Waiting in the Lobby

By Lori Fuller

Church Magazines

I felt disappointed when I was kept waiting in the lobby and out of the temple because of a few clerical errors.

One evening I took three of my younger siblings to the temple to do baptisms. As the temple worker checked our recommends, he discovered that my sister’s was missing the bishop’s signature. I started filling out a form to take to the temple recorder, who would call the bishop. Then the temple worker checked my brother’s recommend and found that it had not been activated. I had the pen, so I took the form we were handed and began filling it out too.

I knew my brother and sister could not go in with errors on their recommends, but I felt responsible for them, and until I helped them take care of these errors, I could not go in either. I felt frustrated at being kept out of the temple. We left the baptistry and went upstairs to the temple entrance to explain our situation at the front desk. The temple recorder said he could fix the problem in just a few minutes, so the four of us sat down to wait in the lobby.

As I sat there, my frustration changed to discouragement. We were being kept out for such simple errors, but they were all the difference between waiting in the lobby and entering the Lord’s house. It had been a rough day, and I had counted on the temple to help me feel at peace. The mistakes weren’t my fault, but as the wait dragged on, I felt ready to cry. I was trying to be good by coming to the temple and setting an example of temple attendance for my younger siblings. So why were we being kept out when I wanted so badly to be inside?

And then I realized something: if I felt discouraged being kept out of the temple for a few clerical errors, how disappointed would I feel to be kept out for my own errors—to not be worthy to enter the temple? As I considered this, I was suddenly calm. I felt that I had learned the lesson God wanted me to learn. I promised Him that I would always try to be worthy to go inside the temple. I promised that I would never be kept out of the Lord’s house for my own errors; I never want my actions to confine me to just the lobby.

Later that night I had an appointment with my bishop to renew my temple recommend. Before I went, I checked for any errors in myself that might keep me out of the temple. When the bishop asked if I was worthy to enter the house of the Lord, I was so grateful that I could say yes.