Monday, March 23, 2009
One Million Cookies Served: Draper Temple Trivia
This weekend in the Church News I read about the dedication of the Draper Utah Temple I fixated on something Sarah Jane Weaver shared that caught my immediate attention. I wasn't impressed by the spiritual setting as I have read countless examples of the temple dedication of at least one hundred temples over the last several years. I examined closely what was placed in the cornerstone box but it wasn't overly exciting. I was glad to see which child was highlighted and why. It was nice to see him get his fifteen minutes of fame. All this was nice but the one thing that stood out to me during the open house and proceedings of the dedication was the fact that over one million cookies was served. I wondered who had baked all those cookies. Were they bought from someone like the Mormon Cookie king or did members in the local relief societies bake one million cookies which would have been a vast undertaking. I also wondered how many cookies each visitor received. I thought about my wife telling me you should only take one in a social setting and wondering if I would have taken two or three. In the piece describing people's reactions it mentioned that the soon to be dedicated Oquirrh Mountain Temple would probably even draw a bigger crowd and then I wondered if two million cookies would be served. Then I wished I had been in Utah so I could have gotten my free cookies while visiting the two new temples as an incentive for going. I have attended a few temple dedications in my life but have yet to get a cookie. You can tell my priorities in life are driven by simple basic Maslow needs. I am sure had I had enough cookies I would have move up the hierachy and thought about the spiritual and sublime aspects of the temple.
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FYI: I went the first day of the open house and the cookies were delicious and came in many varieties and were homemade. They were displayed on glass serving pedastals and it was like a grand reception. During the open house, I went five times and took nonmembers with me each time and the quality went down by the week three. By the end, they started serving cookies that were bakery made and so you can stop salivating. They were good but not as great as that first day. On that first day, there were also only six of us on the bus and six on the walk through of the Temple. We got to sit in one of the Sealing Rooms and a couple told us about their sealing date and Temple. It was a very spiritual experience. It was like you were in the Temple all by yourself. As we got closer to the end, it was more crowded and by the last week they no longer let us sit in the Sealing Room. They also handed out little bottles of water with the cookies--that was interesting because my nonmembers refused cookies and didn't want to stop in the cultural hall of the stake Center where they served the cookies but they all stopped for water. They also started the tour in another chapel where you were picked up by bus, showed a video about the Temple and Draper community and then transported to the Temple. Nonmembers got to sit in a dedicated meeting house, walk through a Temple and return to a stake center--lots of chances for spiritual experience. When we served a Spanish mission and taught English to Spanish speakers... they usually converted once they came into a dedicated building even if they came for drop-in basketball or English lessons.
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