My beautiful Temple....

My solo Temple trip was wonderful.  So many things that I want solutions/resolution/clarification/direction on in my life.  Plus trying to figure out how to create a balance for our NewNorm.  Some would feel it's a waste of time to drive a car with the only passenger being the driver and have all other seats empty and not share the experience.  I don't feel that way.  I many times like to solo it and pray out loud/sing hymns/just be still and listen.  I prayed my way past Prosser/sang a few hymns/shed a few tears/pleaded to hear/feel the Holy Ghost.  Repented.  Expressed gratitude.  By the time I got to Queensgate I was ready to listen/learn/receive.

Saw the 3rd of the new Temple films.  The music was heavenly.  Parts of it were so powerful.  Just a small section but it melted my heart as it washed over me.

Enjoyed time in the Celestial room. absorbing the beauty and the sweetness of Spirit.  Praying. Eager to see what insight would come to me.  I believe in personal revelation and the Temple is a banquet table to feast at as far as Spiritual things.  Love and appreciate the counsel received and I know things will keep unfolding to me.  So thankful.

I thought about active members that I know and love that are not endowed for one reason or another.  IF I were them I would get a Temple Recommend and I'd go to the Temple, take my scriptures, enter the foyer and just sit there and feel the Spirit.  Our Temple has a large waiting area with some benches and it's a beautiful room.  When the Temple was first built and you opened the door, you were right at the desk  to have your recommend checked and go on back for ordinance work or turn right for baptismal font room...then they built our lovely waiting room.  most of the time it is empty but even if others are there, you can still sit and have privacy.  IF it's not a possibility/reality for you to take out your endowments and yet you wish you could, then still bring as much of the Temple into your life and as much as you into the Temple as you can.

President Hunter really encouraged members to have Temple Recommends even if they couldn't use them for whatever reason....no Temple nearby or non-member spouse or all sorts of reasons.  I couldn't find that exact quote to share but I did find this for you.  This is when he became Prophet and first spoke of his two invitations for us, the Church members....

“There are two invitations I would like to leave with the members of the Church as we strive to keep the commandments of God and receive the full measure of His blessings. First of all, I would invite all members of the Church to live with ever more attention to the life and example of the Lord Jesus Christ, especially the love and hope and compassion He displayed.

“Secondly, and in that same spirit, I also invite the members of the Church to establish the temple of the Lord as the great symbol of their membership and the supernal setting for their most sacred covenants. It would be the deepest desire of my heart to have every member of the Church be temple worthy. I would hope that every adult member would be worthy of—and carry—a current temple recommend, even if proximity to a temple does not allow immediate or frequent use of it.

“Let us be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people. Let us hasten to the temple as frequently as time and means and personal circumstances allow. Let us go not only for our kindred dead, but let us also go for the personal blessing of temple worship, for the sanctity and safety which is provided within those hallowed and consecrated walls. The temple is a place of beauty, it is a place of revelation, it is a place of peace. It is the house of the Lord. It is holy unto the Lord. It should be holy unto us.”   full talk is here

And I love these two quotes by Elder Packer....

 “Temples are the very center of the spiritual strength of the Church. We should expect that the adversary will try to interfere with us as a Church and with us individually as we seek to participate in this sacred and inspired work” 

 “When members of the Church are troubled or when crucial decisions weigh heavily upon their minds, it is a common thing for them to go to the temple. It is a good place to take our cares. In the temple we can receive spiritual perspective. . . . Sometimes our minds are so beset with problems and there are so many things clamoring for attention at once that we just cannot think clearly and see clearly. At the temple the dust of distraction seems to settle out, the fog and the haze seem to lift, and we can ‘see’ things that we were not able to see before and find a way through our troubles that we had not previously known” (“The Holy Temple,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2010, 35)

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I took total advantage of my sweet nearby Temple (55 minutes away!) and feel buoyed/redirected/peaceful/hope-filled and just overflowing with gratitude for the Gospel and all of the marvelous helps for me, free of charge, to survive/thrive my mortal trek.