Seriously. You Have To Go!

Today was surprisingly a good day.  I've been having issues with the fact that school hasn't started yet.  But today was a really good day.  You see, we went to the Brigham City temple open house.
Temples are a pretty big deal in the LDS church.  They are a place we can go to leave the pressures of the world and our daily lives behind.  We go to worship the Lord and to find peace.  Being there brings me joy.
When an LDS temple is built, there is always an open house.  Anybody can go inside and see what it's like inside.  Because until it is dedicated to the Lord, it is just another beautiful building.  The Brigham City temple open house is going on right now.  If you are in Utah between now and September 15th, you should definitely go.  It's free, and it's worth it.  They will ask you if you have a ticket, but if you don't have one, they will let you in anyway.  The reason for the tickets is simply to count how many people come to the open house.  It's always interesting to know things like that.
It is still amazing to me that there is a temple in the town where I grew up.  This temple will serve 40,000 members of our church in Northern Utah and South Eastern Idaho.  That's a lot of people.  It's not fair though.  This temple is the 14th temple in Utah.  There are so many places in the world where people save their whole lives just to travel to the temple once.  We can go as much as we want, and many of us don't go even once a month.  I'm included in that group, I'll admit.  It's not something I am proud of.  Apparently, though there is a secret to getting a temple in your town.  They decide where to build temples based on where people are attending their church meetings.  Going to church is important I guess.  ;)
It is exciting though.  A temple in my hometown is something I never imagined.  I never even thought to imagine it.  When you first get to the open house, you go into a temporary room in the parking garage.  There, you watch a five minute film about why we build temples.  While we were watching it, Zach was looking at the pamphlet they handed out with pictures of some of the rooms.  He turned to me, and whispered, "Are we going inside the temple?"  I nodded and whispered, "Yes."  His eyes lit up and he was so excited.  I guess when I told them we were going to the open house, they didn't really know what that meant.  I thought they knew because we had just gone to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house like two years ago.  Well, we looked it up and apparently it was really six years ago and that would make Zach five when we went.  Wait.  What?  That can't be right.
I love the new temple.  I love that I got to take my children there and that they got to go inside and see it and we got to tell them about what happens in the temple as we walked through the rooms.  I showed them where baptisms for the dead are performed and told them that when they are 12 they will be old enough to go and participate in that ordinance.  We got to see the room where my sister will be married in December.  It was so special.  So wonderful.  I'm even more excited for my sister's wedding now.

 The Brigham City temple

 All over the temple are peach blossoms.  Brigham City has peach orchards and growing peaches is part of the heritage of the town.

 Another peach blossom.

 We got Zach to take a picture of us.  :)

 The front doors.

 I had to be covert when taking Kaleb's picture.  He didn't want me to take it at all.

 My boys by the fountain.

 My boys have been watching The Last Avatar.  The good cartoon version.  Not the weird people version.  He was showing me his water bending moves.

 Riley and Kurtis playing in the fountain.

 Across the street is the tabernacle that was built when people settled this town.  The grounds are getting all gussied up, too to match the temple.

 The sun is in our eyes!  It's too bright!  Zachary told me that he thought the temple would be a fun place to live because it is so big and it would be fun to run around inside it.  I just laughed.

 Our whole family by the temple doors.

 Another peach blossom.

If you look closely, you can see the "B" on the mountain behind the temple.  It's really small, and didn't really turn out as cool as I thought it would.  :)  I'm sure I'll have a chance to try again.