A temple trip

A week or so ago, I was driving down Interstate 5, past the San Diego LDS Temple, and I looked at that building and felt joy.

I turned off the radio and started singing a very shaky version of "I Love to See the Temple" and continued on my way. It was the first time in awhile I had felt such emotions associated with the temple. After a temple themed church meeting last Sunday, I turned to husband and said "let's go on Saturday."

We did. So, I thought I would take a minute and share a bit about these buildings. 

Photo

It had been awhile since I had been, and while I wasn't expecting it,  I felt like my eyes were opened anew to blessings from the temple. 

Such as, how often in the day and weeks do I ever take two hours to really contemplate and pray and think about God? Never before had I thought of just taking the time out of my life to go as a blessing in itself.

This very exercise, if such it may be called, carries with it a reward of its own, for who in these times of stress would not welcome an opportunity to shut out the world and enter into the Lord's house, there to ponder quietly the eternal things of God? These sacred precincts offer the opportunity, available nowhere else, to learn of and reflect on the truly meaningful things of life—our relationship to Deity and our eternal journey from a premortal state into this life and on to a future estate where we shall know and associate one with another, including our own loved ones and our forebears who have preceded us and from whom has come our inheritance of things of the body, mind, and spirit. - President Gordon B. Hinckley

It is also a blessing to have time with my husband. Something we don't get very often. He has faith unlike mine, in that he never doubts anything church related ever -- so I think it is a blessing to be able to go with him too. 

When one enters the temple, they go to a dressing room and change into a white dress -- white socks, white shoes. It is about purity and leaving the things of the world behind. What happens is sacred -- not secret, hence why we don't talk about it often.

I've ran into many who think the temples are where we go to church every Sunday. This is not true -- they are actually closed on Sundays so we can worship. Most are open from Tuesday - Saturday. We have choices of what ordinances we want to do in the temple. Hubs and I chose to do an endowment session. We were early for the session, so we were chosen to do a special part of it together, which was nice. 

President Brigham Young, the second president of my church said, “Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, … and gain your eternal exaltation.”

A few photos, from the 1993 Liahona, a LDS magazine - more photos there, but I thought I would share a few. Thanks to That Wife for pointing me in that direction. 

The Terrestrial room in the Salt Lake Temple. The San Diego temple's ordinance rooms are simpler, but similar to these ones. 

Celestial Room. Always so beautiful. Seriously the one in San Diego is very fitting for a princess. 

This is a sealing room. It is similar to the room where hubs and I got married. 

I had been refraining from going to the temple because of the tremendous anxiety that I feel when I think of the temple and the post-traumatic stress I have relating to my first marriage, which was in a temple. It is so stressful and I often leave stressed - or worse - fight with my husband for no reason whatsoever other than I'm stressed. 

But after spending last night overwhelmed by such a good feeling, that I believe is God's love, I have come to the conclusion that I can just go - and while I still feel the feelings I do - I will still find blessings. They just may not be the typical blessings of peace that one finds in the temple -- I am still learning line upon line, precept upon precept. 

Our participation in sacred ordinances teaches much about the order of God’s kingdom and about Him. For example, it seems strange to think that one could enter a temple to perform some of the most sacred ordinances before submitting to baptism, which is one of the initial ordinances of the gospel. There is order in the kingdom of God, and there is order in the way we learn about it. To Nephi the Lord said, “I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.” - Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander

That is a little on what I do in the temple, as for why Mormons build temples similar to ancient religious tradition -- I like this video.