Moving Day

“We need 5-10 brethren to help move furniture in the temple tomorrow morning from eight to noon.” This was among one of the many announcements and a dozen or so sustainings that were read yesterday morning in my ward. Move furniture in the Temple? Why not? Sounds like a good way to spend Memorial Day morning. So my friend Nate and I get to the Salt Lake Temple this morning at 8:00 AM sharp, the temple workers give us some white jumpsuits to change into, and we sit in the baptistery chapel to await instructions. There were twenty nine of us total, representing a few different YSA wards in the new Holladay YSA stake.

The brother in charge comes in and begins to explain what we will be doing. We will be going to the fifth floor and handling some very old furniture, even some of the furniture that was originally placed in the East Towers when it was built. Really? And all they can get is us? When we got up to the fifth floor we started in the Solemn Assembly room and moved some furniture from the rooms above and behind the pulpits down onto the floor. That was my first time in that room, and it is incredible. We also moved some things into this storage area under the pulpits. There is more storage in the Salt Lake temple than you would ever believe.

We also went up to the seventh floor to get more miscellaneous furniture and some very large murals (which they weren’t sure would fit down the spiral staircase because the frames were built up there) from different rooms in the towers. One room was used as the First Presidency’s office when the temple was first built. But the neatest part for me was when we went into the “Talmage room”. As you probably know or guessed, it is the room that James E. Talmage wrote Jesus the Christ. We moved his desk down to the basement. Very carefully. There was also this VERY large and old dictionary, which the brother in charge said Talmage had used to write Jesus the Christ. Apparently, he would look up every word, even if he felt he already knew the meaning, because he wanted to make positive that he was expressing exactly what he felt and meant with every word. We moved the dictionary too.

Overall it was a priceless experience. It just isn’t every day that you get to handle furniture that old, or go into rooms that relatively few ever get to enter. My testimony of the temple has grown as well. The temple is a place where the Spirit of God dwells, even as you move furniture.