It’s our Stake Temple Week this week. It seems to always be the busiest week, and this one was no exception. I had plans to spend time in the temple, but my calling as the Relief Society President got in the way.
With a death in the ward, that meant a viewing on Tuesday, and a funeral on Wednesday. I didn’t have much to do with the viewing on Tuesday, except open up the church and make sure the flowers got there. On Wednesday, though, I spent almost the whole day at the church with set up, the funeral (I got to lead the music), and the luncheon. I came home and crashed for an hour and literally told the kids they could watch tv if they got their homework done, because I just needed a one hour nap before I went to bells rehearsal that night.
Thursday I did manage to make it to the temple. I was there almost two hours doing initiatory. But I really wanted to take the kids to do baptisms. John just turned 12 and so we could ALL go. I called to make an appointment, and they had an appointment available for Friday night. No way! I scheduled us. But I said we would have family names to do, and I wasn’t sure if we actually would have family names. I knew Natalie knew how to find names, but she was gone to a debate tournament, so I had to try it for myself. Thanks to the hopechest program and lds.org family search, I was able to find family names! I found 8 women and 4 men (Natalie had already found 10 men, so we had 14). I was worried that I didn’t have enough names, but they were fine with it.
On Friday, we had a scary situation when a dear friend and neighbor got lost in the canyon Thursday night and stayed up there all night. Friday was a day of lots of prayer until we found that she had been discovered, and that she was fine. She had just gotten lost, and when it got dark, she just stayed put. She had her dog with her, but couldn’t get cell service. Her husband and the authorities looked for her that night when she didn’t come home, and they found her car, but finally had to stop looking. They were looking again in the morning. Another couple of hikers found her and she was able to call her husband and they brought her home. Big sigh of relief. You can read the story here.
Friday night, it was only Jenna and John who were able to come to the temple with us, but it was such a great experience. Ryan got to baptize us (and a young man from another family). They let me do baptisms, too. I haven’t done that in 20 years, and it was really wonderful. Especially to have Ryan there with me. I loved it. I can’t wait to go again with all the kids.
So, even though I didn’t get to spend as much time in the temple as I had originally planned, I did actually go twice this week, and got my family to go. Big success!
The funny thing, though, was afterward. Jenna said that after a temple trip, the youth usually got ice cream or shakes or something, and even though I’m trying to do a healthy challenge, I agreed. We have to make going to the temple fun (for all of us). I texted Natalie and asked if she was home yet. While waiting for her reply, we decided we would go to arctic circle for shakes. Natalie was done with the debate thing, but she and her friend Maggie had gone to Arctic Circle. As we were pulling up to the drive through, Jenna said, “I just saw Cole go in!” What? Cole and his date had gone to play laser tag or something, and I guess they went to eat afterward. As we pulled around, we could indeed see Natalie and her friend inside, and Cole and his date up to the counter to order. SO FUNNY! It was like a family night at Arctic Circle (and we seriously never go there!). I had to text both Cole and Natalie and let them know that we weren’t stalking them, but we were right outside!
I’m going to count it as a successful week!
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