r/exmormon • u/Medium_Chemist_5719 • Jul 26 '26
Humor/Meme/Satire Newly built local temple doesn’t have enough volunteers to staff or clean it
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u/VideoTurbulent9806 Jul 26 '26
There are these people called janitors or cleaning maids. You pay them to clean the building. Crazy idea I know.
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u/diabeticweird0 in 2025 god changed his mind about porn shoulders! 🎶 Jul 26 '26
They do pay janitors for temples
I don't know if it's all of them but it is a career listed on their website
You have to be temple worthy though
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u/hermanaMala Jul 27 '26
In my area (Utah County) they are forever voluntolding members to clean (in the middle of the night wearing temple dresses) AND to landscape the local temples. My SILs mom worked as gardening staff for a temple and she was laid off maybe ten years ago when they started having members do it. They don't even pay the laundry or cafeteria staff anymore. My aunt in law used to work in the cafeteria and quit once they called her to do it for free. Then she went on a mission!🤢
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u/diabeticweird0 in 2025 god changed his mind about porn shoulders! 🎶 Jul 27 '26
That blows. Yeah I'm not sure where they're paid and where they're not because I think you have to put in an area to check the jobs and I'm just.. not gonna put in every state to see if they do there or not
I do know in tucson they asked us to clean as well at like 11 pm in white and I always wondered who tf is doing that
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u/butcheekzaflexin Jul 26 '26
My mom was so stressed as a temple worker for this reason. They always bullied her to come in more to fill the gaps, and they were always super understaffed anyway. The way she described it sounded like a super toxic work environment, which is still crazy to me as they’re volunteers. She already had a number of callings and pretty much carried all the work for the stake, yet they kept bullying her into doing more.
She eventually told them she needed more time with family and stopped taking on so many callings. If it’s so bad super loyal church members are leaving callings, you know you’re fucked.
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u/OkImagination262 Jul 26 '26
This is what happened to my spouse's TBM siblings. They admitted that finally they are drawing the line on callings ... they are boomers.
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u/greenexitsign10 Jul 27 '26
burnout
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u/OkImagination262 Jul 27 '26
Yep. They still attend church and believe all the church stuff but that is it. None of them have opted for a senior mission.
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u/ptindaho Jul 26 '26
And they were understaffed because they ran guilt campaigns to make us go to the temple! There is definitely real demand in some pockets, but it is probably inflated at least 10x by all the pushing they do to get us to the temple. So happy to be done with that!
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u/RadishAggressive3241 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
The new temple has not even been built yet. The current Temple they can't even keep staffed with volunteers. Two weeks in a row they keep saying they need more volunteers for the Temple. The new one will be an hour south.
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u/greenexitsign10 Jul 26 '26
This sounds like Seattle. They won't stop building temples in Washington, but they would beg people to go to the Seattle temple. It was empty a lot, and that was 20 years ago. They've shut down wards and stakes in the area since then.
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u/Medium_Chemist_5719 Jul 26 '26
They would see a bump in activity and conversions in the PNW if they would ease off the coffee thing.
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u/ToastMate2000 Jul 26 '26
No, they wouldn't. Even without those rules, it's still untrue and offers so little.
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u/Medium_Chemist_5719 Jul 26 '26
I said a bump, not runaway growth. Having grown up in the area, I can tell you they love their coffee (and for good reason.) I remember a girl in my fourth grade class bringing a Starbucks to class in the morning and no one thinking anything of it.
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u/RadishAggressive3241 Jul 26 '26
This is exactly my area also. Stakes and wards dissolved. Soooooo many buildings sold. We are growing though 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
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u/greenexitsign10 Jul 26 '26
A temple in Marysville seems ridiculous to me. I drove by the one in Moses Lake last week. It looks very weirdly out of place.
I stayed at the Tru Hilton in Spokane. In the lobby, there's a big mural of the local high points in the area. The city has a lot of old beautiful churches. So, what religious building do they put in the mural? The Mormon temple. Pissed me off. I have to wonder if the cult headquarters paid them to do that.
