The Temple and Friends

When we moved to Michigan, the choice came from several specific requirements.  I wanted to be close enough to an airport that when we would fly, it wouldn't be a separate journey to just get to the airport.  I also wanted to be in a "healthy" stake.  We have spent the majority of our married lives in small stakes that don't offer everything we would like (it's unfortunate that our kids had to grow up without real church friends), so I wanted a stake where I felt I could lean on other members and be strengthened by them and their testimonies.  I also didn't want to live in a small, struggling ward where everyone is in everyone else's business--that always spells trouble. I also wanted an area that would offer John and me a number of choices for things to do--concerts, sporting events, festivals, and so on.  After all, without children around, we would have to find our own entertainment, so I wanted a locale that could do that.  And fourth, I wanted to live close to a temple.  Once again, aside from living in Utah as undergraduates at BYU, we have never lived closer than three hours to a temple, and just like the airport situation, I didn't want my temple experiences to be dictated by the driving time of just getting there.

So Michigan was a natural choice.  While it's been super convenient to have the kids fly home (direct flight on Delta from SLC), and we have found lots to do (we're going to the hockey season opener at Yost arena this weekend with friends), and our ward has lots of people for me to get to know (more on that in another post), our proximity to the temple has become the clear winner in our lives.

Last spring, John and I were asked to be temple workers.  What a literal blessing that John isn't serving in a stake presidency or bishopric for the first time in fifteen years, because that would have precluded him from accepting to the call to be a temple worker.  I've written about the work that it is, but I think we've finally reached the point where the joy outweighs the nerves simply because we know what we're doing.

I took this photo as I arrived early
Saturday morning.

Last Saturday, I agreed to substitute for someone who couldn't make their Saturday morning shift, and I had the very last-minute privilege to take a young single adult through the washing ordinance in the initiatory booth (what we call a "live" endowment).  As it turned out, the women who were supposed to be working in the booth were foreign and had thick accents, and since it's important to hear and understand the instruction and blessings, the initiatory director wanted someone without an accent.  Enter me ;-). In fact, she kind of grabbed me when I rounded the corner and said, "You're an answer to prayers, Sister Kennedy." :-). Even though I have all the words easily memorized and have performed it many times, it was an exercise in controlling my nerves and focusing on doing everything correctly especially after the director told me that she would give me a couple of minutes to collect myself because there would be no cards to help me, and because I was supposed to do everything s-l-o-w-l-y.  I told Mark that it's like a memorized section of music--when you think too hard about the specific notes, or you start having a conversation in your head, questioning whether or not you really remember what you're supposed to play, everything goes out the window and it's like you never learned it at all.

But little did I expect the overwhelming spiritual experience it would be.

Like, I could barely control my emotions as I was performing the ordinance.  I was looking at her, and I was thinking about the important step she was taking in her life.  And she was so young and beautiful, and I felt so thankful that she was being courageous in making the covenants she would make.  It was only when she had moved onto anointing (and out of sight of me) that I just broke down in tears.  It was a crazy experience that I won't soon forget.

Too, I have made so many friends AT the temple.  It's a tight group of people who give up hours on a specific day to spend the time serving others.  John and I are definitely the youngest workers on our shift, but we go home physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.  I can't even imagine what those older workers feel.  However, it binds us all together, and when I go to the temple at other times as a patron, and see my friends, it's what I imagine extended family should be in how we embrace and are so happy to see each other.

But the greatest blessing has been going to the temple with friends of mine from our ward.  I don't know what it is (maybe the fact that I'm a free agent with no children nor their non-relenting schedules), but I am frequently asked to go to the temple with another sister on any given Thursday morning.  In fact, I have a regular time (every second Thursday) to go with Beth and the Mia Maid advisor, Hilary Edwards, and we do lunch afterwards.  And crazy thing?  We're still back before their kids get home from school.  And just today, I took another friend (whom I met through ministering), and we couldn't talk enough about life on the car ride there and back.  While other women in other religions might do other things to bond with their friends, I am so thankful that the temple is what brings us closer together as sisters.  I would never have imagined that this would be a peripheral blessing of living closer to a temple, but it is a surprise for which I am thankful.