October 21, 2012

Hey Everybody!! Oh my goodness...I LOVE the Temple! I am really sad it is over, but I have so many memories from being there! We had such a great end to the temple and I am going to do my best to tell you all about it! So I think I left off last week on Wed because I was running out of time, so I will start there for this week! Forgive me if it sounds all over the place because just remember that all of the days kind of run together...especially when you are at the temple! So Wednesday...it was a day of adventure. We began our day at the mission office. While we were there we were able to type up some comment cards. It is so much fun to read all the comments from people. It is one of the best parts of the day. We were there for a few hours and between Sister Batty and I we typed up 2 days worth of cards....that is like 1200. It was lots of fun. Then we had to run to the temple. It was a really busy day. We had lots of people because there were only a few days left. But then we had a little bit of a hiccup...the power in the temple went out!!! It was crazy. Luckily there was the backup generator! But it meant that the elevator wasn't working which meant we couldn't take wheelchairs to hardly any of the temple. It also meant that the wheelchair usher in the temple was trapped in the elevator for about 1 1/2 hours!! When we found out the power was out we had to stop everything because there was already a few hundred people in the temple and we had a long line of people. Luckily we were able to utilize the chapel and we moved as many people in as we could so they didn't have to be outside. Somehow they got everything figured out, but every once in awhile the lights would flicker. It was a crazy time! Thursday came way too soon. We were on the night shift the day before and then switched to mornings...so Sister Batty and I were going on about 5 hours of sleep. We probably looked a little bit dead. Well Sister Batty felt a little bit dead as well. She was fine when we left the apartment, but about an hour into our shift she got so sick. She curled up in a ball and slept through our entire shift. That left me to run 2 video rooms. It was great and I felt so busy, because as soon as one room started the other was getting out. It was just great! We also had to deal with the power thing again because it was still having some issues and they didn't want anyone getting stuck in the elevator. As soon as we got out of the temple we got a call from our DL and I was very grateful I told him he had 30 min to find someone to come with him to give Sister Batty a blessing and we would be at their church so they could do that. So we drove straight there. She got a blessing and then we had to hurry and email and shop and then we went home for the night. Oh but we also had to get a car wash because the night before someone dumped soy sauce all over our car. It was disgusting. But we then had a clean car! After that we were home so Sister Batty could get better and we could maybe get some sleep. Friday was another morning shift. It was just lots of fun! It was a really busy day. Luckily that morning and afternoon we were able to stay on speaking tours, but that night they had to move to silent tours because of the amount of people that came. We were really nervous for Saturday...but I will tell you about that in a min. Friday was a great day because there was a special surprise!! Well do you remember Sister Hayes? Well she is a convert and the only member in her family. Well President gave her permission to invite her family to come to the open house. She did, but she didn't know anyone was coming. Her mom decided to surprise her...but I knew about it for weeks! So she flew in on Friday and stayed with Kevin and Cindi Palmer. Then they brought her to the open house! It was like the best reunion ever! I can only imagine what it is going to be like to reunite with all of you! It was a great experience for her. They were able to spend a few hours together everyday and then she went back to AZ after going to Sacrament Meeting on Sunday. That day Sister Batty also had some visitors from Vernal and they brought her up a package. Then that night we went to dinner with some people from Lethbridge that Sister Batty worked with while she was down there. It was fun and they have a really cute little boy. By then it was time for us to go home and get some sleep...I really love sleep. Saturday!! It was the very last day! It was really sad. I didn't want it to end. The memories I have from the Temple Open House are priceless. It was so incredible and I know I was supposed to be here for it! That is why I was called to serve here in Calgary! So we were on the morning shift! Before the doors officially opened, Bro Kevin Palmer took some of the Sister Missionaries on a tour of the temple. It was incredible. We were the only ones there and he told us lots of little details about the temple that you probably wouldn't have gotten in a normal tour. One fun fact is that the Bride's Room cost more per sq ft to build than any other room! It is gorgeous! It was a really neat tour! Well when we got back to the church it was a madhouse! There were so many people there! Every tour was filled to capacity starting at 8 AM!! We were expecting over 10,000 people to come that day. Well things ran smoothly and everything was great, but the line just kept growing....and it was freezing cold and snowing outside. Saturday brought a whole load of fun. By 12:30 we had to move to silent tours. We had over 1000 people coming every hour, and we just couldn't keep up with it. We could do upwards of 800, but that makes for a very fast back-up. This meant that we had 9 sisters running videos (we had 2 that went in and counted and started a mass-vidoe in the chapel every half hour.) This left only one in the reception hall. Well, we knew that there would be silent tours possibly for the rest of the night, and we were the only ones that didn't have to be somewhere immediately afterwards, so we stayed to work in reception with the other shift. Unfortunately we weren't smart enough to figure this was going to happen, so we did what we had been doing. We ate at 6 AM before we went to the temple, and then we were planning on eating when we got home...we didn't think about the fact that we might have to stay. So we enjoyed our last and final day of the "Smile and Starve diet." It's actually quite effective for those wanting to lose weight! Don't worry. We ate...at 12:30 the next morning when we FINALLY got home. By 5:30 the snow had hit and a lot of people weren't wanting to be out on the very slick roads. It had been raining most of the day and it was now frozen and icy. We went back to talking tours, and we could have gone home, except one of the sets of sisters BOTH got sick, and we had to send them home. We sent the last tour through just before 10, and topping out our 100,000 guest goal. It was fun that we