Saturday, March 14, 2009
Hail to...Me!
Draper Temple Open House
Today the Burch Creek 4th Ward Primary took a trip down to the Draper Utah Temple to go through its open house. Before we set out on this venture, the Stake Primary had an activity for all of the Stake Primary children and their leaders. They took and divided the Stake into Wards and then set us all in different rooms in the Church. Each room represented a part of the Plan of Salvation (Pre-mortal life through eternal life); and we spent about five minutes in each room hearing testimonies of its importance. This was a very spiritual precursor for what we as a Ward Primary were about to embark on.
At 11:30 we all loaded into our family vehicles and drove down to the temple. Eventually, we all found the right church to park at (mind you, there are about a thousand-million chapels in Draper); we were supposed to be in the Red Parking Lot. The ushers herded us into the Cultural Hall until our whole group had arrived. They then split us up into two groups, so we could watch a short ten minute video on temples and their importance to Christian faith. We were then directed to the other side of the church to wait for the bus to shuttle us over to the temple. It was about this time that poor little Harrison had an anxiety attack; you see when we took him to Temple Square last year to see the Christus...he thought it would come alive...to make a long story short, I think he thought he was going to see a giant speaking "God" at the temple. We eventually calmed his fears by telling him that there would be cookies served at the end of the tour. : )
On the ride over to the temple, there were anti-mormon protesters along the street carrying the banners of repentance/forgiveness and my favorite, Celestial Sex. I diverted the children away from reading that sign.
The temple was absolutely beautiful, especially the baptismal font. It is situated in the lower West side of the hill so they have windows that let in the natural light (not like other temples where you feel and know that you are in the basement). As we walked from room to room, people were whispering to each other, but as soon as we entered the Celestial Room, the Spirit came over us, and it was the most wonderful feeling of peace and joy that I have felt in a long time. The room of course was stunning. We ended the tour in a Sealing Room (there is a 90 person occupancy Sealing Room, the largest in the church, but we were in a small one), where the boys could look in the mirrors to see themselves forever. Harrison got a little excited in this room...we had to keep reminding him to stay off of the nice carpet, and stay on the mats that they had set out for the open house. : )
In the end we had a very spiritual time at God's House (per Harrison), and Harrison got two cookies as promised.