Draper Temple Open House

As we drove to Draper, I couldn't help but reflect on the timing that had taken place so far. It worked out that I could go to lunch & see old friends. Then as soon as I returned home from lunch, dad called with the food. Had I not changed the time to tour the temple, we would have been in Draper and we would have missed him. As I mentioned earlier, Stephen will be doing his preceptorship in Feburary & March. Which means he will have to work less. We have tried to save as much money as we can & I have been working on food storage as well. We think we have planned well, & will make it ok. But if worse comes to worse, we can eat a lot of pizza & egg rolls to make it through! The events of the day were just too much of a "coincidence" to ignore. We feel that Heavenly Father guided us to be where we were. We don't have many days where we feel the Lord planned out our every footstep, so yesterday was a blessing!

On to the temple. The first thing we noticed was there was no snow on the ground in Draper. We also noticed all the horse trails and properties with land for horses. Steve said, "Hmmm maybe we will move to Draper." To which the kids protested with a loud "NOOOOO" But then Kaitlyn added, "well if we could convince our neighborhood to come with us....." I think that's a great idea! Just so a rumor doesn't get started, we aren't planning on moving anytime soon. One day, maybe, after the kids finish high school. But not until then. And our first choice is to stay in the town we are in.

We arrived at the chapel just below the temple. We went into the chapel, watched a short movie, then boarded the bus & went to the temple. We waited in line (luckily in a heated tent) for about an hour. It was a long wait, but the kids did really well. Once inside, the kids were awestruck by the beauty of the temple. During our tour, Stephen counted 42 pictures of Jesus Christ. The girl's were VERY impressed by the bride's dressing room. It was gorgeous! They thought it was hilarious that the groom's "dressing room" was a stall with a small locker, located in the Men's dressing room! They loved the big chandelier in the celestial room, and it was touching to sit in a sealing room, all 6 of us, as two of the hosts explained eternal marriage & eternal families. We were escorted to another church building just outside the temple, where we ate cookies & drank bottled water. After a 20 minute wait, we boarded the bus that took us back to our car. It was dark & very cold after the tour ended, so we decided not to take pictures. It was a huge sacrifice for me!

I think the sweetest moment was when I tucked Hannah into bed last night. I asked if she wanted to marry in the temple so she could go back into the bride's room. She said, "no, I want to get married in the temple so I can be with my family forever... but the brides room is BEE- UTE- A- FULL!"

I did take a few pictures while we were waiting for the bus:








PS- And even though we were blessed to attend so many events yesterday, we still missed two other fun events we wanted to go to--- A card making party for me & a ward sledding party. Oh well, there will be more card parties this year and there is always next year's sledding party!