Sac Temple 5-O

I thought I had better give you the update on when Suzi and I did our security detail at the open house of the new Sacramento Temple. The Sacramento temple is the one there on the top.

The one on the bottom here is the Manti, Utah Temple where Suzi, and I were married 14 years ago.

We showed up to our assignment in the security office. It was a group of about 25 people. All of them men with the exception of Suzi, and one other woman.

Most of the other men were either police officers or retired police officers. I'm not kidding CIA, FBI, deputies, city police, CHP, a drug rep, and 2 home makers. "One of these things is not like the other."

However, it was a ton of fun! I did get a cool radio! All of us in Security, First Aid, and Facilities were given radios. They security radios wired into our ears and if someone really wasn't looking for it they probably wouldn't notice I was wearing one. All the wiring was under my coat.

There was a command center that all of us radioed into, but we could hear all of the radio dialog as well. Not too much nuttiness going on during our shift. A little, but nothing worth mentioning. It does amaze me that we needed that much security, but it was needed for the nut jobs that do decide to come and create trouble. The nuttiness gets handled quickly and discretely.

Here in Sacramento there are over 6,000 visitors a day, and so you could imagine with those kinds of numbers there are going to be a nut or two.

Oh, and I did get a badge of sorts too! There must be close to 500 volunteers at the temple at any moment. All of us wearing ID tags. With administration, and security we wear pretty large lapel pins. The best part of the pins is it gave us license to walk any around anywhere. That was kind of fun.

Suzi, and I had an awesome "assignment." Our first assignment was to cover the temple grounds. So we didn't' have a posted assignment. We didn't have to watch anyone piticular door, room, or space. We got to wander with the roaming security. That was fun because we got to go all over.

So Suzi and I had been working for about 6 hours when we bumped into Ben and Whitney. They came out and offered us a cookie. I grab the cookie, because well......Heck who am I to turn down a cookie. Suzi says "no thank you".

Well as I'm working on my cookie Suz says, "Your not suppose to be eating while your working." I say "I didn't hear anything about that this morning." She says "because they didn't say it this morning, they said it at the meeting a week ago that you missed!" I say "Oh." I'm not kidding, as soon as I say "oh" my ear piece says "Sean Kelly to the Command Center."

Of course I'm thinking, "quick hide the cookie". I say "Suzi hold my cookie!" She said "HECK NO! Hold your own cookie." I stuff the cookie in my mouth as I walk toward the command center, and realize I was standing 10 feet in front of the command center window while I was eating that dang cookie. Hello.

Well I walk into the Sgt, or Lt. Or whoever the heck makes assignments and I say with cookie crumbs all over my face and coat "how can I help you?" He tells me in the nicest way "we are reassigning you, would you mind covering the south east temple grounds." I say "absolutely! Glad to do it." I look at my map on my way out the door, and realize I've been sent to watch the volunteer parking lot.

I got moved from the sweetest assignment to the parking lot. I guess someone has to it. Glad to do my part. Glad to stand in the sun with no shade in a black suit in the dirt parking lot listening to all of the fun stuff back at the temple 300 yards away.

It really wasn't that big of a deal, but it was funny! That dang cookie. Curse you irresistible giant sized chocolate chip cookie!