temple tour

Since we were on our missions in Argentina three years (oh my gosh) ago, Jaime and I have been talking about visiting each of the temples in Utah. I'm leaving at the end of the summer so we figured it was now or never. For more information about what temples are and what we do there, visit http://lds.org/church/temples?lang=eng. There are currently twelve operating temples in Utah, with one under construction, one closed for remodeling, and one announced. On this trip we hit ten of them and will be hitting the final two within the next few weeks.

We started our journey at the Bountiful, Utah temple. 

The  next day we headed up to Logan but we stopped to see the Brigham City temple (on the left) which is still under construction and the Ogden temple (right) which is closed for remodeling. And by remodeling, I mean it's closed to be torn down and rebuilt and will look nothing like it does now.

The Logan temple was super busy since it was a Saturday. We also saw lots of weddings, which I hadn't even thought about. It made me want to get married really bad. What does a girl have to do to get a husband around here? Geez.

Right about this time is when my car started having some serious issues and then eventually died right before we got home. You can read all about that story in my previous post. Lovely. We took a one-day rest so Jaime could teach and I could get sick (Not because of her teaching. I didn't even get to go, sadly.) then continued on.

Most of the temples are closed on Mondays; I guess for Family Home Evening which, in fact, is only part of the day. But whatever. The few that are open on Mondays are only open in the morning. So we headed up to the famous Salt Lake temple Monday morning, which was really fun. As a sidenote, a lot of the missionaries in my area at work go to Temple Square, since they have sister missionaries there from all over the world with their cute little nametags with their nation's flag underneath. Anyway, a few weeks ago I subbed in a class that had a lot of sisters who went to temple square. While we were at Temple Square, I saw one of them! Sister Feng, from China, was my favorite from that class because she was always so happy and thought I was super cool. Who doesn't like someone who thinks they're cool? We saw her! She'd only been there for a few days so I'm sure it was also fun for her to see a familiar face. It made my morning!

Since all the temples are closed Monday afternoon and evening, we took advantage and visited Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. Neither of us had ever been. It's not a huge zoo, but my animal-viewing needs were satisfied, except that the elephants would not come out of the shade. I mean, I don't blame them really; it was super, super hot. But hello, they're from Africa. You'd think they'd be used to it. Geez. We did get to see some other quite large animals including gorillas, which are impressively ugly, and giraffes, which are impressively tall. We also saw many smaller animals but they're not quite as picture-worthy, now are they?

Don't be fooled. Not a real elephant. Those were keeping their distance.

That night we stayed with my fabulous aunt VeNicia and her husband Spencer who were very gracious hosts. We ate dinner, played a game, them Jaime and I went to bed. As I mentioned before, we both were still pretty sick so even though we were able to go on the trip, we were pretty wiped out for a lot of it. Early-to-bed for us.

The next day was our go-getter day. We were able to visit four different temples in one day. It helps that they're all within a half hour of each other. My uncle sent me twenty names from his wife's family history that we were able to do some kind of temple work for on this trip. That was really cool. We started with Oquirrh Mountain (left) and Jordan River (right), which are less than ten minutes from each other.

I've lived in Utah for a while now and I've come to the realization that if I were to get married right now, I'd probably get married in Utah since most of the really important people in my life right now live here, with the exception of course of my family. I decided a little while ago that if I did get married in Utah, I'd get married in the Jordan River temple. It's a great central location, but it's not so crazy like the Salt Lake temple is. I still have a hard time understanding why SO many people get married there when there so many other beautiful temples nearby and you don't have to wait in line to be able to get your pictures taken. I digress. Anyway, I decided I'd get married in Jordan River. Central. Not as crazy. Still beautiful. After visiting it, I still liked it. But then my mind was changed forever.

Enter Draper:

This is my temple. I'd visited it before when they did the open house before it was dedicated a couple of years ago, but for some reason I hadn't really thought much of it. Umm....I was blind. It's GORGEOUS. I like the outside, but the inside is amazing. The wood is dark and beautiful. The colors are cool blues and greens and greys that are calming and lovely. The windows are beautiful and all the rooms inside are so well-lit and very bright and have stunning chandeliers. The view from the temple is pretty stellar, looking out over the whole valley. Yep. I'm sold. If I ever decide to return to Utah to get married, this is where it'll be.

