I Love the Temple!

I absolutely love the temple! Where else on earth can you go to feel peace and quiet and the Spirit in such great abundance? Where else can you go where you always come out happier and more calm than when you went in...a place that is a real training ground for eternity? Where else can you enter into with big tears in your eyes from the trials and adversities that the world presses down on you and then come out with big tears in your eyes from feeling the love of the Savior and his atoning sacrifice that has cleansed your soul? Yes, your home and your private quiet places can provide those same feelings as you talk with your Heavenly Father in prayer, but the temple radiates the love of the Savior through every door and down every hallway. This is His House on earth!!
I can’t tell you how much a part of me the temple is. I was born in the covenant...I don’t remember that, but I love my parents for keeping themselves worthy to be sealed in the temple, thus ensuring those eternal blessings that a covenant child receives (if I live worthily). I received my endowment in the Ogden temple surrounded by loved ones, with my Grandma and Grandpa Bassett as the officiators. I was married and sealed in the Salt Lake temple 35 years ago this year to the love of my life...and beyond...giving us the added rights and privileges reserved for those who enter into the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. We now see those blessings bestowed upon others on a weekly basis as we lovingly serve others in our capacity as coordinators in the Houston temple.
I know that I wanted to be a temple worker for a long time. It’s a part of me...my parents were temple workers, my Grandma Remington was a temple worker, my Grandma and Grandpa Bassett were temple workers, and my great-Grandma Hanks was a temple worker. As I think of it, I am a fourth generation temple worker in my family. Our children, Jannene and Lorie have followed behind...adding a fifth generation of temple service. I saw, heard and felt of their love as they would come home from the temple. Was my inner desire to serve in the temple hereditary, or just a spiritual desire, increased from years and years of watching dedicated temple service family members? Do I really know how different my life would have been without the temple in it?
I feel kind of like the “life-timer” member vs. the convert. With generations of a love of the temple in our family, I sometimes don’t see and feel the vast difference my life could have been without the temple as part of it. I only feel the continual joy, peace and happiness as my life unfolds. But what of the miracles and blessings that occur in the lives of the “converts” to temple service?
I have two friends who have shared their joy with me just recently as they have begun their temple worker service, and the miracles that have occurred in their lives as a direct result. One friend has had a challenging life, to say the least, with a less-than-responsive husband, troubles with children, troubles with parents and heavy work and church responsibilities. In May, she began her temple service as an ordinance worker. She related that her youngest daughter LOVES that she is working in the temple and calls her every Tuesday evening after she arrives home to hear her stories of her “day in the temple”. Even her daughter’s boyfriend says he feels the impact that her temple service has had on him, and he’s not even a member of the family!
The other couple has struggled with their youngest daughter. Even though their church service has been very dedicated and even though they have put all their efforts into their family and their children, this last daughter has really been a difficult one. She has been into drugs, ear piercings, home school (to get her out of the failing school environment), and in and out of the church. Her parents have hung in there with her, but it has not been without much pain and sorrow.
This past January, their daughter started turning around. They had moved to a different location in Houston, and the daughter has really related to the bishop of their new ward...becoming best friends. She has gone through LDS counseling, has slowly repented of her wayward life, has removed all of her piercings, and has come back into full activity. She even influenced a fellow non-member “stray” to have a desire to learn of the church because of her example, and he was just baptized this past month. It was a complete turn-around in the spiritual life of this young woman...and it began when her parents started working Friday nights in the Houston Temple!!
Life is a real learning experience, and is challenging at best. Lately, I have seen Satan’s groping tentacles reaching out trying to destroy many families and individuals. I am SO grateful for the safe haven of the temple and the covenants made therein!

Everyone Needs a Landmark

Everyone searches for a landmark that helps to define their lives...a memory that creates a firm building block in their hearts...something they can look to, remember and learn from. Ironically, one of the landmarks in my life occurred when Lorie and Manny had their wedding reception at the original 1940 Houston Hobby Airport terminal, which is now a civic air museum. That tie has bound me, perhaps forever, to the Houston Hobby airport. With me holding a Southwest Airlines companion pass that allows me to fly virtually free whenever Kyle flies, we have done some extensive traveling this year. Every time I fly into or out of the Hobby airport, I strain my eyes out the window of my plane to look for...yes... that short control tower somewhat dwarfed by a much larger one only a short distance away; the unique architecture that is the original Hobby airport terminal. It has become a favorite landmark for me. It brings back memories of a wonderful event in my life. It reminds me what a wonderful place Houston is. It lets me know that I am HOME.
We had another landmark several years ago, and that was a large flag that flew on a mast atop a 5 or 6 story building right at Kirkwood, our exit off the Katy Freeway. In the winter when the leaves fell from the trees, you could look out the small windows in the front door of our house on Queensbury and see that beautiful flag flying up in the air. With a light illuminating it at night, it seemed to reach up to the sky, reminding me of this wonderful country that we live in. When we traveled out of the city, our family always looked for that bright flag as we drove into Houston. That meant we were HOME.
There is another landmark that I have grown to love. It is the temple. I LOVE watching for the green spire of the temple through the trees here in Houston as we drive up to it. It lets me know that we are almost there...to our Heavenly Father’s HOME...and to the home that makes me feel peace, feel safe, feel warmly loved. I also LOVE to follow a tradition that my parents started when they moved into the Cornerstone Condos near the Jordan River temple. When we visited, we would go out the back door of their condo and either sit or stand while waiting for 11:20 PM, the time the temple lights would go off. If we waited long, we would sing, “I Love to See the Temple” as we waited. I felt like we were putting the temple to bed, so to speak. If I somehow missed seeing the lights go off, I would look across the temple wall at that black void that was the dark temple. It was very sad when I missed seeing the lights go off.
We rented an apartment up the hill from the temple for a few years, and we would not go to bed before we watched those temple lights go off. When we bought a home in South Jordan, we had to make sure that we could see at least part of the temple spire so that we could see when the lights went out. That is a tradition every time I go to Utah...I want to see the temple lights go out.
I am so grateful to have a husband that turns our “tent” toward the temple. The peace and extreme joy I feel reminds me that within those temple walls, I am HOME.
Goodnight, temple!