Temple Open House

For those of you who are unfamiliar with LDS temples--they are beautiful and very, very sacred so once they've been dedicated only worthy members who are aged 12 or older can enter. Timothy and I take our kids every once in awhile to walk around the grounds, see the lights at Temple Square during Christmas, or to see the flowers in spring--but they can't go inside.

They desperately want to go inside.

Before a temple is dedicated, the church hosts a month-longish open house, where anyone who wants to can tour the temple. The new temple in Draper is currently in the open house process. When I heard about it I thought, "Great, now my kids can go inside the temple!" I knew they would be so excited.

And they were.

We had such a beautiful morning in the temple. Miriam and Cowen loved every minute of it--from the little pre-temple video at the church, to the large tour bus we rode in to get to the temple, to the temple itself, to the cookies at the stake center afterwards. I was surprised at how--I don't know, moved/touched/emotional--I felt at having my children with me in the temple. It just made me want to hug them forever.

The only downside to the morning? My husband's bad attitude because he kept expecting the children to misbehave.

Which, of course, they didn't.

I told him they would be fine, but he didn't believe me. Misbehavior in a familiar setting is to be expected (like Miriam unpinning Emeline's pajamas and diaper, so I spent some time this morning cleaning up poo)--but I didn't for a second believe they'd misbehave in the unfamiliar and reverent atmosphere of the temple. We stopped in front of the first sign that indicated reverence was in order, Miriam read it out loud to Cowen, and then any time he talked over a whisper, she shushed him. They all did fantastically.

Nothing in the world compares to taking your family to the temple.

Even if your family includes a grumpy husband.