End of the Open House

Yesterday, just shortly after this picture was taken by the Sacramento Temple "Templecam" we and some friends and family members took a tour of this beautiful building. We were 9 of an estimated 10,000 people that were expected to tour the temple this final day of the open house. More than 180,000 people were expected during the entire four week open house period. Besides being an interesting experience by itself, it was also interesting to compare it to the tour we took three and a half weeks before (during the first week of the open house). About the only difference between the two tours was the number of people who had lined up for the second tour. We must have hit a lull in the line the first time as our wait was considerably shorter.

We were impressed at the friendliness and efficiency with which everything was handled. There were dozens of volunteers, each appropriately dressed and name-tagged and wearing broad smiles. Even if we had had time to wander on our own, it would not have been possible without being intercepted and redirected by one of the volunteer guides.

The building was spotless as were the grounds. Several members of our party remarked how "new", "clean", and "orderly" everything was. The outside marble, terrestrial room mural, baptistry cut glass mural, and quiet gold and white and crystal decor of the celestial room seemed to be the most impressive sights.

What I noticed even more (although not everyone in our group did) was the absence of your typical tour information. Indeed, our tour guide provided almost no content for the signer in our group who was assisting some deaf tour members. There were no statistics given, no history, no description of the time and effort that went into securing the site, dedicating the location, or performing the actual construction. There were no details as to cost or thickness of the marble or weight of the gold plated statue on the spire.

When describing the use of the temple, the tour guide was almost as brief, referring to instruction rooms as used for "instruction" and sealing rooms as used for "weddings". Reference was made to the 12 oxen in the baptistry as referring to the 12 tribes of Israel but no explanation about why that should be appropriate symbolism for a baptistry when baptism is not an ordinance mentioned in the Old Testament history of the 12 tribes. All questions were deferred until the end of the tour, allowing the tours to move along much more quickly but at the expense of missed teaching moments and opportunities for explanation and comparison. I think many non-members came off the tour with the thought in their minds that "Mormonism isn't so different from our church after all."

The tour began and ended in the meetinghouse located next to the temple which had been temporarily turned into a visitor's center - the classrooms being used for introductory film presentations and the cultural hall for refreshments and post-tour questions and answers. There was no explanation that this was just a temporary arrangement. There was also no offer to show-off the meetinghouse whcih many tour members would have like to see (at least the non-Mormon tour members). The follow-up with missionaries and volunteers offering to answer questions or provide more information was the most low key of any church site I have ever visited.