got to stay. This is an experice from Sister Batty that had us all in giggles: "I had started a bit of a feud with the head of security, who happened to be an off-duty police officer. He was on the temple committee, so he was there all day, every day, and he would walk past and stop our stopwatches and add numbers on our counters. He just tried to cause mayhem because he could. Well, you know me, I had to return the favor...so I told him my police officer joke (on Thursday). Now, my police officer joke goes something like this: "The other day, I was drivin down the road, and I got pulled over. The cop walked up to my window and whipped out his trusty-dusty flashlight and he shined it in my eyes and he said, 'Son, your eyes are red. Have you been drinking?' Well, what was I to do? I whipped out my trusty-dusty flashlight, and I shined it in his eyes and I said, 'Ossifer, your eyes is glazed, has you been eating donuts?'" I'm sure you can imagine what his reaction was to this...although I think he told all the other police officers it...So on Friday when he was over pestering us, I asked him if he'd eaten any donuts. Well, I started a feud with that one. Later that night, as I was standing, (telling our stanchant man, Ryan, my officer joke) Garrett Swihart, the police officer, walked past and threw a snowball at me! In the church! He pegged me right in my tummy right in front of the tour line! Everyone burst into laughter, and the podium lady giggled out, "You can't even call security, because he's it!" Well, when Linda came around to check on us, I told her what had happened and how I wanted to rub nice big snowball on his nice buzzed head. Now, this is our very business like, very intimidating supervisor. What does she do? She runs me down the hall, dresses me in her coat and gloves, puts the hood up, steals my timer and sends me outside to get a snowball! I went down the hall to make sure he was at the security office, and he was standing against the wall right outside, so I snuck out without him seeing me. I grabbed a snowball, and when I came back in, he was talking to a group of men. The security (another police officer) that let me back in told me to go ahead and do it. So I walked up behind him. Rubbed a nice wet snowball around on his head, and mushed it good. Then skiddled down the hall. What Unfortuantely it meant I spent the rest of the night hiding. At one point Brother Swihart came around the corner looking for me, which sent me down the hall, into Linda's office and under her desk. I actually hid under her desk, while she hid in the corner of the room so she couldn't be seen, because she didn't want anyone to think she had anything to do with it! Brother Swihart eventually caught up to me in the tour guide room, where I was "hiding from security." He just laughed as he told me that he thought it was funny, and well deserved, but wished I would have picked a better time. When it had happened, he had been talking about "very weighty matters with the temple president and some of the openhouse committee!" AH! President Bennett asked him why someone would do that and then told him it was well-deserved! Haha! Apparently what I failed to ask security first was who Brother Swihart was talking to...Yep. Surely was President Bennett." We were at the temple all day. But it was an amazing experience and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world. It was the best way to end our time at the Temple! Our final numbers for the number of guests were 100,135. We reached the goal of 100,000! One of the neatest things of the day was that we, the sister missionaries, were the last tour of the entire open house! We went to the temple at about 10:40, when everyone was out. There were no shoe coverings in sight, so we all took our shoes off and walked barefoot through the temple. We were with all of our favorite Palmers: Linda, Cindi, and Kevin! But this tour was unique because as we went through the temple, Kevin asked one of the Sisters to explain each stopping point in the temple. I was asked to do the Bride's room. It was a really special tour. We also were able to spend a bit of time in the Celestial room and Sealing room. It was really neat! We got out of the temple at about 11:40. I just loved every second of the temple open house! I truly am going to miss it! Well we still had a long drive home, on very icy roads. Luckily Linda Palmer lives in our ward and she followed us home to make sure nothing happened to us. She is great! By the time we got home it was 12:30 and we were STARVING!!! So we hurried and ate something and went to bed. Sunday was a very long day...mostly because we were so extremely EXHAUSTED!! We had to be up early for church and then we were there for like 7 hours with all of our meetings. It was really hard staying awake, but be very proud because I did it! It did help that we had some treats with us! As soon as we were done with church we went to the Mission Home. We were all invited to come for dinner and then we had a training with the Sisters. Before dinner, President did all of our temple dedication reccommends as well. After dinner we had a training and it was all about the Doctrine of Christ and being missionaries. Basically it was all about going back to being real missionaries. It is going to be wierd having rules to follow! Also while we were at the mission home, we were asked to write a biography about ourselves and include some temple miracles you had and your testimony. They are going to put all of our bios and a picture of all the Sisters in the Cornerstone of the temple! I am acually going to be in the Cornerstone of the temple!! Isn't that neat? One miracle of the Calgary Alberta Temple is that it is the ONLY temple that has not had any protestors! When we were on the last tour of the evening on Saturday we ran into Troy. He is the project manager from SLC. He said that this truly is the Members temple. It is the only temple since the first few that members have actually worked on. It is truly because of the members here that it is finished! Being at the Temple has really strengthened my testimony about how important temples are! I am so grateful for the temple! It is so important to attend the temple often! I challenge you all to attend the temple as often as you can! Congrats to Ben!! I can't wait to hear where you are going on your mission! The CCM is one of the best!! I hope you all have a great week!! I love and miss you tons! I know I promised you some temple comments, but it will have to wait until next week because I don't have my right planner with me! You are all so amazing!! Love, Sister Kaitlyn Marchant Here are a few pictures!! 1- Me with the Platt's! 2- Me at a video room with my timer and counter 3- Sorting and reading comment cards on the last night

A few more pictures 1- Right before we went on the last tour of the night, with Kevin and Linda Palmer 2- The beautiful temple at night with the snow!