February 11, 2022
This was our miracle temple experience at Tucson. I had my itinerary written down for the week, and was expecting to do an initiatory at 7:30, and endowment at 8:00, with sealings at 9:30 and then running and grabbing the boys from the hotel to be back for baptisms at 11:30. The trick was we needed to be at Gila Valley at 3pm, which the drive said anywhere from 2 hours 10 min-3 hours. So, I was anxious to get our baptisms done quickly. When I woke up in the morning to get ready, I had the impression to see if there was a McDonald's nearby to drop the boys off, since our hotel was 15 min from the temple and probably wouldn't allow us to do the baptisms early. I found a McDonald's 5 min away from the temple and decided to do that. I also needed to be at the temple 30 min early, so I could print out a name that I had left at the Mesa temple, little did I know that would end up being part of the miracle. We got out of the hotel quickly, and I got the boys set up to do homework at McDonald's. I snapped my photo of the temple and headed in, to be told at the recommend desk that I actually had baptisms first. This was not what I had written down. I checked my email confirmations and this was correct. I had changed my appointments and not updated my itinerary. Luckily I had gotten to the temple early and the boys were only 5 minutes away, so I was able to go grab them and we were able to make our baptisms on time. Without my losing a temple name and without me following my impression, we might have missed our baptisms and probably affected our tight schedule and ability to make it to the Gila Valley temple. I felt incredibly touched, this is the 3rd time I had some major thing get in the way of a big temple plan, and unexpected things help them fall into place. It shows me the Lord is so aware of my desire to be at the temple and he is will make sure it works out.
The temple was a smaller temple. It had a really cool dome on the exterior.
We started out in the baptistry and they were going to try to let us do more names, but it turned out we could only do 15. The font was elegant and simple. Nothing stood out, but the oxen stood out to me. They were beautiful dark bronze and really stood out, as well as the tile under them was a beautiful inlaid grey and dark peach pattern that the surrounded the oxen. A temple worker there told me a story about a painting that was put opposite of the font just before women and children were approved to be witnesses. It was a picture of a family being baptized in the river with a mother and 2 children witnessing. What a beautiful symbol of that insprired change.
After we did baptisms, the boys got to hang out playing on my phone and computers in the car while I did the rest of my ordinances. I started out with Intiatories and was able to do 3 Intiatories, before I needed to go to the endowment. I did 1 endowment. There was only one instruction room, for both the telestial and terrestrial rooms. It was elegant and felt pretty simple
The celestial room had more color than I'm used to seeing. It was pretty, but not really my style. I can tell you that the peach chairs, were the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in. The one thing that was really beautiful was the stained glass window that was also in the ceiling rooms. After meeting Tom Holdman, the creator of all the stained glass in every temple, and seeing his creations at his studio, I can't wait to see all his work at the temples!
After the endowment, I finished off with sealings. They had a standard amount they did there, and I was able to do 5 couples and 2 children.
Another 26 ordinances done!
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