I love to see the temple. I'm going there someday to feel the Holy Spirit, to listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of God, a place of love and beauty. I'll prepare myself while I am young; this is my sacred duty. I think that I've always loved this song... from the time I was a tiny girl singing those same words for the members of my parent's temple prep class. It's amazing the spirit that can be felt just walking around the temple grounds. This morning, after our early morning meetings, we had some time to kill before church began. It was a beautiful day so I decided to take a walk around the temple. The grounds were so peaceful and gorgeous. It was wonderful to have that quite time to reflect and to feel the spirit. On my second time around one of my Beehives joined me and commented that even the dew looked like diamonds on the grass. And it did! It was a wonderful way to start my Sunday.
I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to walk around the temple any day I please and go inside often as well. I am especially grateful when I hear of people around the world who have to travel great distances and at much sacrifice to have that same experience.
Another great blessing of living so close to a temple is the service opportunities--not only in the temple but around it as well. It's been much too long since I've helped with a nice, dirty service project. A few weekends ago we had the opportunity to help plant flowers at the temple grounds. I can honestly say that I enjoyed myself. And I loved watching William participate! He and Grandpa Crane planted a flower on the corner that is "William's flower." He was pretty excited about that. When we stopped by the church a few days later he told me "my flower grew so much!"
When we had a Family Home Evening lesson about temples we actually sat on the temple grounds. And when the nursery lesson was on temples they took a little field trip across the parking lot!
I really do love to see the temple and I love to feel the spirit that surrounds that holy place.
Now that we live in Brooklyn we're only about a hour, maybe a little more, on the subway away from the Manhattan temple. I'm so excited! In Indiana we had to travel to Columbus, OH (about 3 hours) to get to the temple. What a blessing to have one so much closer! And now...if we can just find a good babysitter... :)
ReplyDeleteIS your temple right at your church building? How nice. Your temple looks exactly like ours. I thought it was ours for a minute. We have one right here in Columbus, but since we live on the other side of town, it still takes half an hour. Which is close enough to attend often, but not close enough to walk the grounds between meetings. I'm always glad to live so close. It's how i knew I could be happy in Ohio.
ReplyDeleteLindsay...how cool to be able to go to the Manhattan temple!
ReplyDeleteKatie... yeah the temple is in our parking lot. I love it. And I didn't realize that you were so close to a temple too! Don't you love it? I always think that it's funny that I had to move all the way to Oklahoma to be this close to a temple.
I had no idea you were so close to the temple. That was one of my favorite things about serving at the winter quarters vistor center...right across the street was the temple. Just walking the grounds can change your day!
ReplyDeleteWe gravitated towards the temple when we moved to Denver. We love being close. I've been close to a temple since high school. We are very blessed. One of my fav memories was helping clean the Spokane Temple before it was dedicated and working at the dedication. I love to see the temple too!!!
ReplyDeleteWe love being close to the temple too!! HOW COOL that William has his own flower on the grounds! And an FHE right at the temple! There's a must try idea! Thanks, as always, for the inspiration, Jeanine!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love the flower! That's cute. And I'm jealous your temple is so close. Ours now is only about an hour thankfully, but in Iowa I only went once in 2 years because it was 2 hours away! Practically impossible with kids. But yay for you!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. I love to see the temple.
ReplyDeleteHave I mentioned that one of my favorite parts of your blog is the picture of the week? your boys! Man. They are beautiful.
That picture of William with his grandpa is so cute!! I love that you guys live so close to the temple too!! Someday we'll get down there but we're afraid to make you guys watch 4 kids instead of 2!!!
ReplyDeleteTraci... I agree walking the temple grounds can change your day!
ReplyDeleteCarrie... that's so cool that you got to clean the Spokane Temple! What a neat experience!
Lori... I loved your post about the temple and all the beautiful pictures!
Tanya... that would be hard to be so far from the temple--especially with kids. I'm glad that you're a little closer now!
Michelle... I will agree with you--my boys ARE pretty cute! :) Thanks!
Melissa... we would LOVE if you would bring your boys over while you went to the temple. Just give us a call ANY TIME!!!