Eternal Memories 

Now being rebuilt, the Provo Temple provided a half century of memories for BYU students.

Proposal, Take Two 

By Apryl Watson Callaway (BS ’01), Pleasant Grove, UT 

My husband, Darin R. Callaway (BS ’99), and I dated during winter semester 1999. In April he took me to the Provo Temple grounds to walk around. On the side of the hill, he got down on one knee and pulled out a ring box. Right as he was about to speak, a group of girls started rolling down the hill above us. They were screaming and laughing and having a good time—and coming straight for us! Darin quickly got up, and we laughed and walked to another spot where he could make a proper proposal. 

When we got back to my apartment and told my roommates about the girls rolling down the hill, one of them wondered if it was the other girls from our apartment. It was just the sort of thing we would have done! 

A Promise Fulfilled 

By Allison Hong Merrill (BA ’13), Orem, UT 

The missionaries showed us pictures of the Provo Temple. “Just across the road from the MTC,” where they’d learned to speak Chinese before arriving in Taiwan. They mixed up most of the tones, but I understood the significance of the unique-looking structure when they said, “It’s the house of the Lord.” 

A few days later my sister and I took the three-hour train ride to the capital of Taiwan. Ages 15 and 13, we weren’t baptized yet, so we couldn’t enter the Taipei Taiwan Temple. We looked heavenward and admired angel Moroni atop the spire. “Wouldn’t it be nice to go there someday?” I said. She nodded. The missionaries had told us we could do baptisms for the dead a year after our own baptisms. It became my goal, motivation, and commitment. At the distribution center across the road, I bought a poster of the Provo Temple. At home, I taped it to my bedroom wall and looked at it every day, remembering my promise, I’m going there someday. 

Nine years later—after my mission in Taiwan—I saw the majestic Provo Temple for the first time. In fact, I saw it every day from my BYU dorm window. And it was across the road from the MTC, where I taught Chinese. 

For a vacation in 2007, I returned to Taiwan, to the house where the missionaries had visited us back in 1987. The family who lived there now gave me a tour. When I saw the poster of the Provo Temple still on the bedroom wall, I was moved to tears. I was home—with a fulfilled promise. 

Memorable Benches 

By Robert C. Ord (BS ’00), Boise, Idaho 

I grew up in a home overlooking the Provo Temple. Through our back sliding-glass windows, the temple reminded us of the pillar of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night referred to in Exodus. On wintry nights I would watch falling snow illuminated by the lights of the temple. 

Sunday-afternoon walks down around the temple were a regular occurrence. As little kids we dipped our hands in the temple fountain, pushed younger siblings in strollers, and rolled down the grassy hills in the back. 

Knowing my dad had proposed to my mom as she sat on one of the benches behind the temple, I decided to do the same. But I failed to anticipate all of the other BYU students, families, and MTC missionaries enjoying the temple grounds at the same time. However, I found a break in the crowds to pop the question just before the next group of missionaries came walking around to the back of the temple. My brother proposed to his wife the same way.

Years later, reminiscing with our parents, we realized we had all proposed on different benches. So much for our clever plans.

Lying on the soft carpet after midnight in a silent chapel, I may have had some extra-long “blinks.” 

A Place of Rest

By G. Wilson McConkie (BS ’96), Plain City, UT

I was thrilled when I found student work as a Provo Temple housekeeper. The hours were tough—10:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.—but I looked forward to helping maintain the Lord’s house. I loved going to my job and enjoyed the short devotional held before each shift.

At first I cringed at the noise of vacuums in the hallways and ordinance rooms or the clatter of lockers being dusted. But the care and attention to detail that went into the cleanings impressed me, and leaving a vacuum pattern on an ordinance-room carpet was so satisfying.

One night in particular stands out. I was assigned to remove white scuff marks left on the legs of chapel pews. Being tall, the most comfortable way for me to do this was to lie on the floor and army crawl under the pews with my rag and bottle of solvent. Lying on the soft carpet after midnight in a silent chapel, I may have had some extra-long “blinks.” But the pungent solvent proved effective as smelling salts.

I often feel grateful for the opportunity I had to show my love for the Lord each night and for all those who still work to prepare the temple for patrons.

Wear Your Contacts

By Lauren Bangerter Wilde (BA ’12), Sierra Vista, AZ

During my sophomore year at BYU, I was seeking answers to a big decision. I prayed about it every day and trusted I was being led, but I didn’t have any huge insight on what to do. The decision day came, and I did my best. That evening I felt the strongest desire to do temple baptisms.

Early the next morning as I got ready to go to the temple, I had the thought, “Wear your contacts.”

“Oh, no,” I resisted. “I hate wearing contacts underwater.”

“Wear your contacts.”

“But they move around in my eyes if I wipe the water away, and chlorine makes my eyes red and itchy.”

“Wear your contacts.”

So I wore my contacts and thought no more of it.

I sat and waited for my turn to be baptized. The workers switched baptizers just as I was about to enter the font.

The man who entered the water was completely blind. He had the words of the ordinance memorized, but he couldn’t read the name of the person being baptized by proxy. He asked me to say the name at the appropriate time, and then he’d repeat it. I was shocked. If I hadn’t worn my contacts that morning, I wouldn’t have been able to read the names for him.

I learned that day that if the Lord would guide me in something as small as whether to wear contacts or not, then He would guide me—and had guided me—in the big decisions.

Call for Stories: Random Acts of Learning

Did you ever find yourself in the back of a challenging BYU class, questioning your academic choices and frantically searching for a different course? Maybe, like one Y Magazine editor, you dropped a physics class and replaced it with beginning sewing—and years later have a runaway but rewarding quilting hobby. Send us a story about your most random, influential, entertaining, but possibly unnecessary BYU class. Deadline: Oct. 11.

Y Magazine pays $50 for stories published in First Person. Send anecdotes of up to 300 words to firstperson@byu.edu. Submissions may be edited for length, grammar, appropriateness, and clarity.