Draper Temple Dedication

(This may boring for anyone else to read, but I really wanted to write about this experience for my own memory!)

On Sunday we, like many others, had the chance to attend the Draper Temple Dedication. Because my dad has been serving on the temple committee for several months, he was given tickets to attend in the temple with our whole family. We arrived around 10:15 for the 11:30 session and sat on folding chairs just outside the doors and put white booties over our shoes. We waited outside for about 15-20 minutes before going inside. It was a very windy morning and quite chilly compared to the warm 70 degree weather we had been enjoying just the day before.

I was very impressed with how organized it was. They moved about 2000 people out of the temple in about 20 minutes, and then another 2000 moved into the temple for the next session. Just as the previous session was exiting the temple, we went inside and sat just inside the doors where several chairs were set up in front of a tv screen. We thought this is where we were going to be watching the dedication from, but after about 5 minutes my dad came and got us and the rest of the people sitting there with us and took us upstairs. We walked past the choir seats that were just outside the celestial room and past the line of people walking into the celestial room with their white tickets. We joked before hand about getting to sit in the celestial room but didn't have the right colored tickets...ours were blue.

My dad then had us stop and wait in the hall for a few minutes. We weren't sure where we were going to be sitting. He came back and asked us, "Would you rather have comfy seats or sit in the celestial room?" I don't think it was much of a choice for any of us. He walked us into the celestial room where there was about 100 folding chairs lined up in rows. We sat down and waited for the rest of the room to fill up. We realized that the rest of the people in there were family members of the General Authorities who were speaking or participating in prayers. About 5 minutes before it started, we stood as Pres. Monson, Pres. Eyring, Elder Cook & Elder Dalquist walked into the celestial room. It was such an amazing experience to be there with them. Many of the talks given during this session were directed to the youth that were there participating in the dedication. Wonderful things were said and great reminders of the many blessings we receive from attending the temple often. The choir was amazing.

Before President Monson gave the dedicatory prayer, he stopped and asked us to look around the room we were in. The ceiling in the celestial room goes on forever it seems. The windows, we learned, were designed after a quilt design, the chandelier is breathtaking...we watched it slowly spin around while we sat in there. It was a very rare occasion to be able to sit in that special room for such an extended period of time. I'll never forget it. After the dedicatory prayer, we sang The Spirit of God with the choir, and the spirit was so powerful. It has always been one of my favorite hymns.

I am grateful for the opportunity we had to be there. I'm grateful to Tucker's parents who had our 3 kids for 5 hours and even took them to Sacrament Meeting so that both Tucker and I could go together. It was neat to be there with my whole family...minus my youngest brother who was out of town. I'm so grateful for temples. I can't imagine not being with my family forever.