For the past year and a half our local Boise temple has been closed for a complete renovation. We had been going to the temple when we could while visiting family in Eastern Idaho and Utah....but we're so excited that it finally opened back up in November!
Leading up to the actual re-dedication was a month-long open house. They estimated that a quarter of a millino people would attend over that month, so it was a pretty big thing to coordinate all the local members to help out at all the open house responsibilities!
Collin worked as a translator for a couple of weekend sessions of the open house, and he had some really neat experiences with the people he met.
I worked as a musician playing the piano in the reception area, one of the sessions I played at was during the VIP sessions the week prior to the actual public open house, which was fun. I also helped out on the very last weekend on Saturday morning and it was the most insane crowd control I've ever been a part of. I was one of the 4 ladies who had to do constant crowd flow and control in and out of the chapel for people waiting to go into tours. It was pretty tiring, and I was glad it was just a 4 hour shift! I was A-MAZED at how many people were pouring into the church. It was so neat to see.
We went to the open house to see the temple together as a family on the night of Halloween (it was pretty non-busy!) It was so, so beautiful in there. They really made it into a gorgeous temple. Not that it was ugly before--but wow it was so peaceful and beautiful! It was so great to get to come back to our "home" temple, the one we have gone to almost exclusively together since we've been married. Ashlyn was not in the mood to ride around in her stroller that night unfortunately, so we spent a lot of time trying to redirect her crying....but still it was a good experience....overall! ;)
Collin was recommended by our Stake President to be one of the translators for the actual dedication broadcast. So that meant that we were able to actually go to the temple for the dedication!
We traded kid-watching with my friend Lindy so she took Ashlyn first thing in the morning so Collin and I could get to the temple by 7:45! And even with getting there that early (the dedication started at 9:00) there was a line of like 200 people ahead of us....and a few more hundred ended up stretching out behind us. I heard from someone that they fit 700 people into the temple for each dedicatory session. I had no idea!
I had the option of just sitting in one of the rooms they had set up to watch inside the temple, but I decided to go down into the basement with Collin. I'm so glad I stuck with him! It was so neat to see. We went through this huge labyrinth under the temple that eventually took us to some sort of basement garage/storage area where the AV room was set up. That was cool to see in itself---I guess they brought the guys that do general conference to take care of the broadcasting. Collin was one of 4 translators and they each would take turns going into a little room to do the interpreting for a certain person. Collin was "Elder Bednar" so he had to be in there a lot because he was conducting and he also spoke. The Spanish translation they did was broadcast live to all the Spanish-speaking broadcasts in meetinghouses across the state. I think Collin was a little nervous!
We had advance copies of their talks so we got to read the dedicatory prayer before President Monson actually gave it! We got to see a lot of fun things there about how the Church's broadcasts, security, and other stuff goes behind the scenes! It was really a unique experience.
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