Remember how I'm in a bowling league and I've only been three times? I don't feel that bad because most of my teammates have missed a few times, too. Case in point: the last time I went, I was the only person from my team who was there. I also scored my highest scores of the season, thank you very much.
I go to a singles branch, which means that the church congregation that I attend is made up exclusively of young single adults. It is not hard to see that the purpose of these congregations is to help young people meet each other and get married. I say "help" because I'm going on 10 years of singles congregations and...well...I'm still attending one so I guess it's not quite working for me. In an attempt to aid in the mingling required to find a spouse, we have lots of activities and they always include food. And sometimes they include me scraping the bottom of the nacho cheese sauce pan with tortilla chips to get every last bit of cheese. Maybe there's a reason I'm still single?
As if to further beat a dead horse, even familysearch.org, the website I use to do family history, is trying to get me to find a husband. In case any of you were concerned, I actually AM aware that I should be getting married at some point. You are officially relieved of the duty to remind me.
The first week in May I had the incredible privilege to be in the temple when my family did the proxy temple work for my Grandpa Shoaf, who died a little over a year ago. He was never baptized a member of the Church so we were able to do the temple ordinances for him so that now that he's in the spirit world he can accept these ordinances if he chooses. (For more info on proxy ordinance work for the dead, click here). It was a beautiful experience to see my dad, along with his mom and 10 of his siblings kneeling around an altar as they were sealed a family for time and all eternity. I am so grateful to know that we do not simply cease to exist when we die. Our spirits live on, and we will eventually all be resurrected with the chance to live eternally with our families, if we so choose.
Being in the temple that night also reinforced to me the truth that there is never a "too late" or "too far" for Christ. My grandpa struggled with a lot of things in his life, and even though it seems that he had every opportunity to accept the gospel in this life (he was married to my grandma, a faithful woman, for over 50 years), he still has a chance to accept the gospel in the next life. There is nowhere we can't come back from. I know that Christ is ready and willing to accept any and all of us, no matter where we've been, what we've done, or how long it takes us to get back. He only cares that we come back.
My mom and I stayed down near Louisville that night so that we could go back to the temple the next morning to do more temple work. It was the weekend of the Kentucky Derby, so hotels were expensive and hard to find. My mom contacted someone she knew in the church down there and she connected us with this woman who opened her home to us for the night. She was incredibly kind, generous, and loving, and my testimony of the love of Christ was strengthened by her selfless example of Christlike service. Since it was Derby weekend, we felt it appropriate to try some derby pie. Totally worth it.
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