Our Temple Assignments

Here's how things are organized for the temple workers at the Madrid Spain Temple.

Each month the mission presidency publishes a sheet with assignments and puts a copy of the sheet in each of our boxes located in the temple office area. Here's a copy of this month's assignment sheet:

As you can tell, each day, Tuesday through Saturday, has a morning shift and an afternoon shift. The morning shift starts with preparation meeting at 7:15 am and ends around 1:45 pm. The afternoon shift on weekdays starts with preparation meeting at 2:15 pm and ends around 8:45 pm. On Saturday, the afternoon shift starts an hour earlier (1:15 pm) and ends two hours earlier (6:45 pm).

Here's a closeup picture of one of the days:
The box (first two columns) on the left gives the names of all the workers (individuals or couples) for that shift. The next column gives special assignments, and the last five columns give the days and names of the people with the special assignments.

These special assignments are rotated daily among the workers and include:

• Coordinador and Coordinadora are the brother and sister, respectively, who coordinate all the specific assignments during the shift. They assign who goes where, and when. Assignments include being the Oficiante and Ayudante for each of the five or six endowment sessions during that shift, directing the areas where patrons go before each endowment session, directing the areas where patrons go after they finish each endowment session, and other assignments.
• Oficiante/Ayudante (a brother who officiates and a sister who helps during a session) must come early to preside over a session that starts before the beginning of the shift.
• Mostrador/Entrada (Recommend desk and entrance). This couple needs to be at the temple early and miss the preparation meeting.
• Presidencia is the presiding member of the temple presidency for that shift.

Other assignments are passed out during preparation meeting. Here is example of Beverly's assignments for one day:

M-V = martes a viernes (Tuesday to Friday). 2:00-8:45 are the shift times. Tarde is the afternoon shift. The rest of the slip of paper lists the various assignments.

Here's a similar slip that Scott recently received for a Saturday morning shift:

The "I S B" simply means that we could be assigned to do initiatory, sealing, or baptism work, as well as other assignments.

Our biggest challenge has been to remain flexible. We often have our assignments changed as local workers decide to leave early, or not show up at all, or as other circumstances arise. We also have to remain flexible as far as languages go, because we never know what language the session or the ordinance will be in.

For example, Scott was involved in an ordinance that included two workers and a patron. The patron spoke French, the other worker spoke Spanish, and Scott spoke English (because the patron understood English better than Spanish). It worked out just fine. The great majority of the ordinances are in Spanish, as you might expect.

The bottom line: Every day is a challenge. Every day is interesting. And every day is a new spiritual experience.