I Love To See the Temple...

Yesterday Darren and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the second dedicatory session of the Gila Valley Arizona Temple!

The temple is actually almost 3 hours away, so we were in attendance via our stake center. All of the stakes in Arizona and one stake in New Mexico had their regular Sunday meetings cancelled so they could have the opportunity to attend at their local meetinghouse.

Darren and I had both previously watched dedication sessions for other temples, so we pretty much knew what to expect. It was a great experience none the less. President Monson was presiding, with Elder Eyring and Elder Holland accompanying him. It was much more casual setting than General Conference, and there were a few slip-ups that made me love these men even more.

Elder Eyring spoke and then was about to turn the time over to the choir when he said, "Wait, they've already done that." And then preceeded to say it was better to hear from our Prophet then the choir, then apologized to the choir and told them that they sounded great and he didn't mean to sound like they were bad. We all got a good laugh.

President Monson was in fine form as well. He started off telling the congregation that he was feeling emotional today. And then said, "I must have inherited it from my mother." He got quite a few laughs throughout his talk, and then finished up and turned to sit down. He quickly came back to the pulpit and said, "My counselor has reminded me that I'm supposed to give the dedicatory prayer." He is a great man, and I feel lucky to have been able to listen to him in such a special setting.

I was reminded throughout the session of the importance of temple attendance, and wish Darren and I had taken greater advantage of having one so close during our time here in Mesa. We made it almost every month, but we could have gone more frequently. Hopefully we can find time over the summer to make the trip out to Oakland, or maybe even up to Sacramento.

Countdown: 4