The Philadelphia Temple Open House

For the past year, I have been watching the progress of the construction on the Philadelphia temple.  Although construction began several years ago, it's only been over the last little while that obvious things have happened.  You know, things like walls :-)

Every Wednesday, when Glo and I head down to Philly, I drop her off at her lesson, find a nearby parking space, and head out walking.  I've done this for the past seven years of driving kids to lessons, but it's been rather fun to have a goal now.  I can actually see the temple spires from Amy's front porch, so it's not hard to get to.  After seeing what progress has been made in the last seven days, I walk up to the art museum (yo ADRIAN!), and then walk back to the temple.  It's several miles of walking, and not only is it good for my legs, but it's good for my soul.

We have been told as church members to rejoice over the building of a temple, and yesterday, in Relief Society, our teacher asked us exactly why we should rejoice.  It got me thinking.

I remember when Mark was in the MTC, and it was announced that St. Petersburg was becoming a stake.  He wrote to us about it, and you could feel the excitement in his letter.  In fact, he wrote about it for several weeks.  And recently, I heard a story about the missionaries in Thailand who were awakened by their mission president in the middle of the night when he found out that there would be a temple in Thailand...and he called them to tell them.  Why do we feel such the need to rejoice about it?

There are many reasons I can rejoice about it, and I can't say one is more important than the other, although one thought has been at the front of my mind for the past year:  for the first time since we were students at BYU (circa 1990), I will live "close" to a temple.  Granted, the Washington DC temple is actually closer to us, but I rarely go to DC except to go to the temple.  Now, every week when I'm in Philly for Glo's violin lesson, I can go to the temple.  And what a blessing that will be in my personal life.

Going to the temple always resets my life.  Visiting helps me put my life back in perspective.  I am reminded of what is truly important in life, and that is such a blessing.

Too, I believe that areas where temples are near are blessed.  There are so many prayers offered in temples for people who live close, and I look forward to receiving strength from those prayers.  The DC temple has actually been closed for maintenance for three weeks, and there is an emptiness in my life.  I almost want to say that I can feel the loss of those blessings.

Too, I have so many family names who need their work done.  It will take a load off of me to visit the temple more frequently so that I can get through those names.

I honestly can't wait.

As we drove up, we were thrilled to see that the neighboring Free Library has an exhibit going about Mormonism, "An American Born Faith".

As we drove to Philly for the open house, I wished so badly that the temple was already dedicated so that we could get going on everything.  However, it was so lovely to visit the upper rooms with Glo (who has never seen their type in person), and to see so many people not of our faith visiting too.  I think it gave me some hope to see that there are people who are interested in our religion, because my own personal experience has not been so positive.

It was absolutely lovely to see so many small tributes to the city of Philadelphia itself.  We couldn't take pictures in the temple, but Glo had her sketch book and she drew some of them.  And there were so many paintings of scenes from the Susquehanna river, that I wished we could have taken one home with us!  Of course, it was fun to remember that Glo was baptized in that special place :-)

While we sat in the sealing room and listened to the purpose of the room itself from a darling older couple, Glo drew one of the beautiful eternity mirrors.  As everyone was exiting, I had us stand there as a family (just like the young married couples do), and look at each other through eternity.  It was a very tender moment.

(These are official pictures from the church's website of room we saw:)

One of the four beautiful sealing rooms.  It almost brings tears to my eyes, imagining Hannie kneeling across the altar from some chosen man someday.

It's hard to see, but the three paintings here are different scenes from the Susquehanna river--perfect, seeing as Joseph Smith was baptized there.

They did give everyone a couple of minutes to sit in the celestial room.  It was touching to see everyone (members and nonmembers alike) feel the reverence of the room and act accordingly.  In fact, everyone talked in whispers even though that was never mentioned.

The tour went way too fast.  I wished we could have just found a quiet corner and sat there as a family for a longer while.  However, it brings tears to my eyes to think that in just two more years, our entire family will be able to do that.  I think that when that happens, it will be one of the happiest moments of my life.

Too, it was beautiful to see Hannie so excited about the temple.  She loves Philadelphia because she has such happy memories of us going there every week.  While she took out her endowments in DC (like every one of us Kennedys has done so far), she has great plans of being married in the Philly temple, and she was having fun imagining it all as we spent a moment in the Bride's Room.

I can't wait to come and visit the temple with John when he has the occasional Wednesday off!

This was the visitor's center.  I just had to get a picture of the temple how I have seen it for the past year.

It's lovely, because there's a Christus statute in this visitor center also.

I loved Glo's drawing of the Christus statue.

But *sigh*, we had to leave.  Thankfully, John was with us (for once!), and we had a great time enjoying the city together too.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but in the seven years we've been going to Philly, I never knew that there was a Hard Rock Cafe.  And as it turns out, it's only blocks from the Kimmel Center.  When I asked the waitress how long it had been there (thinking that maybe I hadn't known about it because it was so new), she soothed my wounded ego by telling me that it was one of the newest Hard Rocks anywhere...."it'd only been there SEVENTEEN years".  *face slap*

Since Amy's house backs up to the Franklin Institute, we'd beens seeing signs for "The Science Behind Pixar" exhibit for months.  I had promised Glo back in the spring that we would visit it when we came for the open house.

We had a really fun time, creating our own stop motion movies.  Of course, in every one of them, Hannah was the hapless victim of the iconic Pixar lamp, hitting her in the head and forcing her off the screen.  #onlythekennedys

John and Wall-E, looking to the future...

Crazy thing?  After about two hours in the exhibit, my brain shut off.  I thought we would be watching cute little snippets about Pixar and the characters, but it was a completely different exhibit.  It is seriously intense.  It's all about the math and the (literal) science (including engineering) behind the movies.  Lighting, 3D creation of characters, rendering.  I say this in all seriousness that I was grateful Glo was there to explain some of it to me.  Oh goodness, it gave me a completely new appreciation of the work that goes into creating animated films.  We left after those two hours, and I do believe Glo could have stayed there another two.  Or four.  Or camped out in the museum for the entire night.

I really loved having the family with me while we walked around the Philly area that has come to mean so much to all of us.  I wanted a picture in front of the fountains, but with John at the wheel of the camera, we didn't get the best posed picture.  However, I noticed something amazing.  See my legs?  Those babies are looking GOOD!  Looking back on it, I have been clocking between five and seven miles a day of walking, and it's paying off!  I may not be losing the weight that I want to lose, but my legs are benefiting from the exercise, for sure.  One more thing to love about Philly, am I right? ;-)

Finally, with The Melting Pot closing in Ann Arbor, we haven't been in a while, and it's one of our family's favorite restaurants.  So, I surprised the kids with a trip to The Melting Pot at the King of Prussia.  Our waiter was awesome, bringing out the food as fast as we could eat it, and it was no time at all before we were headed back home.

For the past seven years, I've always kind of dreaded my Wednesday trips to Philly.  No more.