My Mormon Temple Initiation, Part 1

What are we willing to sacrifice to find belonging?

The click-clack of my heels on the sidewalk echoes against the white granite walls of the Mount Timpanogos Temple. I feel as awkward as ever in my Sunday best. But I’m finally proving my righteousness, doing what Heavenly Father wants by going through the endowment ceremony for the first time. And the anointing, but I have even less idea what that is. My brother’s new wife advised that I do the endowments a few days before the actual marriage sealing ceremony, because it can all be a bit much.

After we walk through the exterior archways to the hidden entryway, Dad pulls the handle of the oversized door and holds it open for Mom and me. The double doors are a shiny golden bronze, and each has a column of four square windows. These are decorated with circle and spoke motifs that remind me of the wheels of covered wagons. My pioneer ancestors crossed the Great Plains by wagon in the mid-1800s to arrive at the Great Salt Lake, 25 miles north of here. My many-greats-grandparents converted to Mormonism during Joseph Smith’s time, making me sixth generation. I was proud that a five-times-great-uncle on my dad’s side is mentioned by name in original Mormon scripture.

Mom ushers me through the bronze door, then through sliding glass doors. I glance around the foyer, arranged like an ornate, formal sitting room. I want a good look at what it’s like inside, to bathe in this moment of stepping into The Temple for real. Today isn’t my first time inside this temple, though. I volunteered during the open house when it was newly built, standing in a fancy room as dozens of people filed through the appointed path along the plastic-covered carpet. But that was all before it was dedicated as a House of the Lord. Now, only faithful, believing, tithe-paying members can enter with their temple recommends. Like me.

Mom urges me to follow her. We approach the gray-haired man in all white sitting behind a granite-topped wooden desk. Mom presents her temple recommend, then mine; she’s kept mine since the worthiness interviews. He peers over his spectacles to read the tiny print on the folded-paper card tucked into a clear plastic cover. The image of Santa Claus checking the Naughty & Nice list jumps to mind. My recommend shows my full name and the recent date in Dad’s handwriting, since he happened to be my bishop while I lived at home for the summer.

My stomach lurches. Will the man let me through? Am I worthy? Maybe the making out with Raymond did go too far. I didn’t tell Dad about that; I couldn’t bear his disappointed face, or risk that he’d tell Mom. But did it count as “petting” and “necking,” like the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet forbids? Only Heavenly Father knows. He can see into my heart. Anyway, I confessed to the stake president during the worthiness interview, and he asked, red-faced and squirming in his leather swivel chair, how far we’d gone, specifically, like, rolling on the floor? He said I’m forgiven. But the guilt prickles at the back of my ears.

The man’s gentle voice interrupts me. “So, you’re getting your endowments today, young lady?” How did he know? But Mom answers and holds my elbow to guide me to the left, Dad to the right. Behind Mom, I ascend thick-carpeted stairs. Sound and color are muted; patrons speak in reverent whispers. The colors are off-white, accented with pale blues and subtle mauves, contemporary. I see a generous hallway that leads to doors and other hallways. I wish I could explore them all. Am I allowed?

As I quickstep behind Mom, I take in the hall’s decorative chairs and side tables: mid-century modern. Shouldn’t temple decorations be a bit more…heavenly, and less…trendy? Rococo gold picture frames cover the walls and enclose familiar scenes: Smiling pioneers harvesting wheat. The Second Coming of Jesus in His white robes of resurrected glory amid fluffy white clouds and trumpeting white angels. A portrait of Joseph Smith—the modern version, where they made him blond and handsome with piercing blue eyes.

I push away that irreverent thought as several women exit a side room, and I recognize elderly Sister Herman from across the street. She lifts my hand in both of hers. “Congratulations, dear, so good to see you here.” Her watery eyes gleam, and I feel her paper-thin skin slide across her bony hands. I’m bewildered by how she and the other women are dressed: long-sleeved, high-necked white gowns that flow down to reveal white slippers, plus more gauzy, fanned, layered white over her head, torso, and legs in a confusing unfamiliarness. I’ve known special temple clothes exist, but Mom and Dad always keep theirs hidden in their temple bags. From waist to knee, Sister Herman wears a bright grass-green apron. I expected the all-white clothing, but the rumored green apron is real? Why?

I’m frozen and my cheeks feel tingly. Mom is watching me and says, “How does that feel to see?” It’s weird but I have no words. This is what I’m supposed to do, this is what I’m here for, so. I give my “I dunno” shrug.

Mom shuffles me to a small side room with a few church pews and another mom-daughter pair. A gray-haired lady in a modest white dress introduces herself as Sister Allen and talks at us to preview what’s about to happen. The anointing, the endowment, the veil, then the Celestial Room—the holiest place on Earth, representing the Celestial Kingdom, the highest level of Heaven—but do we have any questions? Yes, I have questions, but I can’t grab one from the swirl in my brain. I don’t know enough to know what to ask. I don’t know what I’m allowed to ask.

