My Mormon Temple Initiation, Part 2

What are we willing to sacrifice to find belonging?

This is continued from Part 1, which you’ll need to read to understand Part 2. I will write Part 3 eventually.

As you may imagine, this is incredibly vulnerable for me to share. I was raised Mormon and left that church in my mid-20s. My natal family is still in the faith (and if any of you are reading this, you may want to skip this one). Though it’s been 20 years, I’m in the thick of emotionally processing the impacts of it all. I was taught to never talk about the temple (with specific consequences if I do, including the Devil having power over me), and even though I don’t believe in a devil, some traumatized part of me is terrified.

Hey, Younger Self, that should have never happened to you. But it’s okay now. You are safe now. You don’t need to protect us anymore. I’ve got you.

Mom is standing right outside the stall, now in her modest white dress, white hose, white slippers. She has a yellow cardstock card reading “Escort 7/6/99” pinned to her chest. Her lower jaw is askew—her tell that something is off. Her dark eyes dart around my face as my terrified thoughts zoom through in a blink. Her arched eyebrows morph into furrows.

“You don’t ever have to be naked,” she says with her head leaned toward me, her voice a whisper. “You know that, right? You aren’t ever naked,” she says. I scan her face, unable to utter anything. “Didn’t your dad tell you?” I shake my head in tiny, terse movements left and right. Her body softens to the caring maternal-ness I see only when I’m sick. “Oh, I’m so sorry, honey. I thought he explained it all in your worthiness interview!”

No! No, he didn’t tell me anything in the interview. He said only to try to feel the Holy Spirit and not to worry too much about details. Details?! Like being naked?!? Weird clothes? This shield?! I am overwhelmed into a deeper frozen silence. My brain is the fuzzy hiss of white noise, an old television stuck between channels.

“I’m sorry, honey.” Her shoulders drop. “I thought you knew. It’ll be okay,” she says and envelops me in a hug. I wrap my right arm around her back, but my left hand grips the shield’s edges, pressing into my stomach. I bow my head in tiny, terse movements up and down, suppress a sob, and exhale.

*****

The elderly lady, Sister Allen, reappears to guide me to the anointing. I glance at Mom, who nods encouragement, and I command my legs to move, right, left, right. After a few yards, Sister Allen stops at a row of curtained cubicles, perpendicular to the rows of changing stalls. I summon a vague memory of this area of the locker room from the open house tour, freestanding, narrow walls like bathroom stalls without doors, but something like water fountains in between them rather than toilets. The tour guide’s recorded voice didn’t explain; maybe it said something about performing sacred rituals? “It’s not secret,” they say, “it’s sacred.”

My guide pushes aside the edge of a curtain and gestures me through with a slight nod and a saccharine smile. I glance at her, then walk in. The curtain falls behind me, and I am alone. I take in the four-by-four-foot stall with the first curtain behind me, walls on my left and right, and a second curtain in front of me. Light and sound are dampened. Before I panic, a hand appears around the curtain I’m facing and pulls it aside. I understand I’m required to walk through. My mind races, a jumble of fear, resolve, faith. This is what Heavenly Father wants. This is what I must do to enter Heaven, to see my deceased loved ones again.

I take three steps into the next cubicle.

*****

The curtain falls behind me; this cubicle is identical except that on one side, a waist-high steel fountain burbles a small, steady arc of water. A new elderly woman in a now-familiar baggy white dress stands next to the shiny fountain. Her hand gestures to where I should stand, facing away from her. She taps my left fist to release my vice grip on the shield. My fingers open at her command. The heavy white cloth falls open, exposing my sides. A sour sensation roils through my body.

“Sister,” she says, then whispers, “say your full name.” I swallow, then mumble my three names. She repeats, then continues the prayer with the rhythm and lilt of memorized repetition. “Having authority, I wash you preparatory to your receiving your anointing, that you may become clean from the blood and sins of this generation. I wash your head,” she intoned as she wiped a wet finger across my forehead, “that your brain and your intellect may be clear and active.” With a finger she wets in the water fountain, she touches and blesses my ears, eyes, nose, lips, and neck. I try to pay attention to the words; I want to remember this moment of power, the sole ritual when women have liturgical authority.

Next, she blesses my shoulders and back, sliding her hand behind me and inside the shield to tap my bare upper and middle back. The roaring white noise fills my ears again. She slips her hand out. Her hot breath is in my ear, but I no longer hear the blessings. Her hand penetrates the front of my shield, and my body tenses. Her wrinkled hand floats under the white cloth millimeters from my breasts, then the wet finger touches well below my collar bone. Adrenaline flashes to my fingers and toes. Did she just—?

The hand shifts lower to touch my belly, then my right and left arms. The word “loins” breaks through the fog as a cold, wet phantom finger grazes my inner, upper thigh. I recoil, a full-body jolt. How did I miss her hand slither back under my shield? She finishes the ritual washing on my legs and feet, “that you might run and not be weary, and walk and not faint,” but I am a statue. I hear but do not see a second person slip in behind me. I feel two sets of hands, heavy on the top of my head, and the new voice, a woman’s voice, speaks another, shorter prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

What just happened to me?

Now I am in the next cubicle and a woman, the same or different, I don’t know, asks for my name again, then recites another blessing. I hear the words “preparatory to becoming a queen and a priestess unto your husband.” A queen and priestess unto my husband? Excuse me? My face feels hot, my neck tingles. But then the blessing of the body parts is repeating, this time with oil. The hand slithers in and out under the shield. I anticipate the intimate touches this time, but it’s no less disturbing. Again, another woman appears for a second laying-on-of-hands to seal the anointing. I’m ushered into a fourth cubicle. But I’m not there; my body is their puppet.