Our last stop of the day was Mt. Timpanogos in American Fork. Even though this temple is about twenty minutes from my house, I'd never been there. I'm still not really sure why. If you look closely, Jaime and I are really little at the bottom of the picture.

That night we drove down to Manti. I love this temple at night because it's up on a hill and you can literally see it for miles as you drive from Ephraim to Manti. It's like a beacon to the world- in more ways than one.

The whole trip Jaime and I joked about how all you need to do to feel good about yourself is go to the temple during the day. It was compliment city! This was true in most temples, but especially in Manti. I guess during the day it's usually just all these old people there so when they see two young girls, they're all impressed and would all comment about how wonderful it was to see these two young, beautiful girls at the temple. I think I had temple workers tell me how pretty my eyes were three times in one day (it must be the contrast against the white dresses) and in Jordan River there was even one temple worker who really wanted to set us up with some other guy that comes in every Tuesday.  It was definitely a feel-good experience!

Manti was super windy so it's really a  miracle that we even got a good picture. I was trying to keep my hair out of my face and Jaime was trying to keep her skirt down.

That day we made the long trip down to Monticello, Utah. The temple there was the first of the small temples that President Hinckley announced in the late 90s. The closest temple to my house in Indiana is in Louisville, Kentucky which is also this same design so being in Monticello felt like being at home! It was even windier in Monticello so we didn't even try to be in the picture this time.

Monticello is pretty far out there so as far as lodging goes, there's not much of a selection. Because of this, they're all extremely overpriced. We found a cheaper alternative to the roadside motels: a cabin. We were kinda nervous about it at first but it turned out not being so bad. We just had to walk across this gravel parking lot to get to the bathrooms and shower. That was a fun time in the middle of the night when I desperately needed some ibuprofen for my throat and didn't have any water in the cabin. To the bathroom I went.

We had initially planned to stop off in Moab at Arches National Park since neither of us had ever been there. We ended up not having time but we were able to see some amazing scenery just along the road. Southern Utah really is breathtaking. It's the kind of beauty that makes you realize just how small you really are. I guess being in the temple so often made me even more sensitive to how much our Heavenly Father loves us and He's shown that by this beautiful home He's given us to live in. He didn't have to make it this beautiful. But I'm glad He did.

Finally, we  made it to St. George. We'd gotten a gift certificate off of CityDeals.com (If you don't know what that is, shame on you. Go now.) so we ended up getting a sweet hotel room there for only 45 bucks. I.love.hotels. It's kind of a strange obsession I have but I just really love any kind of hotel. Even if it's not fancy. But if it is nice, I'm even more excited. So I was pretty pumped about this one. I didn't even want to do anything else, so Jaime and I got some dinner and spent the night in our room catching up on our TV shows on hulu that we'd missed that week.

We saw this guy in the temple that was really cute. We were both a little distracted. But then we saw him again as we were leaving...not so attractive. Must have been the celestial glow that makes you much more attractive in the temple than you really are. Then we actually ran into him at lunch afterwards and his mom told us he'd gotten home from his mission literally that week. Read: 21 years old. Aaaaand interest is lost.

The only temples we have left are Vernal and Provo. We went to the Provo one on Saturday when we got back but it closed early for some reason. So now we have to wait three weeks because it's closed now for maintenance. So stay tuned for the last two stops on our epic temple tour.

I really thought this trip would be a huge spiritual high and I'd learn all kinds of new things or feel some great change in myself. I didn't. But it still felt good. I came away feeling completely confident that I spent my week doing probably the best thing I could do. And I was able to do temple work for ten women who have died and can't do it for themselves. It's an amazing feeling to know that you're participating it the eternal salvation of someone else. I know that temples are the closest we can get to our Heavenly  Father while on earth and I so enjoyed being that close all week. I was reading in the Bible Dictionary that only the home can compare to the temple in sacredness. I was really impressed by that and it makes me want to put even more effort into making my home a sacred place where the Spirit of God can always reside.