KENSINGTON, Md. — More than 250 students participated in Southern Virginia University's sixth annual Temple Service Day Tuesday, Oct. 5., at the Washington D.C. Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Students, along with some faculty and staff members, spent the day performing temple ordinances, planting tulip bulbs and helping to prepare the Mormon temple grounds for the 33rd annual Festival of Lights, which starts Dec. 3. They hung thousands of Christmas lights and helped assemble a stage and set pieces for a live Christmas cr?he.
"Service is central to the mission of the university so we have scheduled this annual trip into our academic calendar — we have no classes on Temple Service Day," said Southern Virginia President Rodney K. Smith. "We believe service enhances learning. Clearly, this is true of temple service. The temple, after all, is a place where service and learning are in perfect harmony."
The first of five busloads of members from the Buena Vista Virginia Stake's five university wards left at 5:15 a.m. to make the three-hour trip from Buena Vista, Va., to the temple in Maryland.
"There's no feeling like being on the temple grounds," said Amber Schillemat, a junior from Munsonville, N.H., who offered to help on the temple grounds.
"Once you step on the temple grounds, the spirit is automatically there. We were stringing up lights and singing and the spirit was so strong. It was really calming to be doing that."
Another student, Ryan Chapman, a senior from Branson, Mo., helped assemble the set for the cr?he. He later took some time to walk around the temple grounds to reflect and meditate in the peaceful setting.
While many helped outside on the temple grounds, more than 120 students participated in one of six sessions of proxy baptisms for the dead. Some endowed members also did other ordinance work in the temple.
This was the first temple trip for Jessica Spaulding, a recent convert to the LDS Church and a freshman from Buena Vista, Va.
"It made me really grateful that I was baptized and am worthy to help others hear about the gospel and accept it," she said.
In between service projects and temple sessions, students ate sack lunches around the temple grounds. Many also visited the temple's visitors' center to see exhibits and watch the film, "Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration."
Students enjoyed being able to spend time with their peers outside of classes and away from school. Spaulding felt a sense of unity and faith being with so many of her peers at the temple.
"It's a huge blessing to attend the temple," Spaulding said. "If we're given the opportunity to take a day off of classes to go with transportation provided for us, there is no reason we shouldn't go. We're doing the work for people who didn't get to hear the gospel here on earth."
— Georgi Ana Smith