Instead, Sister Allen asks the other girl something. The girl says she’s 16 and is also getting sealed today. “We know that’s young to get married,” her mom says in a rush, “but she has both parents’ permission. She’s ready.” The girl half-hid behind her mom and produced a quick, tight-lipped smile. I know she can’t be pregnant because that would mean she’d been immoral and isn’t worthy of a temple marriage. Sixteen is so young, and people say I’m too young, but wow. Besides, I’m almost 20. I’m ready.

Back to a(nother?) hallway and down more quiet stairs, I follow Mom and the gray-haired lady into the women’s locker room. I remember the locker rooms from the open house, and they still feel out of place—something so worldly and practical in the temple. It smells like the city rec center showers. I recall Mom telling me that the Provo Temple, where she and Dad were sealed, has a sub-basement with a cafeteria, and temple-goers have to pay for meals, which, I mean—didn’t Jesus turn over the money tables and cast out the merchants from the temple?

My elderly guide hands me a folded, white cloth she calls a shield. It’s like an oversized poncho: neck hole, open on the sides. I feel the heft in my hands (polyester?), and she instructs me to put on the shield—just the shield. I enter a stall in a long row of individual stalls, grateful and relieved that Mormon modesty grants me this privacy. Before I close the metal door and slide the latch, Mom shoves my forest green Duffel bag in with me, “Put that in the locker.” I know the bag holds my temple clothes, and after the hallway encounter with Sister Herman—wait.

Did she really mean to strip down naked?

I step out of my shoes. My heart pounds. I feel the blood pump into my fingers and into my feet. I grab the bottom of my dress and peel it up past my hips, waist, chest. Like, no underwear, no bra? My sister and I take turns going into the bathroom to change into PJs. The dress is just tight enough to catch on my shoulders, my face enveloped in folds of cloth. My panicked inhale pulls the slippery fabric onto my mouth, and my lizard brain thinks I’m suffocating. I can taste the synthetic fibers and smell the salty hint of my sweat. It’s okay. Just keep going, bit by bit.

Once free, I gulp and let the dress slide off my arm. I pull the slip up and off. Are the rumors about Mormons being naked in temples true? No one, not even Mom, has seen me naked since I was, like, nine years old. I reach behind my back to unfasten the bra. I don’t even see myself naked; I avoid the mirror when I step out of the shower. Without looking, I hang my bra in the locker with the rest of my outfit. I step out of my underwear. Some even say there’s sex in the temple, but I don’t believe that. That’s just the Devil spreading lies to destroy God’s True Church. Anti-Mormon propaganda.

I find the neck hole in the shield. But what if it is true, like in my dream last night? What if that is what God requires of us, a big test of faith like Abraham and Isaac? I struggle to gather the edges of the wide, flowing shield to grip the sides and secure them in my firm left fist. I command the cloth not to flap open, mortified at the chance that anyone might glimpse my side body, my chest. A familiar discomfort radiates out from my torso, into every capillary.

I stand in the stall in the shield, barefoot. Covered but exposed, confused, terrified. I can’t think straight. I can’t see straight. Can I trust my legs to walk? Mom knuckle-taps the door twice, “You ok, honey?” With her whispered voice, I remember that she does this, she does this every week. And so does Dad. And my big siblings, and their spouses. Raymond’s done this; he’s doing this today. His parents and grandparents, too. They are all here, now, waiting for me upstairs, to witness my first time—and they’re okay. They did this. They love me.

Raymond will be my husband in three days. This is the final step before the sealing; I have to go through with it. It’s what Heavenly Father wants. Even if I have to be naked.

I push down a shuddering sob. I’ve been preparing for this since I was a toddler, to come to the temple. Bits from the children’s song eternally repeat in my head:

I love to see the temple….I’m going there someday…the temple is the house of God…It is my sacred duty.

It is my sacred duty. It is my sacred duty.

It is my sacred duty.

I open the door.

To be continued…

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The first drafted this essay in a class on writing the body with author Madeleine Watts. I took that elective because I have been disconnected from my body most of my life. I’ve been learning to feel and honor my bodily sensations and emotions, and I hoped this class would get me to push my boundaries. It did! Every piece I produced in that class feels worth revising.

When I wrote this essay, the theme was “the ecstatic and the intense,” once-in-a-lifetime kind of experiences. This temple initiation was intense, indeed. With 25 years of hindsight, I recognized it as a time when my body was telling me one thing, but I pushed it all down for my family, religion, and social expectations.

Writing and revising this story has been intense. It requires me to emotionally reconnect with those moments and let the sensations flow through my body. I have started drafting Part 2, and have been putting it off. Releasing this now is, in part, to motivate me to continue writing about this experience. My goal is to publish it by the first weekend in April—my 20-year anniversary of leaving the faith.