What To Do When the Temple Closes

When the temple closes for a month there is still a lot of activity but the kind of activity changes. The parking lot is empty but people still come with their temple bags only to find that it's closed for a month.  I can feel their disappointment.  There is no greater joy than to serve in the Lord's holy house. (Check temple schedules before you venture too far on a temple trip!)

It is still alive with activty within but it is in the form of wallpapering, painting, cleaning, and remodeling.  We volunteered on two days and covered chairs with paper and tape so arms and legs could be repainted. We met a beautiful young mother of 5 who taped with us and has spent almost every day for the last three months in the temple as much as possible since her husband was killed in a truck crash.  He was driving his own truck on a freeway, delivering a pre-fab house when a tire popped.  He was thrown over the median in to on coming traffic and instead of hitting head on and surely killing those in a passenger car he swerved the truck across the lanes and over a cliff.  The incredible impact buried the truck in the sand.  Sister Beutler seemed to be an angel on earth.  I'm sure her husband was the same way.  In fact she said his whole life was one continual display of acts of service one after another.  Have you ever read  the book "The Message" by Lance Robinson?  It is a sermon about service.  I highly recommend it.

Well I couldn't send pictures of our maintenance experiences in the temple (watching the progress in the baptistry, climbing the spiral staircase, changing 4 foot fluorescent light bulbs in the foyer, taping chairs, putting on white scrubs, watching the cleaning, wallpapering etc.)  But I can of the maintenance outside the temple!  Here's Brother McBride (aka Spiderman) mountain climber, repeller, cleaning business owner and temple recommend holder taking a week to wash the outside of the temple.  That's one way it stays so white.  Another is a new paint job every 5 years.  But the secret is in the calcite plaster that glistens in the sun through the white paint!

When the temple is closed we can look for another temple to go to as long as we travel back home at night and stay in our apartment.  (If we have to stay over night we need permission from the mission president.)  So we took a preparation day and met our Utah kids at the Payson temple on Oct. 10th. What joy! Family--at the temple!  My two favorite things!!  

Then my next favorite thing--eating out!  Mexican in Payson at Los 4 Amigos (I think that was the name).  Thanks for coming kids! It made a missionary mom's heart very happy!!!