{en·cap·su·lat·ing} the DIRT

I learned a few things last night... The first thing is that they keep the carpets so clean at the Temple by encapsulating the dirt every night. The second thing I learned is the word encapsulate which means:

To encase in or as if in a capsule.

Ruffin and I had the opportunity to clean the temple with our ward. I had a great time, I thought it would be light dusting and sweeping but they deep clean it EVERY night. The three janitors which are hired would have to do the work all by themselves if volunteers didn't show up. I can't imagine if no volunteers came, they would have to take a whole level by themselves!
So we started at 10 p.m. Ruffin and I started by sweeping bathrooms, then we vacuumed the whole bottom floor of the temple (that took an hour). We finished so quickly that the nice man in charge told us he had a special job for us... This is when we got to encapsulate the dirt:)... The janitor brought out a sprayer and a machine that looked like a carpet shampooer (is that a word?). Anyway we asked him if we were shampooing the carpet and he said no you are spraying this chemical and going over it with this machine to encapsulate the dirt and the next time they vacuum they vacuum up the encapsulated dirt... High tech stuff but you should have seen those carpets SO CLEAN!!! So we finished encapsulating the dirt and the janitor told us what a good job we had done and asked us three times when we were coming back again... He also told us that he had never had anyone do that job so efficiently and on the way out he asked again when we were coming back and when Ruffin told him that we would come back on the 28th with our ward he said "well you know what your job will be."
We took off the white jumpsuits (which they weren't kidding got REALLY HoT!) and by the time we got home it was after midnight...
Olivia came a couple days early for the weekend (which was the BEST surprise EVER!) so she watched our girls while we cleaned.
I am grateful for this experience because it has made me even more grateful for the Temple and what a better thing could I have done with my time in the night than to clean in the house of the Lord. I am also grateful for this experience because on those days I am feeling slightly average or not good at something I can remember that I am a Champion at encapsulating dirt:) HaHa, even if we did an average job the janitor sure made us feel important:)