A DETOUR from a TEMPLE ASSIGNMENT I didn’t expect.

I volunteered to help with the Open House for the newly renovated Mesa Arizona temple which is expecting thousands of visitors on a daily basis. They gave me a badge labeled USHER to validate my importance and placed me on a sidewalk a block away to direct people to the tour gate entrance.

I was alone with no contact for the first hour of my 3-hour shift. In the distance I saw other volunteers were busy greeting the crowds of people both in and outside the temple. As I paced back and forth in solitude I felt discouraged at my seemingly irrelevant contribution and uttered a silent prayer.

WHY AM I HERE?

Then I looked across the street and noticed an old woman dragging a sprinkler across her lawn.

GO TALK TO HER.

I heard the words, looked around at my empty assigned post, and walked across the street to greet the woman. I wondered if she was annoyed by all the traffic and congestion the crowds would surely bring to her neighborhood for the next two weeks.

“ISN’T THIS GLORIOUS!” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

For the next two hours, Edna taught me lessons from her 84 years of life. We laughed over sweet memories of her deceased husband. We cried over sacred miracles which saved her life. And our hearts connected as she described how she rises early each morning to see the sun rise over the temple, then sits quietly at dusk to see the reflection of colorful sunsets on the temple windows.

Edna has planted winter grass and is working hard to ensure a beautiful lawn will compliment the new temple. She recently cared for a dying friend in this home and told me she held her hand and watched her take her last breath at the bay window looking directly at the temple.

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL MOMENT she whispered.

The volunteer coordinator came to release me from my post and crossed the street to collect my badge. It was now the end of my 3-hour shift. Where had the time gone?

“Sorry I placed you at a post with no people,” he said.

I looked at my new friend Edna then smiled and handed my badge over.

“I was right where I needed to be.”