My mother and grandmother went to the left while my father and I went to the right, heading to our respective changing rooms. As my dad started pulling the clothes out of the bag he had brought, I noticed a man walking about in what I assumed was the full temple dress. I caught my breath in surprise. The hat looked like a white, puffy beret, listing slightly to one side. He wore a white toga-like garment with a white sash running from one shoulder to the opposite hip. The most striking piece was the bright green apron around his waist. It was tied in the back and ran from his waist to near his knees and was embroidered with fig leaves. Rather surprised, I figured that the man must have been wearing something special to perform a certain ceremony. I then saw my dad pull out a set of the same clothes for each of us. As he put on the temple clothes, I put on a simple toga-like robe for the washing and anointing ceremony. The toga had no sleeves, was cut below the arms to the waist, and I wore nothing beneath it.
We walked to a small room that was subdivided into four sections by tall curtains. My dad waited near the entrance of the room, and an elderly temple worker entered with some consecrated oil. He said nothing to me but poured a little bit on my head and said a blessing. We then proceeded through the other three sections of the room. In each room, he would put a little bit of oil on different parts of my body and say a blessing. I was a bit concerned that one of the blessed parts would be my genitals and was relieved when the ceremony ended without anything of the sort.
We entered a central room, which looked like a small movie theater with a single aisle in the middle. Facing the screen, all of the men were seated on the right, and the women were seated on the left, where I saw my mother and grandmother. Their clothes were similar to the men, but where the men wore hats, the women wore white veils that covered their faces. Temple workers stood at the corners and one, who directed the members to their seats and conducted the ceremony, stood in front.
I was utterly confused and dismayed. I had been raised in a church that eschewed silly costumes and rituals; my Mormon friends and I made fun of Catholics for all of their odd pomp and Latin. Mormonism had always seemed to me to be predicated upon the more logical Protestant notion that God really doesn’t care what costumes you wear or what motions you go through, but rather that He cares more about the substance of your heart. I believed that I knew Mormonism inside and out. Yet, here I was, sitting amidst a room full of people in bizarre costumes with secret names in a ritual that I couldn’t connect to anything familiar, no matter how I tried. As I looked at the screen before me, I hoped that the film that would be played would show that the whole thing had been an elaborate Candid-Camera-esque prank on my behalf. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
The film appeared to have been made in the 80s, judging from the production quality and haircuts of the actors. It began in the heavens, showing the story of the preexistence, in which our spirits dwelt prior to deciding to come to Earth. It went on to show God and Jesus creating Adam and teaching him that there are names, signs, and tokens that he needed to know in order to return to heaven, narrating something to the effect of “and then Elohim — the name of God according to Mormon belief — taught Adam the signs and tokens of the first order of the Aaronic Priesthood.”
The film then paused, the lights raised, and the temple worker who conducted the ceremony demonstrated the signs and tokens that God was referring to. The people participating in the ceremony turned to one another and performed the signs and tokens, and the film resumed. This occurred several more times. I don’t recall all of the various names, signs, and tokens, but I recall that the signs looked like something a football referee would signal when making a call. The tokens took the form of various handshakes — placing a thumb in between the first two knuckles of the other hand, for example. I did my best to remember all of the names, signs, and tokens but was too overwhelmed to do so very effectively.
My mind was racing. How had I managed nearly 20 years in the Church without knowing about the odd costumes and secret handshakes? I knew the Scripture and the doctrine, and this wasn’t in it. Where had it all come from? I felt that I had been deceived.
The film ended, and the participants proceeded to the next room. The three rooms of the Endowment correspond with the Mormon idea that heaven is divided into three major kingdoms: the celestial, the terrestrial, and the telestial, associated with the sun, the Earth, and the stars, respectively, in degrees of glory. The room with the film is the telestial room, the second is the terrestrial, and the third and final, the celestial.
I later discovered that prior to 1991, the ceremony in the first room contained an explanation of the penalties for anyone who would break their covenants and tell someone else what happens there. The participants in the ceremony would pantomime disemboweling themselves and slitting their own throats from ear to ear. This tradition was removed in 1991, but since it is not permitted to discuss the ceremony outside of the temple, no reason was ever given as to why.
I entered the terrestrial room and saw an altar in the middle that resembled a short Greek pillar, about waist high, with a small closed box on top. My father whispered to me that this was where the names were submitted by members of the Church for special prayers. After entering the room, the participants stood in a circle, alternating genders. Each put their left hand on the shoulder of the person next to them and held their right hand up as if swearing at court. The temple worker leading the ceremony then said a blessing one sentence at a time, which was then repeated by the participants. I recall this being the most unsettling part of the ceremony. The women had lowered their veils, and repeating the prayer sounded very much like a chant.
After the prayer circle had concluded, we turned to face a large curtain that walled off one end of the room. The curtain, representing the veil that bars the entrance to heaven, had symbols sewn and cut into it, and I recognized the symbols as the same symbols that were sewn into the garments — the compass, resembling a V; the square, resembling an L; and a flat line below. I watched as one by one, participants approached the curtain. They would reach to the side of the curtain and hit a small bell with a mallet, as if ringing a doorbell. A temple worker standing on the other side, representing God, would ask who was there. The participant would whisper their second name and then proceed to give the various names and handshakes to the worker through the curtain. I didn’t remember all of the names, signs, and tokens, but a temple worker was standing nearby to whisper reminders to me when I needed them.
The celestial room is the most beautiful room in the temple. Everything from the carpets to the tissue boxes is in white or gold, and a huge crystal chandelier sits above the center of the room. No ceremony takes places within it, but members are free to sit within and contemplate and pray as long as they like. It’s also the only place where the Endowment can be discussed.
I passed through the veil to the smiles of my parents and grandmother. They were beaming with pride and happiness as my grandma asked, “Wasn’t that amazing? Wasn’t that just wonderful?” Feeling completely overwhelmed and wanting nothing more than to get away from the temple, I couldn’t think of anything to say. “I think that all of the men look like celestial chefs,” I blurted out. They laughed quietly, and we went back to the changing rooms and left the temple. The car ride back home was mercifully silent, and I didn’t speak to anyone for several hours after that. I kept replaying the ceremony through in my mind, trying to find any connection to the Church I had grown up in, believed in, and loved. I barely slept that night, lying in bed in the garments for the first time, cycling through various emotions. I felt angry at the Church for deceiving me — it felt as if my entire upbringing had been a bait-and-switch con. Realizing that there were huge portions of Church doctrine that I had obviously been completely ignorant about was terrifying, especially combined with the fact that I was due to sacrifice two years of my life, time, and independence to serve a mission to preach in its name.