My septuagenarian guide holds up a one-piece, translucent white garment. I recognize it as the type of underwear my dad wears, a short-sleeve, knee-length jumpsuit that zips up the front. She holds the garment open and gestures for me to step into it. As she pulls it up and onto my shoulders, she recites another prayer, instructing me to wear it throughout my life. It’s baggy on me. From near my shoulders, she drops her hands lower and, without looking, gropes for the zipper. My hips pull backward. Still chanting, she zips the garment up from between my legs to my collarbones.

In the curtained cubicle, she continues into the next ritual. My heart pumps faster; I know about this part, at least a little. Each person receives a new, sacred name that Jesus will use to resurrect each of us, calling us forth from the grave in the final days. Well, Jesus calls forth the men with their new names, then the men call forth their wives. My jaw clenches at the thought, but the woman is saying my new name, and I snap back to the present, to the curtained cubicle.

“Your new name is”—I watch her lips say the name, but her country accent throws me. Aida? Adah? Ida? No, no, no, what was it? Why don’t they write it down, show a card or something? How am I supposed to “always remember” it and “reveal it at a certain place” when I’m not even sure what it is? I refocus because the woman is already giving me new instructions.

The woman says in her non-ritual voice to return to my changing stall, take this garment off, toss it in the soiled garments bin, and put on the pair of garments I brought with me. Numb, I walk back to the stall and shut the door. I take a few breaths, then lift the shield off my head. This jumpsuit underwear is different from the type Mom wears. Hers are two pieces, a silky top with breast cups and cap sleeves and matching bottoms, also knee-length.

When Mom took me to the church distribution center the first time, the cash registers surprised me. Members buy their garments? While Mom told the clerk which sizes and styles she needed for Dad and herself, I flipped through a book of white swatches of the different fabric options. Silky (for women only), cotton, poly, mesh (for men only), jersey. The last swatch was army green. I turned to my mom with arched eyebrows.

“For the military,” she said. “I guess the white glows on night-vision goggles, so the Church allows a special exemption.” It’s strategic, of course. Can’t have soldiers be glowing targets. But aren’t the garments supposed to protect us, like spiritually and physically? What about the stories about garments stopping bullets and shark bites, about people in fires not getting burned under the garments. Wouldn’t Heavenly Father protect Mormon soldiers?

These memories flash through my mind as I pull my bag out of the narrow locker and fish through the contents to find the top and bottom garments. I put the thoughts on the sagging top shelf in the back of my mind: all will be revealed in Heaven. When Mom bought my garments, I opted for cotton/poly tops without built-in cups. The cups repulse me, and my chest wouldn’t fill the standard B-cup anyway. Each piece of underclothes is sealed in pink plastic with a clear oval to reveal the contents. The men’s version comes in blue packaging. I hate pink. I hate all “boys do this, girls do that.” I remind myself I’m in the temple and try to refocus my mind to holier topics. I inhale, exhale.

This moment is life-altering. I’ve now been initiated. I unzip the one piece, step out of it. I place it top of my bag on the bench, so it doesn’t slip to the floor. With the initiatory ceremony, I’ve committed to wear the garments now, day and night, for the rest of my life. I rip open the bottoms package and pull them on; they end just above my knee. I’m now a full adult, a righteous temple-going member of the Church. No more mid-thigh shorts, no tank tops.

I tear open the thin plastic packaging of the top piece and pull it on. It fits like a low-necked T-shirt with extra-short sleeves, hitting an inch or two down my upper arm. With flat palms, I smooth the undershirt down around my ribs and belly. An unexpected hard spot near the belly button stops me, and I lift to inspect the flaw. It’s a bundle of white thread, sewn in a tight line, maybe a quarter of an inch long. It’s not a flaw, it’s a symbol, like the two marks on either side of the chest, a V and a backwards L. I saw Mom and Dad in their garments tops enough times to know the marks were there, but when I asked about them once, Mom said it’s not something we discuss. I never noticed the belly button one before. Maybe they’ll explain later, in the endowment.

I try tucking the top piece into the bottom, like I’ve seen roommates do, but I almost gag and untuck it. The waist is high, near my belly button. I fold the waistline down a couple times to ride on my hip bones, how I like it. Is that sacrilegious? I put on my bra, over the garment top, and yank the fabric so it’s not bunched up under the bra. Mom said we have to wear the bra over the garments, so they touch the skin fully, but it looks stupid. Probably shouldn’t think “stupid” in the temple.

Next, I bundle and stretch the white pantyhose up each leg. I stopped wearing pantyhose the minute going to church with bare ankles ceased being a scandal. When Mom put the white hose in my hands the other day, I asked if I had to, and she said yes. I pull the shapeless white dress on and zip up the back. Of the three or four dress options at the church store in the basement of BYU bookstore, I picked the least frilly, the least shimmery, while I looked sidelong at the white pants, belts, and ties the men get to wear. All white isn’t exactly high fashion, but at least it’s pants. The dress’s neckline is high and touches my neck in that distracting way that never fades into the background. The arms puff out—just enough to make me feel like an idiot—and are just too short at the wrists. My feet slide around inside the white slippers.

Mom taps on the door, “You ready, honey?”

The only thing I know about the next part is that it’s called the endowment, and in it, I’ll learn holy things. Sacred teachings that are essential to enter the Celestial Kingdom. To live with Heavenly Father and Jesus and my family for eternity.

And that I don’t have to be naked.

“Yeah,” I say and open the stall door.

To be continued…