Perfectly Clean

Anita and I once volunteered to help clean the Ogden Temple late on a Tuesday night. I signed up to fulfill this assignment during my ward high priests group meeting. As the group leader announced this assignment, one man commented that the last time he went to clean the temple, his cloth didn’t even get dirty—to which another man replied, “It would have, if you’d actually used it!” That got a good laugh.

This wasn’t the first time I had heard someone comment about what it’s like to clean what seems like an already clean temple. The Los Angeles Temple closes twice a year for deep cleaning, and church members from stakes throughout the temple district receive assignments to spend several hours on multiple days either cleaning inside the temple or working to beautify the temple grounds. Several years ago, a friend who had faithfully fulfilled these temple cleaning assignments told me he was done—he wasn’t going back. He said he was unhappy that he had been asked to clean an area of the temple that someone else had just finished cleaning. He said it looked like supervisors were asking people to clean the same things over and over again. After my friend had sacrificed to take time off from work and commit a large part of his day working at the temple, he was unhappy that he had been asked to do something that others had already done—maybe multiple times. I understood why my friend might take offense in that situation. No one wants to be given busy work. No one wants to do something that seems meaningless.

After that, Anita and I volunteered several times to help clean the Los Angeles Temple. I remember the first time I cleaned inside the temple. My job was to dust and polish woodwork. Most of the areas they asked me to clean already seemed pretty clean. It took some effort to find any dust or dirt. Like my friend, I noticed that volunteers were being asked to clean areas I thought had already been cleaned before. I asked myself why so many people might be asked to clean and re-clean the temple. I wondered if there was something I could learn from all of this.

As I worked that day to clean the temple, I felt my love grow for the Lord and for his Holy House. I felt his love and peace as we served him. I was grateful for the chance to become more familiar with the sacred structures and spaces of the temple. I tried to leave clean and bright everything I was privileged to touch. I had similar experiences whenever Anita and I participated in cleaning the Los Angeles Temple.

Additional insights came the night when Anita and I went to help clean the Ogden Temple. We were part of a group of about 40 volunteers from the Ogden area. We all dressed in white and gathered in a room where we received instructions from a member of the temple presidency. He welcomed us and thanked us for coming to serve in the House of the Lord. He commented on the importance of what we would be doing that night. One thing he said stood out for me. He encouraged us to strive to “clean the temple perfectly” and leave the temple “perfectly clean.”

Perfectly clean. Those words stayed with me. I thought about them as I used a canister vacuum to clean the carpet in many hard-to-access spaces in the temple. I noticed that the floor brush attached to the vacuum cleaner wand was designed to clean a swath of carpet just as wide as the tool brush was, and it was made of materials that would not damage furniture or baseboards when I accidentally bumped the floor brush against them. Clearly, someone had taken great care to provide us with equipment we could use to clean, as perfectly as possible, every square inch of carpet in every part of the temple.

I understood that the principal purpose for seeking to keep the temple perfectly clean was to make the temple, which is The House of the Lord, a clean, sacred, holy place where God Himself, the Holy One of Israel, may come and dwell.

However, as I vacuumed, my thoughts turned to what the Apostle Paul has said about us being the temple of God: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” . . . “[T]he temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3:16, 17).

I was overcome by the thought that what I was doing to help clean the Lord’s temple was symbolic of what Jesus Christ does to make my temple clean. As I thought of our efforts to thoroughly and repeatedly clean every part of the Los Angeles and Ogden temples, I humbly recognized my need and desire to submit myself, my temple—every part of me—to the cleansing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and be made perfectly clean.

Since that night, I have continued to ponder my need to be made perfectly clean. I have thought about the account of Peter and the other original apostles in the upper room with the Savior, when Jesus prepared to wash Peter’s feet and Peter objected, saying, “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” To which “Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head” (see John 13:4-9; emphasis added).

I have also thought about the process and constant repetition by which the cleansing of my temple occurs:  Exercising faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; repenting; being baptized by immersion for the remission of sins; receiving the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost; and continuing on, yoked with the Savior in covenant relationship, receiving further ordinances and making additional covenants in his Holy House, and weekly repenting and renewing all of my covenants by partaking of the sacrament—week after week, after week, after week.

How grateful I am that the Savior lovingly, patiently, repeatedly and constantly works with me to purify my desires, my thoughts and my actions! He is the author and finisher of my faith (Heb. 12:2). My faith is not finished once I am "pretty clean." As I am willing to humble myself and yield my heart, mind and hands to Jesus Christ, he will continue to teach, mentor, cleanse, purify and sanctify my temple until it is, indeed, perfectly clean.