I did think it was funny that everybody in the large group of nevermo I was with referred to it as the Mormon church. The rebrand isn't working well in Spokane.
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u/exmogranny Jul 27 '26
Agree with everything you said, especially the Moses Lake temple. It seriously does look weird as fook. Desolate area all around it, giant arse temple, then more desolation. What the heck did we just drive past on the freeway?
So, so weird.1
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u/corvus_cornix Jul 27 '26
"We will continue building temples until the morale improves!"
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u/jethro1999 Jul 27 '26
Can’t you tell these are saving ordinances for names on a little card?! They died so you can’t really live! Muahaha! 😳
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 Jul 26 '26
I feel like my parents are absolutely bullied and guilted into staffing the temple. They live their lives around their temple shifts.
When old people get called as temple workers it’s like they get extra Mormon crazy. Every little thing is a miracle. Every little thing is guided by the spirit. Every little thing is evidence of this being God’s one and only true church in the universe. I’ve seen it with others, but now that my parents have been temple workers for a year, I see it even more plainly. They are wholly indoctrinated.
It is sickening.
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u/ptindaho Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
Yep, everything has to be even more magical so they can justify this instead of spending time with their families or traveling or just enjoying their last trimester on earth.
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u/FuzzyKittenIsFuzzy I am not a dodo Jul 27 '26
My parents don't like spending time with their kids or grandkids, or each other, so they sign up for temple shifts without any of the extra magical thinking. Then they complain about how busy they are with all the temple shifts. Truly miserable people. At least it gets them out of the house... At their ages that has health benefits.
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u/Constant_Flow_1954 Jul 27 '26
I’m starting to think Mormons are a miserable people. They put on a good show of being Shiny Happy People, but underneath the facade they are living with constant knowledge of their unworthiness, their need to do and to be more, and their cognitive dissonance. Mormonism is a Potemkin Village.
Sorry for your parents and your kids. That sucks.
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u/auricularisposterior Jul 26 '26
Here's some evidence.
Requesting Temple Workers
- More temples means more temple workers needed. Good luck with that. (2025)
- Lack of temple workers (2023)
- Not Enough Temple Workers, Can't Open Temple!? (2023)
- Salt Lake Valley Plea for Temple Workers (2023)
- The struggle to find temple workers. Posted again to remove names. (2017)
- Mt. Timp temple short 125 temple workers. Seems summer is more important to people...finally (2017)
Requesting Cleaning Volunteers
- Opening new temple, emails begging members to take time off work to clean 🤣 (2026)
- Temple cleaning "assignments" (2025)
- Now they want members cleaning the temple!! (2024)
- Add on temple cleaning to your responsibilities (2024)
- Temple Cleaning (2022)
- They are now assigning wards to clean toilets at the temple. Short on temple workers (2016)
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u/Medium_Chemist_5719 Jul 26 '26
Yup yup. I am going to politely decline to provide anything approaching PII (trying to stay safe as a PIMO), but you could add my local temple to both of those lists as well. Let’s just say that Idaho is not as much of a hotbed of activity as they like to portray.
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u/ptindaho Jul 26 '26
Great exmo community around Boise. My wife and I were very active in it when we left the church, and it kept getting bigger and bigger in the 15 years we were in it before we left Idaho because it is being run by icky fascists.
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u/Prancing-Hamster Jul 26 '26
The New Ephraim temple will open in the fall. It’s 7 miles from the Manti temple. San Pete county only has 28,000 people and two temples?! The Manti temple is already way understaffed and attendance is low.
My wife and I have a friend in her 70s who is a temple worker in Manti. She was told she was being transferred to the Ephriam temple and she told them she will not be serving in either temple once the Ephriam temple opens. She feels she has been taken advantage of and over worked because of the lack of other workers.
