Finally it was time for me to go through the temple for my "endowments." This was it. The time. Was. Now.
Hooray!
After 19 years of only hearing about the pinnacle of spirituality and being soul teased, I would finally climax into full blown righteousness. God would endow me with endowments and I would do some shit to prove that I was cool enough to one day die, and then be resurrected, and then be found worthy to enter the Celestial Kingdom. The highest degree of glory - godhood, an eternal family, and all the bitches I could fuck.
And I was 19. That's a lot of bitches. Sure the minutes/individual bitch ratio was low, but this wasn't about quality, this was about quantity - teen boys popping and reloading as fast as a Gatling.
But the syphilitic burning question was - What was going to happen in the temple?
Don't ask me, I hadn't been yet. And the temple was like Fight Club. The first several rules about the temple were that you didn't talk about the temple. It wasn't some kind of "secret" though. It was "sacred." That's the difference. And you better know the difference too. "Secrets" are things that you either don't tell, or you tell someone else to make the first person mad at you but you don't fucking care anymore. You're getting revenge by sharing their secret because that asshole said some shit about you, and who the fuck do they think they're messing with? That's right. You! You don't have to put up with them anymore. You are so tired of their bullshit anyway, so you told a "secret." Boo-fucking-hoo. So sue you.
A "secret" can also be a best selling book and movie about how the universe OWES you something because you desperately try to have a positive attitude. Good to know that the Baby Boomer generation cries about the "entitlement" attitude of generations X and Y, but then produces and buys this shit up like cheap beef at Taco Time.
No, the temple is sacred. That means that it doesn't get talked about because some fuckwit with a computer who thinks he's better than god is going tell you what goes on in there while simultaneously shitting all over god's super special ordinances.
Now before I tell you what goes on in the temple while simultaneously shitting all over god's super special ordinances, I should explain what happens prior to entering "god's" lamely decorated house. Most men go through the temple for the "endowment" ceremony the first time just before going on a mission. They are ordained with the "Melchizedek" priesthood and are called Elders. And most women go through the temple just before they are married.
Yes, there can be exceptions to this for all kinds of reasons, but what I've described is the standard. The temple has several ordinances that are performed and each ordinance has a different set of rules as to who may be able to attend and when, but the "endowment" ceremony is one of the biggest, and a man MUST receive the "Melchizedek" priesthood before entering and a woman must be able to justify why she should get to go through (the easiest justifications are that either she is going to be married or going on a mission herself).
The other thing that a person must have is what's known as a "temple recommend." This little piece of paper in a cheap plastic covering is your golden ticket in. It is called a "recommend" because you first sit with your bishop and convince him through a series of questions that you love the church so goddamn much that you won't even fuck yourself for it and then he "recommends" that you are "worthy" to enter the "house of the lord." And THEN your Stake President grills you with the same questions and you have to prove to him that you are also worthy to get your ass into the temple.
Both guys must sign your recommend for it to be approved. And even though I had said that the first rule of the goings on in the temples were don't talk about the goings on in the temples my Bishop was naughty enough to give me a little warning. He didn't want me to be "freaked out" but at a certain part of the temple ceremony I was going to go through, I would be naked.
What? What? What?
I'm not allowed to toss the Twinkie around while thinking about how hot Asian girls were, but there was nudity in god's house?
How very odd. But the Bishop assured me that I would be wearing a "shield" and that it was "modest." Being a nerd, I just imagined a giant shield that would protect me from a large dragon's large fireballs but that didn't seem quite right.
My parents took me to the temple after I had gotten my recommend and the week before I was supposed to go into the Missionary Training Center to report as a soldier for "god's Army," and I took with me a brand new pair of "garments."
This was the only other thing that I knew for sure about the temple before going in for my "endowment" ceremony. Somehow because of this ceremony I was going to be "privileged" to wear the "Mormon magical underwear."
Now that's a very rude thing to call "garments." Just because Mormons believe that garments protect them from evil and possibly fire, lightning strikes, and bullets doesn't make them "magic." Garments aren't magic, they are sacred. My Stake President was very clear that I shouldn't treat my garments like any other article of clothing. Garments were special and if my faith was awesome enough this underwear would give me +2 defense against electricity attacks, +1 defense against fire, and 50% damage reduction from Dark Arts spells.
But they weren't fucking magic.
So I entered the temple knowing only a handful of things:
1. At some point I was going to be naked behind a "shield."
2. My mother's advice to my older sister when she went through was, "Whatever you do, DO NOT RUN OUT DURING THE MIDDLE!"
3. My mother's advice to me was, "Whatever you do, DO NOT LAUGH DURING THE MOVIE!" (Ok, so I guess there's going to be a movie).
4. This was supposed to be one of the most spiritual experiences of my life.
5. And a friend who had recently been through said, "For awhile I thought I had joined a cult." And that's ALL she would say about it.
Ok. This better be good.
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