Being unique

     I had no idea how "unique" I was. I have mentioned that there aren't that many temple missionaries, which I hadn't realized before. I might have mentioned that most of the temple missionaries are coming from working in other temples, although not as full-time missionaries. Russ and I were occasional officiators way back when we went to the Toronto temple- 15 or 20 years ago. But unlike most of the temple missionaries here as well as the ones we met in training in SLC before coming here, we have never been regular temple workers. Now, to add to the "uniqueness", Russ is a temple engineer missionary. There are even fewer of those. Lots of temples have full-time paid engineers to keep the building in top shape. Here there are 3 full-time paid guys and 3 missionary engineers. One of the missionary engineers here arrived a month or so ago and the other has been here a few weeks longer than that. Russ and I arrived about the same time as the whole crew of temple missionaries who will be officiators all the time. They will all be leaving in 6 months. We are here for 18 months. They have all left houses somewhere that they intend to return to. We are "homeless" for the foreseeable future.
     The "new" missionaries are all on a training and orienting schedule this week while the temple remains closed for cleaning and maintenance. Russ is missing out on most of that because he is staying busy doing engineer stuff. The other 2 wives of temple engineers have been here longer than I have and are not on the list for the various activities on the schedule. Yesterday I was the only person who went on a bus tour of Nauvoo alone among all the couples. Today we did a session in the temple so we could all be introduced to the building. None of us had ever been through the building. However, among the crowd, I was the only one who has never been a temple officiator. Again, I was also the only one without my spouse because he was somewhere in the basement or something.
     And now, to avoid having to train so many different people to help, there has been a request for engineer's wives to be trained to work in the temple office- answering phones, recording information, assisting the presidency and other workers. So, between training for officiating I am now training to work in the office which means I sometimes have to scurry away or totally miss some of the things other temple workers are doing. This morning I was the only missionary out exercising alone because Russ has to be there really early and spends time enough on stairs and on his feet so isn't interested in getting up earlier than 5:45 to have time to exercise. Next week, when the temple is open, I'm not sure when I'll exercise or if Russ will go with me. I am enjoying the quiet, peaceful atmosphere of Nauvoo and the weather has been gorgeous. I'm glad to be here. I'm still trying to find my place.