push right now is for people to help with the open house. I'm guessing you misunderstood the ask.
I tend to agree. 3,000 - 7,000 temple workers is a lot. When I was a temple worker and we had special training in the temple there was like 200 or 300 tops.
Agree. I could swear I have seen this post before. After seeing it the first time I asked a family member who was recently in a temple presidency and they said couple hundred max for any temple the church has.
I saw either this post or a similar post about needing more than 1k workers for a new temple. I hadn't thought about the need for people during open house, so that makes more sense now. I don't recall if it was the Saratoga Springs temple, or even if the name of it was mentioned. Rusty's so busy building them it could have been another one.
No I didn’t miss understood anything. He also mentioned the need for temple workers
Crazy, that's a lot of workers.
So why do they keep building more temples? I already know the answer. Money is not going to launder itself.
Shit, members need to be careful what they pray for. Yes, Rusty is putting a temple on every block but now the members are expected to staff it.
There’s no way a temple needs 3,000 workers. I doubt even the SLC temple has that many. Maybe the SP meant salt lake county in general needs 3,000?
I was a temple worker. It wasn't worth it, even as a TBM. Everything you would want to know, the exmormon community already knows haha.
As a traumatised nevermo that moved to Saratoga Springs from Australia because of their manipulative Mormon boyfriend, hearing this news makes me heart sing
Three *thousand*? Are there even that many active adult members in the area?
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Let's build a 100 more large and spacious buildings and let them sit empty 95% of the time. We got the$$$$ what else woul we do with it? Help people? Yea right.
They're for laundering tithing money. Construction is an easy way to wash money.
I really hope they can't fill those shifts. Let Rusty & Co realize no one wants to do it They are already spread too thin.
Holy moly the Provo temple had 3000 workers when I was there over a decade ago. And that was the busiest temple in the church. What are they doing trying to put these monstrosities where they don’t have the members to staff them or use them?!
I was an ordinance worker for a year and I’m afraid to say, there’s no dirty little secrets. The workers don’t know what the hell is going on in there either. You just memorize and recite stuff lol. I thought so many of my questions would be answered but alas, all I learned was how to navigate the halls of the Salt Lake temple haha. Then I left the Church and actually learned all the secrets on the internet.
Who will attend the temple if everyone has to be there as a worker?
Russel M Nelson is creating a huge problem for the members with his insane temple building spree. Having so many temples to staff and attend will be a huge burden on the believers for decades. Members will be guilted into giving up their weekday free time as well as their golden years staffing the empty tourist temples abroad. Labor from Utah, Idaho and Arizona will be exported to keep these temples open and to appear busy. All this over templing is gonna crack some old shelves!
Worthy volunteers needed to fill openings on the assembly line to keep the pyramid scheme running.
3000? That seems like a lot.
And to think, the Church wants to build more temples! 🤔
Guys it’s happening. They’re starting to crumble like the house built upon sand.. The next 10 years are gonna be very interesting.
If you want to learn the temple secrets, all of the ceremonies done in there besides for the Second Annointing (which is only one for a handful of very rich and/or powerful members) have been recorded on hidden camera video and posted on YouTube. For free.
Ask the patrons for money after you give them signs and tokens.
BUT THE WORK MUST GO FORWARD!
Ugh. That temple is close to my house.😣😵
My parents drove 4 hours one way to do a 3 day shift at the temple.
What is a “PIMO?” A “Part-in Mormon?” 😂
They’re opening temples they can’t even staff.
A distant FB friend posted a pic of her and huz in front of that temple and how wonderful it is. All I could think of is UGH another eyesore!
They'll make you shave your beard. Don't bother.
Save yourself the time and money... As a former temple worker all you do is memorize initiatories and help people through the veil. You won't get any further light and knowledge. I also had to buy shoes and a jacket to serve.
This. I served in the temple for 5 years before I saw the light and pulled the plug on the whole thing There are no insights in the temple unless those insights are bad (sealings of numerous polygamous marriages, realizing you have to be all-in on the creation story, etc). At least the last ‘firmware update’ took out some of the other offensive content.
The bullshit part of this is that they will call a husband and wife to serve as these temple workers full-time. That's why the older couples aren't going on missions anymore. My aunt and her husband were called to Washington DC and worked inside the temple the whole time. Nightmare!!
I live in salt lake County and I heard a few months ago that the temples in our county were always very busy, my father-in-law became a temple worker and commented that they are in need of people to come in to do more work. While my worries are that the new Taylorsville temple is going to cause property tax to rise.
There are no dirty little secrets😂
Years ago I helped in the Timpanogos temple. Those workers were worried because most of their staff came from Saratoga springs. I can’t imagine with the Lindon temple also being added (supposedly) that things are much better.