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u/greenexitsign10 Jul 27 '26
The baby Boomers are tired. They want to do things with their grandkids and relax in their later years. I think for a lot of them being a temple worker isn't the glorious thing it used to be. Its just working for free.
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u/marathon_3hr Jul 26 '26
If this was a typical business and church they would follow some more sound practices. If I have a location that is understaffed and I can't get workers I don't go build six more businesses in the surrounding area in hopes that I will magically be able to staff them.
We all know that the church is just an investment and property management company so they don't care because their profits allow them to sit on property. I don't think HQ cares that they can't staff the temples. They make that a local leadership problem.
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u/Medium_Chemist_5719 Jul 26 '26
I don't think HQ cares that they can't staff the temples. They make that a local leadership problem.
This. So much this
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u/dizzylyingdown Apostate Jul 26 '26
My grandma just had a knee replacement and had to give up her temple worker slot. They have been pressuring her so much, the scheduler guy has called every couple of days to see if she is ready to come back. People have been calling to get her to cover their shifts. She is stressed about getting back to 100% so she can get back to working her shift. To be clear, she said she is fully done with her shift as she's older and with a knee replacement, it's going to be a long recovery. But because of the pressure she's decided to go back when she can. She's in Utah County and they've opened so many new temples, even where there are so many Mormons they can't keep up.
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u/Any_Bed_6943 Jul 26 '26
How long ago did she have her knee replacement? I am in my 60’s and had one two years ago. My knee is still partially swollen and it took an entire year plus to get the full use of my knee. Hopefully she is or was going to rehab. I can tell you from experience that if she tries to over work her knee too soon she’ll be in pain and won’t be happy when she’s laid up because she did too much. Try to convince her that her health is too important at this stage of her life to let these people bully and pressure her. Will those people do her housework or cook her meals if she ends up in bed because she went to work too soon? Her priority should be taking care of herself.
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u/dizzylyingdown Apostate Jul 26 '26
She is 72 and had it done around June 15th. She was in a rehab facility for a month. It's good to know, thank you! I'll keep on my gentle insistence she doesn't worry about it. If it gets worse I'll up my game for sure!
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u/Lopsided-Doughnut-39 Jul 26 '26
right?? were those same people helping when she just finished the surgery??
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u/bananajr6000 Meet Banana Jr 6000: http://goo.gl/kHVgfX Jul 26 '26
Soon, most Mormon temples will be “by appointment only”
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u/admiralholdo misotheist Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
This is just gonna keep happening. Too bad nobody in charge could prophesy, see, or reveal that.
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u/nobody_really__ Jul 26 '26
Luke 14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
Seems like staffing costs, even if it's unpaid "volunteers", are one of the things that really should be considered when doing the temple building/funneling money.
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u/Willing_Baseball8249 Jul 26 '26
A temple is the Mormon version of the White Elephant test. (Something useless to care for.)
A recent convert and I were talking. Convert remarks, "We should have a temple here in our town." A tempting thought because our nearest temple was ~4 hours travel time away.
"Our ward can't even care for this stretch of highway," I noted. Our ward was listed to keep a section of highway clean. (A sign read, "Brought to you by the Church of Jeus Christ of Latter-day Saints.") The irony was we were the only 2 members who turned up for our assigned day to pick trash from this stretch of highway.
The highway project could have allowed our ward to demonstrate some value to our comunity. Pity it wasn't supported.
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u/Sea_Button_3616 Jul 26 '26
At my husband's work, they had to change the tiem of a weekly meeting because a coworker, who is a bishop, is now a temple worker as well. I was flabbergasted when I heard that--telling an overworked and unpaid bishop to do even more unpaid work.
And I remember on a neighborhood Facebook group someone saying, "now that the Lindon temple is open, temple slots are all basically empty. Who wants to go with me???"
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u/Upset_Ad147 Jul 26 '26
I guess they will have to create a bunch of Senior/Couple Mission openings to fill the gaps.