No Power at the Temple? No Problem!

What do you do if there is no power at the temple due to a storm bringing limbs down on power lines? You keep going, that's what!

The temple has private generators in case of just such an emergency, and so when this happened yesterday, they were ready to go and kicked in.

But... the temple presidency was concerned that they would not be enough to run everything in the temple, (particularly the endowment session) and so they set a deadline of 6:15 for the power to come back on. If it didn't, then President Chipman and President Price were prepared to step in and turn the 6:00 endowment session into a live session with themselves leading it.

The power came back on at 6:13. How's that for timing? And so the endowment sessions went as planned, although they used the shortest temple film, film A, for the 6:30 session to make up for the lost time.

For initiatory, they had small lanterns, and those were carried by the patrons as they did their ancestors' work. How cool is that? I really wish I had been there to see that!

Unfortunately, I was not there - my shift has been changed to every other Tuesday and it was my Tuesday off. But Craig was, and as an assistant coordinator, he was in the thick of the "behind the scenes" of ensuring the temple could still operate. (He now knows that there is a manual crank operated from the second story to open the curtains during last part of the endowment ceremony.)

With the power coming back on at 6:13, and the temple only opening for ordinance work at 5:30, the temple's schedule was not affected for too long (it closes at 10:00 PM.)  Craig and I have marveled before about how smoothly the temple runs, how emergencies have been thought through and planned for, and last night was an opportunity to see that in action.

It's the Lord's temple and in His hands!