As we touch the Temple, the Temple touches us

In General Conference last year, they talked about touching the Temple, that even if you couldn't go into the Temple that you could go there and touch it, and that in doing so, it would touch you. I took my kids there and we walked around the grounds and eventually went up to the Temple and touched it. It was a really good experience for us all, and the kids still talk about it today.

A week ago yesterday I went through the Temple for my endowments. I was able to go with Barb and her parents. It was really quite amazing to me how wonderful the experience was, how spiritual it was, and how much sense it all made to me in terms of the order of things, the meaning of things, and the symbolism of what was conveyed. If you read on the internet about what "happens in the temple" from the people that hate Mormons, it is really quite shocking what they say. There are truly a lot of terrible things written about what happens in the Temple. I had gone to a Temple preparation class with Barbara and I was able to learn a great deal about the meaning and motivation of going to the Temple through my wonderful instructors. And going through the Temple for my endowments was a wholly wonderful experience, completely and utterly different than what I had read about it from the sites that supposedly inform people of what goes on there.

It is easy, VERY easy, to see how people would find the Temple or LDS faith to be cultish given what is written on the internet. Given what actually happens in the Temple, it is amazing how completely different it is from the stories people seem to tell of it.

I certainly can't speak for other people that have gone through for their endowments, and I can't speak for what happened in the past. But for myself, I can say that nothing even REMOTELY inappropriate occurred there, which is directly contrary to what people say "online".

I had taken to reading a few of the anti Mormon sites when my Mother had been researching the Church and she had encouraged me to read some of the information as she had done. At that time, I had already read some, but I read a great deal more to understand better where she was coming from. It makes sense how easy it would be to be frightened or in the very least concerned if you were not a member and read the information on the internet about the Church.

My time in the Temple up to now has been absolutely wonderful, rewarding, and extremely Spiritually fulfilling. I truly love being there, and I look forward to being sealed in the Temple this Saturday to my wonderful fiance'.

I can honestly say that the Temple has touched me. I look forward to going back often throughout my life and my marriage. It truly is a blessing, and it truly does bless us for going. I know because I have received a very specific and real, tangible blessing from going to the Temple, and I have written about that here in the past.

I am thankful that we have Temples here on the earth, and I look forward to my wife and I making our house "like unto a Temple".

Signs

I haven't written in a long while. I've had reasons, some valid, some not. I could explain them, but they don't really matter, to be honest. The thing to do is to get started again. :)


First I think it would probably be a good idea to talk a bit about things that have happened in the past that I haven't written about. It is an obvious thing that I should have been writing more since it is so easy to forget things, especially as I get older.


One day last year I was driving to Barb's cousin's (Debi) house. My daughter Abbie was in the back seat with my son. She says to me, out of the clear blue sky "Daddy, you need to slow down". I didn't know why at the time she would say something like that since I was already going a little bit less than the speed limit. She said again "Daddy, slow down!". I did. She had never said anything like that to me before in my life. Next thing I know, a truck pulls out in front of me, clearly not having seen me, from a side street. I couldn't believe how hard I had to hit my brakes to not hit him. If I hadn't already slowed down, I wouldn't have been able to keep from hitting him.


The first time I tried to have family home evening with my kids, I had nothing other than the Book of Mormon that the Missionaries had given me. I felt full of the Spirit and confident in my ability to read to them from the scriptures. I got something like three or four verses in, and my then four year old son and two year old daughter, for some inexplicable reason, became bored. :) I eventually had successful family home evenings but they began with things like songs and pictures and props that the kids could more readily associate with and have fun with.


So I was surprised when Barb told me that she had a prompting to give my children each a hard cover Book of Mormon. I actually very nearly told her it was a bad idea. To be honest, the sentences had already formed in my head to tell her that she shouldn't do it, because they wouldn't be interested. But I have learned to follow and to honor promptings, and I am so glad I didn't say anything to counter Barb's prompting. So she gave each of them their own Book of Mormon with their name on it. I didn't think much of it since I had no real expectation of anything happening or any interest on the part of the kids. I think it was the next day that they both discovered pictures in their Book of Mormon. They asked me about the pictures, and I explained each of them to the best of my knowledge at the time. There was a picture of Joseph Smith, and a picture of Jesus among them. Also, there was a picture of Moroni with the gold plates in a box. Unbelievably to me, the next day, when Barb was over to the house for Family Home Evening, Alex began telling her what was in each of the pictures. At the time I had explained to the kids about the pictures, Abbie had listened very intently and Alex seemed decidedly disinterested. But here he was, pronouncing Joseph Smith correctly and telling Barb about each picture. I had thought my daughter the one most likely to remember things, and she did, but Alex, who I had written off as not getting ANYTHING out of my discussion, remembered virtually every word I had said!


Abbie began carrying her Book of Mormon around the house with her, and sleeping with it at night. She absolutely loves to just turn the pages and touch them, even though most of the time, the pages she is looking at only have writing she can't understand. Barb and I each hand wrote a short dedication in the front of both Books of Mormon.


Another time last year, my Mother came over to my house to watch the movie "Up" with my kids, Barbara and I. Abbie was still carrying her Book of Mormon with her EVERYWHERE, and so there she sat, next to her Grandma (my Mom), with her Book of Mormon. I quite literally could not believe my ears or my eyes when I saw Abbie hand the Book of Mormon to my Mom. She told my Mom, and I quote "Here. Hold this. You should read it." I felt really tiny in my chair, thinking that my Mother would think I had asked Abbie to say something like that to her, which I surely did NOT! My Mother was and still is quite negative about the Mormon Church, and I would absolutely not do anything to confront her with something about the Church and least of all would it be through actions of my daughter! But there was Abbie the little Missionary just barely three years old. I have a lot to learn from my kids!


I'll post more later on, but I wanted to capture a few things I could remember from the time I wasn't blogging (but should have been).